It is difficult to entirely extract myself from the restaurant, even though it is clear that Leander does not need me hovering behind him in the kitchen. But seeing how healthy and full of life Thea is, with her treatments behind her, the thought of full retirement slips further and further from my mind every week.
You’ll be sixty-seven in July, Thea reminds me one morning. It is the first warm day of spring and we are sitting on the front porch drinking coffee and watching the morning’s last school bus rumble down the street. When the conversation, directly or indirectly, has to do with my retirement from the Atheneum, Thea always notes what my age will soon be, counting forward, rather than what it presently is.
My response is, I realize, a bit defensive. We’re going to Greece and Italy in October. We wouldn’t be doing that if I wasn’t at least semi-retired.
Thea scoffs. I don’t want you semi-retired. On your sixty-seventh birthday, I want us to drive over to Leander’s in the morning and hand him your set of keys to the restaurant and tell him your birthday gift to yourself is that you won’t be coming into the Atheneum except to have a meal with your wife every once in a while. On your birthday. July twenty-second. I’m putting it on the calendar so you don’t forget.
Thea has spoken. That gives me about three months to do what I need to do in the restaurant before Leander takes over altogether. Papa had Thea and me sign some papers before he handed the Atheneum over to me, making us officially its new owners. I imagine the paperwork has gotten more complicated, but I doubt that it will consume three months. Some of the recipes I have developed or modified are not actually written down, so I should probably start documenting everything. I will need to meet with all of our suppliers, although they all know Leander and have gotten used to working with him directly.
Thea seems to have more energy now than she did before her breast cancer diagnosis, and I sometimes have trouble keeping up with her. Doctor Powers and Doctor Geng agreed that there was no need for chemotherapy, and Thea chose not to have reconstructive surgery. So aside from Thea’s more frequent followup medical appointments, our lives have pretty much returned to normal. It embarrasses my wife that all of the regulars at the Atheneum know about her condition, but that is the nature of running a family restaurant. One of our customers remarked that Thea and I dodged a bullet. I never liked that expression, but I suppose it fits.
Once in a while, on my way to the restaurant, I make a point to drive past the house where Thea and I lived, briefly, after we were married. The house’s appearance has not changed much over the years, although whoever now occupies it is not keeping up with the yardwork, and the roof shingles need replacing. I am not sure why this bothers me, but it does. I am happy to see that the field behind the house is just as it was. So much of Sheboygan is being bulldozed for strip malls and box stores and new housing developments, it is a relief to see a lovely untouched property. It is early May, after a cool and damp April, and the yellow flowers are in full bloom. I do not recall their name, but I remember one of the neighbors warning me that the flowers are noxious, and that they can cause organ damage. But that is all the more reason to appreciate them from a distance.
I think June is my favorite time in Sheboygan. In the early part of the month, there is still a slight, agreeable chill in the air. Thea and I occasionally drive down to the lighthouse and sit on the breakwater watching the waves rippling along the surface of Lake Michigan, huddling together against the evening breezes.
My birthday is just a month away when Thea asks, after supper, if we can take a stroll around the block.
I haven’t forgotten, I say, as we start out.
What haven’t you forgotten?
I look at Thea to see if she is serious. My promise. My birthday promise. To retire.
She nods as if I am reminding her of some long-forgotten conversation.
I thought that was what you wanted to talk about.
We walk for a time before Thea says anything. Finally, she stops and faces me. Doctor Powers thinks I might need another round of radiation. Or a mastectomy.
I feel as if my knees are going to buckle, but there is nothing to grab onto and no place to sit. I gather myself, take a deep breath. I thought the radiation last year took care of it. Why is he saying you need more radiation?
Or a mastectomy. It happens, Julian. They think they’ve destroyed all the cancer cells, but sometimes they cut too close to the margin and they end up leaving some of the cancer, and it comes back. Even after radiation. Or that’s how he described it.
At first, I was accompanying Thea to all of her followup medical appointments, but as they became routine we agreed that this was not necessary. So I have been dropping Thea off, running errands and then returning for her. Now I am sick with the thought that Thea was alone when Doctor Powers delivered this piece of news, and that she said nothing when I picked her up this morning. So, the surgeon? Dr. Geng messed up? She left some of the cancer?
I don’t know that anybody messed up, Julian. Cancer doesn’t obey the rules, and things sometimes happen, even when you’re careful. Doctor Geng was trying to leave as much of the healthy tissue as possible. None of that matters right now.
