Looking Through Windows (28 page)

"Here's your milkshake!" the aide announced in a falsetto voice, setting a liquid supplement on the bedside table. "Drink up!" she chirped as she left the room.

Emily couldn't bear the thought of putting anything in her stomach now, but she knew she needed to. She had already lost almost twenty pounds heading into her fourth week of chemo. Dr. Hall had not wasted any time. After a lengthy phone consultation with Dr. Schuler to get the pathology results, and then running a few more tests, she had strongly urged a twelve-week regimen of chemotherapy to be administered in intense bursts of three days per week via intravenous delivery. She had warned Emily about the need to keep her calorie count up despite the nausea. Not only would excess weight loss weaken her when she needed more energy than ever to get around, but it would delay her being fitted with a prosthesis because of the changing size of her limb.

What Emily didn't know was the concern Dr. Schuler had expressed regarding Emily's seeming acceptance of her amputation. He told Dr. Hall that Emily had been so concerned with taking care of her obligations and the details of leaving that she had not expressed any of the reactions he would have expected – no grief, no anger. Dr. Hall had promised to keep a close eye on her.

Emily opened one eye and looked at the supplement. She forced herself to begin taking small sips. When she had swallowed all she could handle, she began doing her exercises to keep her left hip limber and strong so that she would be able to handle the weight of her prosthesis when the time came.

After the next day's IV, she would be discharged until the following Monday, and then would start the process over just as she was getting over the side effects of the week before.

'All right, Warner, drink up!'
she said to herself as she downed the last of the supplement in the cup, forcing herself to swallow.

"Guess what I've got for you?" The aide bounced into the room, carrying a tray. "It's a yummy lunch!" She set the tray down, and was already heading toward the door so she didn't see the styrofoam cup Emily hurled at her.

Chapter 58

E
mily was starting to feel like herself again after two days at home. She tried to make the most of the days she felt good, refusing to waste time thinking about the next round of chemotherapy. Her limb was healed with a thin red scar left after the sutures were removed. She got dressed in a swimsuit and sweats. Standing in front of her mirror she ran a brush through her unruly curls, and stood staring at the large mass of hair clinging to the bristles. Clenching her jaw, she tossed a swim cap into her gym bag and swung it over her shoulder.

The house was quiet. Her mother's attitude had done a complete about-face. She never said so directly, but Emily suspected that her mother had been haunted by the possibility that she might have died with their holiday estrangement unresolved. Her parents had returned to work at her insistence. She pointed out that there was nothing she couldn't do for herself now, and if she was feeling ill, all she wanted to do was sleep.

She drove to the public recreation facility to use the pool there. Leaving her gym bag and sweats in a locker, she swung out to the pool on her crutches. Ignoring the people staring at her, she reminded herself that she had chosen to come here rather than go to the rehab pool precisely because she felt she needed to face the stares and whispers. She was a little more careful with her crutches near the pool where it was wet. She tugged on her cap and goggles and hopped into the water.

As she began swimming laps, she settled into a rhythm of breathing, losing herself with only the sound of rushing water in her ears. It had been awkward at first, learning how to compensate for the lack of a leg. It was like having only half a rudder. Swimming allowed her to maintain her cardiovascular conditioning, and she could tell her upper body was getting stronger.

An hour later, she had showered and returned home. She was ravenous, a rare sensation lately. She fixed a large sandwich and wolfed it down. Carefully carrying a plastic cup of water, she hopped out to the back patio to enjoy the early May sunshine. The sun's warmth felt wonderful. She stripped down to a t-shirt and rolled up the sleeves, soaking up as much sun as she could. She visualized the cancer cells being bombarded by both the chemo and the solar radiation. Sitting back in the lawn chair, she pulled Ann's letter out of her back pocket. She had found it unopened in one of the boxes from her Zurich flat, and had probably read it a hundred times. It still confused her that Ann didn't seem to have any idea why she had left Weston in the first place. Ann apparently had told her family about their relationship, but for some reason had never called to let Emily know. What she never got tired of reading was the last paragraph,

Whatever your reasons were for leaving, I want you to know that I have never stopped loving you. I have to believe that what we have together is strong enough to overcome any other difficulties. Please contact me, Emily.

She felt the now familiar cramping of her gut – the feeling she had every time she thought of Ann. Sometimes she couldn't tell if she was more nauseous from the chemo or from the agony of what to do about Ann. Her parents hadn't asked about Ann – old habits, she supposed. They were probably waiting for her to bring the subject up, and she hadn't been able to steel herself to it yet. Part of her wanted to call Ann and beg her to come to Pennsylvania as fast as she could, and she had actually picked the telephone up half a dozen times, but when she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn't make herself do it. She kept remembering Laura's reaction. She hadn't heard from Laura since the day she came to see her in the hospital in Zurich.

Later that afternoon, Maureen came home and announced they were having company for dinner. She refused to reveal who was coming, but put Emily to work peeling and slicing potatoes. Robert came home with fresh steaks and fired up the grill. They got the potatoes started early, wrapped in foil with onions and peppers.

Emily was setting the table when she heard the doorbell. Her mother went to the door, and Emily heard familiar voices. She pivoted on her crutches to see Owen and Katharine entering the kitchen. They stood there in mutual shock for a moment. Emily looked beyond them, her heart pounding wildly.

"Ann's not here," Katharine said, instinctively understanding what Emily was searching for.

Emily recovered enough to greet them. "How are both of you?"

Owen came over to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "We're fine," he said. He stepped back and looked at her. Her face was so thin. There were dark circles under her eyes and her hair was sparse.

