Interference (3 page)

“Cars then?”

The man shakes his head, shrugs.

“You work on cars?” Tom asks.

“No,” the man says. “Not on cars. Not really.”

“Well, I'm going in to wash my hands. Can I get you something? A lemonade? Coke?”

“That would be nice of you,” the man says. “I'd like a Coke, if you have one.”

Tom walks around the man, still huddled on the bottom step, and enters his house. He leaves the door open and the screen door bangs shut behind him as he meanders down the hall. The dog is overjoyed to see him. Wiggles his hips until his body is bent in half. The tail whaps on the floor like it's beating a drum. Tom bends to pat him. He then pours himself a glass of water and washes his hands at the kitchen sink, scrubbing hard under his nails and up his wrists where the dirt from the leaves has travelled. Even though he was wearing gloves most of the time he still managed to get dirty. Becky would be horrified if she could see her father's hands. This is something he doesn't get in an office, dirt under his fingernails. This is the feeling of hard, simple work, not frustrating computer-controlled work. Afterwards, Tom pulls a Coke from the fridge and pours it into a glass for the man. He adds ice and thinks for a bit about adding a lemon slice but then realizes that the man might think he's weird. A nice face; a nice house; a nice family; a nice, clean, leaf-free lawn and then a lemon slice. It might just be too much.

As he steps over his dog and carries the glass of Coke to the front door, down his long narrow hallway, he hears Maria's car pull up to the curb. She comes into the house just as Tom reaches the front door.

“Here you go.” Maria hands him some $
20
bills. “I figure we should give him about $
40
, or even $
60
? What do you think?”

“I think $
40
is fine. He was here only two hours and we didn't ask him to help out. Plus we gave him lunch.”

Maria stands in Tom's way. “You want lemon in that Coke?”

“No, it's not for me, it's for him.”

“What do you think happened?” she whispers. “His face?”

Tom shrugs. “Doesn't matter, I guess. He's a hard worker.”

“Must be difficult, though, to be judged all your life for that face.”

“Maybe it just happened. Maybe he hasn't had long to deal with it.” Tom knows, when he says this, that it isn't true. The man has lived most of his life with that face — it's in the way he moves, the way his eyes take you in when you talk to him, the way he approaches the world. And, if this is the case, it means that whatever happened to him, happened when he was just a boy. Maybe Becky's age.

“Still,” Maria says. “I can't imagine.” She touches her face thoughtfully. She stands there in front of the door, blocking it.

“I have to get past you,” Tom says. “Give him his drink and the money.”

“He isn't outside,” Maria says. “He's not out there. I thought he might be in here with you. Maybe he's using the washroom?”

“What do you mean?” Tom pushes around Maria, almost spilling the Coke, and looks out the screen door. The scar-faced man isn't on the bottom step anymore. Tom goes outside and looks up and down the street. He walks around the house and looks in the backyard. There is no one in sight. It's strange for anyone to leave before getting paid. The man worked hard. He knew Maria was getting money for him. He didn't slack off once today. Why would anyone work like that for nothing? And why would he leave without saying goodbye? Maybe he will come back tomorrow. Maybe he'll come back tomorrow and get money from Tom and Maria and they can ask him what happened to his face and wish him well. Tom wants to know about his face. Tom wants to say something to him. He doesn't know what, but this kind of leaving isn't right.

“Tom.” Maria is calling from the front door. Tom heads back to the front, still holding the glass of Coke. “Tom.” Her voice is insistent and shrill. “Tom?”

“What? Is he there?”

“Tom?” Maria is standing on the front porch, looking out across the street. She is holding herself just like the scar-faced man held himself when Tom asked what the stains on his coveralls were, hugging, arms wrapped around her chest as if she were holding her ribs in. She is holding herself just like Becky held the ball. Tom suddenly notices the silence. No ball bouncing, no bickering girls. “Tom, where's Becky? Where is Becky? Did she go with Rachel's family when they left? They were going out for dinner, Tom. Did they take Becky? Tom? Where's Becky?”

Tom just stands there, holding the glass of Coke, looking at the empty basketball net in the driveway of Rachel's house. Listening to the stillness. He counts the bags of leaves on his front sidewalk as if reassuring himself they are all there. Eighteen bags. Then he turns towards his wife, his mouth ajar, and even though he is not religious, he offers up a silent prayer. Please, Tom offers up, please.

“Tom,” Maria cries again. She is shaking. “Where is Becky?”

“I'm here,” Becky says, thumping out the door and onto the front porch. Chewing gum. Snapping it in her mouth. The smell of sweet watermelon follows her from inside. The dog sneaks out with her and stands tall, tail wagging, sniffing the air.