Emily noted that Katharine remained somewhat distant, and seemed to avoid meeting her eyes. Maureen invited them to sit and catch up with Emily while she and Robert finished getting dinner.

"How did you know where I was?" Emily asked as they settled in the family room.

"I have a business acquaintance who was a student of yours, Helmut Beschmann," Owen explained.

"You're kidding," Emily said incredulously. "That is a pretty bizarre coincidence."

"Maybe not," Katharine said in a tone of concern that contradicted her physical aloofness. "How are you, Emily? What happened in Zurich?"

Emily told them about seeing Ann through the café window and later getting her message. "I was running to the hotel to see her when my femur crumbled. There was a malignant tumor in the bone. I fell down some stairs, suffered a concussion and woke up two days later to find this," she gestured to her leg. "I guess she had no way of knowing what happened or where I was…"

"She thinks you just didn't want to see her," Katharine said. "She thinks you're with someone else."

Emily's eyes got wide. "Laura? No, she's just a friend who was visiting." She looked at them, puzzled, "Ann wrote me a letter dated late February, and I guess it arrived while I was in the hospital. I found the letter in a box that got packed up after my accident, but what made her come over to Switzerland in the first place?"

Owen and Katharine looked at each other. "Ann never got the note you wrote her at Christmastime, Emily. Michael found it and hid it from her," Owen explained. "He got caught when he said something that let us know he knew you were gone, and when Ann confronted him, he confessed what he had done."

Emily sat for several seconds, trying to put all of this information in context. "So, she didn't know that I was waiting to hear from her over the holidays and that I was basing my decision about Zurich on whether she could bring herself to tell you about us?"

"That's right."

"But she did tell you?"

Katharine nodded. "After the New Year." She glanced at Owen. "She had been abnormally quiet and withdrawn over the holiday break. We found out later it was because of what Michael had said to her."

"And what was that?"

Katharine looked uncomfortable. "We don't know exactly. Ann won't tell us everything. It seems Michael has… issues with your relationship. He confronted her and accused her of selfishly putting the whole family at risk."

Emily braced herself. "How do the two of you feel about Ann and me?"

"We had never seen Ann as happy as she was with you," Owen began.

"Or as miserable as she has been since you left," Katharine added.

Just then, Maureen called them in to dinner as Robert brought the steaks to the table. Emily was glad her appetite was still good. Dinner conversation consisted mainly of the two sets of parents' getting to know one another. Emily tried to listen attentively, but she couldn't really concentrate on anything other than Ann. This conversation with Owen and Katharine explained so much. After dinner, they went out to the patio for coffee. The May evening was cooling down as the sun lowered.

"Before we sat down to eat," Emily decided to plunge back in, "I asked you how you felt about Ann and me. Do you share Michael's misgivings?" Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her mother tense up at such a direct discussion of this topic.

Owen smiled. "No, Emily. We were happy for the two of you. Ann is such an extraordinary person; we have always trusted her judgment. We do not have a problem with her being with you."

"What we do have a problem with, though," Katharine interjected, "is keeping all of this from her." She shifted forward in her seat. "Ann told us about Caroline, how you never got to say good-bye and all the pain that followed. If that happened between you and Ann, and it could have been prevented…"

She didn't finish. She didn't have to. Emily now understood Katharine's distance since her arrival.

"You're right. Ann doesn't deserve to go through anything like that."

"You know she would want to be here for you." Katharine said gently.

Emily ran her hand through her wispy hair, her jaw clenching as her throat tightened. "I know she would, but…" her voice cracked. She pressed her fingers hard against her eyes. "I am not going to cry again," she whispered through clenched teeth.

Taking a deep breath, she continued, her voice still shaky, "You've got to realize that when I met Ann, I was in worse shape emotionally than I am now. I was… I was like a fucking Humpty Dumpty."

Surprised at the unaccustomed swearing coming from Emily, the older people sat silently. Emily sat with her fists clenched, her eyes tightly shut.

"It's taken me five years to face the truth and come to grips with everything that happened; to accept the fact that Caroline just didn't love me enough to put me first and face her parents; the humiliation of her parents' public tirade in the hospital, preventing me from seeing her as she died, then invading my home and taking whatever the hell they wanted; trying to put my life back together only to run into someone in Vermont of all places who knew me from Virginia and start the whole goddamned cycle all over again. Then I met Ann." She took another deep breath. "I wish I could convey to you the depth of healing she brought to me. She didn't just put my heart back together; she put my soul back together. She loved me with her whole being. She made it safe to feel again, to love again. I thought I had found someone who would stand by me no matter what. But then it seemed she was getting cold feet when it came to facing family, so I left, thinking it was what she had chosen, only to find out tonight that it was all a pointless misunderstanding caused by Michael's interference and none of it needed to happen at all. And now, Ann thinks I ignored her plea because I was with someone else."

She opened her eyes, and despite her resolve not to cry, tears spilled out, and she laughed bitterly. "And as if all the rest weren't senseless and cruel enough, let's throw some cancer into the mix and see what happens." She pounded her thigh with her fist. "Now, I'm broken again, only this time there are pieces missing that even Ann can't put back together!" She grabbed a crutch and slammed it into the empty chair next to her, sending it crashing into the side of the garage.

She sat back, breathing hard. There was a startled and very awkward silence. Finally, she smiled feebly as she wiped her cheeks and said, "I'm sorry. How's that for a little self-pity? You'd think someone who can speak four languages would be able to express herself without resorting to language like that." She stood with her crutches. "And without breaking all the lawn furniture." She hopped over to the battered chair and stood it back up on its feet.