“Oh god,” Maria says. She puts her hand on her chest and laughs. The laugh is like a bark. The dog looks up at her and woofs softly.

“What's going on? What happened?”

Maria grabs Becky and hugs her. “Where were you?”

“Rachel left,” Becky says from the centre of Maria's chest, her voice muffled. “I came inside. Let go. You're squishing me.”

As Becky scrabbles out of her mother's grasp the wind picks up and Tom turns away from his family to watch, his heart still beating furiously, as all his neighbour's leaves fly towards him in mini-cyclones. Sometimes, Tom thinks as the dog chases the leaves, thrilled to be free, you think the world surprises you when, in fact, it's not the world, it's you. You who surprise yourself. And then Tom stops thinking because thinking gets him nowhere and instead he puts down the Coke and picks up his rake to start again on the leaves and the bags in the cold autumn air.

MYTHS ABOUT BREAST CANCER:

MYTH: Abortion and miscarriage cause breast cancer.

MYTH: Antiperspirants/deodorants cause breast cancer.

MYTH: Breast implants cause breast cancer.

MYTH: Bruising the breast causes breast cancer.

MYTH: Men don't get breast cancer.

MYTH: Cell-phone use causes breast cancer.

MYTH: Radiation by mammography causes breast cancer.

MYTH: Thermography is an effective breast-screening tool.

MYTH: Wearing an underwire bra causes breast cancer.

2

There was a time when Claire didn't have cancer. A time she woke up in the morning and didn't think about the day ahead, about her life ahead, about that thing inside of her that is growing and mutating, that alien monster, and instead thought only about coffee and cereal. There was also a time when she had friends who would call and ask her to do things, call to check up on her. Now no one calls. They are afraid of her — as if cancer is contagious — afraid of what they should say and what they shouldn't say and what they want to say and what they don't want to say. Besides, Claire's not fun anymore. She's a freak. Who wants to be around someone who has cancer?

Claire understands this. Just two years ago, when Lise was sick, she felt the same way. Claire dropped off a bunch of flowers on Lise's front porch and scurried down the street as if Lise had the plague. Once she called her. Once she saw her in the grocery store and smiled and waved and tried to look rushed. Once she said, “How are you?” but realized she shouldn't have asked that, that it was a stupid, stupid question, and besides, she didn't want to hear the answer.

Lise is okay now. In fact, Lise moved so Claire isn't really sure if she's okay or if she just moved away from here. Scrambled into the country, like an animal hit by a car — off into the bushes to die. Or to live. Claire isn't sure.

Death.

Claire is walking death.

But we're all walking death, Claire thinks. In fact, any one of her friends could easily die before she does. Car accident. Heart attack. Tripping down the stairs. Anything could happen. An airplane could fall out of the sky onto a house. It's happened before. No one knows. No one thinks about that. Claire, though, with this huge C looming over her head, thinks about it all the time. She thinks about the grim reaper, about heaven and hell and god and nothingness and decay. She thinks about it until she can't breathe and then she turns her mind to something useful, like laundry or groceries or just sleeping. Claire sleeps a lot. Depression, she thinks. And radiation. The radiation exhausts her. Especially after the chemo and, before that, the operation. Her body has taken a beating and now it needs to rest.

Before Claire had cancer she worried all the time about getting it. In fact, the cancer diagnosis was almost a relief. “Well,” she thought. “I can finally stop worrying about getting it.” Not really a relief, but Claire tries to think of the positive as much as she can. There has to be two sides to everything. Even cancer?

It's the loneliness that bothers her the most. Even when she is surrounded by people — in the mall, at the hospital, with nervous friends, with her husband, Ralph, or her kids — even then, she is lonely. All on her own. You come into this world alone, and you leave the same way. This thought terrifies her. What, then, is the point of anything?

The cancer defines her now. Claire used to think of herself as a wife, a mother, a school teacher. But now she's walking, talking cancer. People at the hospital tell her that she's new to this game, they tell her that she'll get used to it, that the anger, the sadness, the fear, will go away. But Claire can't imagine getting used to this all-encompassing disease. She can't imagine going about her day lightly again — ever again. She can't imagine the small snake at the back of her mind, the one hissing, “Cancer,” shrivelling up and disappearing.

So when Mrs. Rathbin shows up at her door the third Tuesday of her two-month-long daily radiation treatments, the beginning of October, a cold snap, Claire is resigned, preoccupied, consumed, worried, angry, depressed. The nearest hospital with a radiation department is an hour away and the cancer society sends volunteers to drive patients there and back. The first few weeks Ralph would drive her. He would take time off work. But after the first couple of times he was so anxious and upset about the situation — about the people smoking outside the hospital, about the wait times, about the loudness of the TV in the waiting room — that Claire asked him not to drive her anymore. She told him he would be much better off at work. He seemed discombobulated at the hospital, forgetful and agitated. And his worry seeped into Claire until she felt it pressing down on her chest, burning her — even more than the radiation. Then came Mr. Manuel, an older gentleman who spoke so quietly and so infrequently that Claire mostly slept on the long rides to the hospital and back. Mr. Manuel has a cold, though, and doesn't want to infect Claire. And so Mrs. Rathbin comes into her life today, barrels into her front hallway, bursting in, her large behind sashaying through the door. She is short and wide — in fact, she may be wider than she is tall. She is dark-skinned and white-haired. Her lips are painted a striking, shiny purple and she is wrapped in an oversize orange knitted shawl that sparkles when it catches the light. There is a smell that follows her in — foot odour and lilacs. She is wearing boots and they are untied and the laces drag behind her.

“Well, lookee here,” Mrs. Rathbin bellows into Claire's front hallway.

Claire tenses. She doesn't know why they call themselves Mr. and Mrs., these volunteers. Mrs. Rathbin can't possibly be more than ten years older than Claire, even with all that white hair. But Claire guesses that it gives the drivers some sort of professionalism, or else creates needed distance. Perhaps they don't want to be too familiar to patients who could very well be gone tomorrow. Another way for them to disconnect from the situation. But Claire isn't being fair. After all, these people volunteer their time to do a lot of driving. And Claire needs a driver because she's so tired and tense and scared most of the time that she knows she'd drive off the side of the highway into a ditch.

“You've got kiddees.” Mrs. Rathbin points to the portraits of Jude and Caroline on the walls.

“Yes.”

“Well, that's really special,” Mrs. Rathbin says. “Little ones around the house.”

“Oh, they aren't little anymore,” Claire says. “Jude is fifteen and Caroline, she's seventeen. Those are old pictures.”

Mrs. Rathbin pulls herself up and stands on tiptoe to look closely at the pictures. “Is that fellow here a girl or a boy? Jude, you say? What is that? Judy? Judah?” Mrs. Rathbin snorts.

Jude does look slightly feminine in that picture. Claire never noticed it before. “A boy,” she says. “Jude. Just Jude. Like Jude Law, I guess.”

“Who?”

“An actor.” Claire searches through her purse for her keys. “Although we didn't know about Jude Law until after.”

“After what?”

Claire looks at Mrs. Rathbin. “After we had Jude.”

Mrs. Rathbin nods. “Now that's an interesting name. Jude. I wouldn't have thought of naming a child that.” She scurries around behind Claire and helps her with her coat. The woman has to stand on her tiptoes to reach Claire's shoulders and Claire is average height. When she reaches up to help with the sleeves Claire smells more lilac and something else, cinnamon? Claire's sense of smell is heightened these days. Like an animal sensing danger, she supposes. Her hearing is better too. She's fully self-aware, always. It's dis­concerting. “Off we go,” Mrs. Rathbin shouts, “on a one-horse open sleigh.” Mrs. Rathbin's open-laced boots have left puddles from the brief morning rain on the floor. Claire sighs. Wonders if Ralph will notice or if he'll step into the puddles in his socked feet. She pictures him doing this, wandering the house in those wet socks, not bothering to change, leaving footprints behind.

Claire finds nothing funny these days and she knows she's in for a long ride with this woman. In the old days she might have thought Mrs. Rathbin was humorous — a strange, large, bustling, weird woman. Someone to study. But right now this fat, busy, opinionated, loud woman is too much. Claire couldn't have imagined she would ever miss the silent Mr. Manuel. But then there are a lot of things she can't imagine these days. Like the future. Like what it's going to feel like at the end. The last seconds. Where will she be? What will she be thinking? Will there be pain? Will she remember things about her life? Will things flash before her, will there be a white light? Will she fight it? Accept it? Scream? Cry? Go silently? Claire has so many questions that she knows will remain unanswered. For a while yet. And by the time they are answered it won't matter anymore.

Claire wipes her eyes.

Sometimes, at night, she sits straight up in bed because she can't breathe. She can't breathe as she imagines the end — her end. Sometimes she hyperventilates, rushes to the bathroom before she wakes Ralph. This can't be it, she thinks. This can't be all there is.

The worst thing about all of this is that Claire didn't even feel sick. Not even for one minute. She was at her yearly physical exam. The doctor sent her for routine tests. She felt great. And then he sat her down, in his office — a room she had never been in before — and he said, “You have cancer.” The second he said that — “You have cancer” — Claire began to feel awful. As if her whole body decided to shut down at once. She felt overwhelmed and sore. Her breast — the evil one — ached. She felt exhausted. And then the operation, the chemotherapy, the radiation, everything conspires together to make you feel so sick you take this disease seriously. But at the very beginning, before she knew, she felt the best she ever had. Yoga classes in full swing, coffees with friends, working just the right amount, her kids fun and independent. Life was good. Sometimes Claire wonders what would have happened if the doctor hadn't told her. Would she have gotten sick? Maybe she would have gone on indefinitely? Maybe it's the knowing that makes you sick?

Claire rubs her head. Now that she's done the chemotherapy she's starting to grow peach fuzz, but it's sharp and itchy. If she wears a hat she can't stop scratching. But if she doesn't wear a hat she feels naked and exposed and cold.

Mrs. Rathbin is struggling with her boots, tripping over the untied laces, fiddling in her large bag for her car keys.

Claire studies Jude's picture. He's eight in the photo. He doesn't look like a girl now. Not in the least. His voice is so low she can barely hear it — a growl — and there is a small dusting of soft hair on his upper lip. Claire has to be careful changing his bedsheets or taking out his garbage. Balled up Kleenexes everywhere. Wet stains. The juices of a fifteen-year-old boy. He looks at her with sorrow in his eyes. Horrible sorrow. She can feel it leaking from him. He doesn't know what to say or how to react. His mother's breast is sick. Her lymph nodes are gone. Just sliced out. And her hair fell out. She has no eyebrows or eyelashes. Eczema on her skin.

Ralph says that she needs to talk to Jude. Ralph says that Claire should sit down with him and make him cry. “Make it come out, Claire,” he says. “Make the boy release everything that is inside of him. If you don't he'll keep it bottled and one day he'll explode.”

One day. When Claire is gone.

Ralph has cried. Caroline can't stop crying and shouting. Angry Caroline. So mad at the world. But Claire likes Jude's quietness, his uncertainty. She likes that he hasn't collapsed around her yet. Like a faithful pet, he studies her and takes her in. He waits with her. She feels honoured by him.

“You got your keys?” Mrs. Rathbin says, holding up her own keys. “Got your hat? It's getting cold out.”

Claire and Mrs. Rathbin leave the house. Claire studies the woman's car. A dumpy looking thing, rusty and dented. It looks as if it was once dark blue. It is now covered in wet mud and is a greyish-brown.

“Not much of a car,” Mrs. Rathbin says, giving it a little kick, “but it'll get us to where we want to go.”

Claire wants to say, “Hawaii? Will it get us to Hawaii? Or the moon? Can we go to the moon?” but she remains silent as she tries to climb into the front seat. Mrs. Rathbin first has to remove several bags of items — what looks like knitting, wool — and a box of cat litter. It's as if Mrs. Rathbin didn't expect her to actually get in her car. Maybe she thought I'd be dead by the time she got here. The back seats are full of junk too, so it's not like Claire was expected to sit back there.

“Just a little rearranging and then off we go.”

Claire settles in. Adjusts her coat. Takes off her itchy hat. Sighs. She looks out the window at her house, at the line of Christmas lights left up from last year, dull in the daylight, at the place the wreath will go on the front door in a couple of months. Looking at her house, she notices that she left the light on in the hallway. Caroline and Jude will be home from school soon and then all the lights in the house will be blazing. Claire sighs.

Sometimes Claire wonders about dying in a car accident. She thinks about how ironic it would be — dying on the way to get radiation treatment to stop her from dying. Lying motionless in the road, thrown headfirst through the windshield, bleeding to death, her cancer seeping out of her body, finally impotent. Take that. Claire thinks of her cancer as a fuzzy, germy creature crawling quickly through her body. As if it's a centipede — those huge ones that come out in spring in the basement and scurry away so fast that there is no way you can step on them. Or whenever Claire sees those commercials on TV for Scrubbing Bubbles — some kind of shower stall cleaner — those little cartoon bubbles with eyes and tentacle feet, scrubbing the shower — she thinks they look exactly like the cancer she imagines. Scrubbing away at the walls of her internal organs. But instead of getting things clean, these cancer bubbles are spreading the grime and dirt everywhere. And there is nothing Claire can do about it.

Quick death on the road on the way to radiation seems like a solution.

“But you could have a long time left, Claire,” Ralph says all the time. “You don't know for sure. There are always new discoveries. There can always be hope.”

The uncertainty will kill her before the cancer does. Stay positive, they all say. But how do you stay positive in the face of it all? It's laughable, really. If Claire could laugh.