I feel suddenly furious, and I have no idea where to direct the anger. When did you suspect? I ask. Doctor Powers didn’t just drop the bomb today. When did you think that something might be wrong?
Thea starts walking again and I have no choice but to follow along. A week ago. Maybe a week and a half. I thought maybe I was letting my imagination get carried away, and I didn’t want to say anything to you until I knew. They gave me a mammogram last week and took a biopsy. The mammogram didn’t show anything, but the biopsy did. He wants me to go in for another scan. They scheduled it for tomorrow.
We have tickets to fly to Athens at the beginning of October. The plan is to spend a week in Greece, seeing the sights and visiting Farsala, and then flying to Rome for another week. Thea and I have met with a travel agent who has given us a list of hotels and tours we can opt for. Thea has talked to Tessa about the trip every morning, with great eagerness. It occurs to me now that we have not talked much about it over the past few days. I wonder if Tessa has noticed this, and I wonder how it is that I had not noticed.
Nothing has changed, Thea remarks, with strange casualness.
I am not sure exactly what she means, because it feels as if everything has changed.
I mean your retirement. Leander taking over. Greece and Rome. If we have to push the trip back a few weeks because I’m doing radiation again, we can always do that.
That my wife is already thinking about postponing our Europe trip tells me how seriously she is taking this news, despite how casual she is trying to appear. I think again about Doctor Power’s directive that I step up during Thea’s time of crisis. I was not there when she had to hear this new diagnosis, so I have already fallen short. What I need to do now, I think, is to stop procrastinating about retirement for reasons of my own ego and to give Thea my full attention. Anything less would be unfair to my wife, and to our marriage. I need to tell her this, but I need to figure out when and exactly how to do it so it does not sound like some grand gesture. Like a sacrifice, which it is not.
So we return to Thea’s infernal list. When we get back to the house, she phones Tessa, then Leander, then Maggie. I had suggested waiting until we have the results of her screening tests, but Thea knows her own body and she wants to be systematic about this. It occurs to me that Take a walk with Julian was perhaps item one on her amended list. So I fall into line. I step up. In the morning, I drive my wife to the hospital for another screening.
Leander and Sarah come to the house for Sunday supper. I have completed all the paperwork to formally assign ownership of the Atheneum to the two of them, but I have no stomach for the great ceremonial transfer that I once envisioned. So, before supper, I simply hand over to Leander an oversized envelope which includes all the legal and financial documentation, as well as lists of vendors and a history of our relationship with each, some of it dating back to the time when Mama and Papa ran the place. I tell Leander that I am still compiling my book of recipes, although I know that this is an unnecessary inheritance.
Sarah’s news is that a university press has agreed to publish a book of her photographs, and that it will be available for sale by Christmas. I know that Leander is proud, but I can see that he is conflicted as to whether this is an occasion for celebration. As usual, Sarah downplays the achievement. But she is sensitive to Thea’s diagnosis in a way that I did not expect. Finalizing the book deal, she explains, means that she has more free time now than before, so she can be helpful in taking Thea to appointments, shopping for groceries, and running other errands. It is an unaccustomed offer, and Thea gratefully accepts.
The test results come back quickly this time. Thea decides against a mastectomy. I would not have made the same choice. To my mind, cutting out the cancer altogether seems more conclusive than subjecting it to more radiation. But Thea knows what her body can endure, and I have nothing to say about it. So the treatments resume, almost at once. Doctor Powers has pretty much dispensed with all pretenses of bedside mannerism and is, in our meetings, completely businesslike. Thea’s breast cancer is the opponent, and he has designated himself to be its conqueror.
I know now why my mind tends to drift into the dark corners. It is because there are dark corners. If they are not explored, if they are now excavated, the dark corners will grow until they consume you. Which is not to say that they will not eventually consume you regardless.
The summer of 1993 passes, strangely, in much the same way as did the summer of 1992. Down in Elmhurst, Becky and Kat are registered for a one-week outdoor camp after Independence Day. After that, with nothing on the calendar for the remainder of the summer, they make the drive to Sheboygan with their mother, all three of them packed for a long stayover. Maggie, coordinating once again with her sister, announces that she will be arriving in mid-August to assume daughterly duties. So I will have plenty of help driving Thea to her treatments, fixing the meals, keeping house and running errands. In the meantime, I finish documenting all of the recipes that I have modified over the years, presenting them to Leander in a three-ring binder. He accepts it as if he is accepting some ancient, valuable text, paging quickly through its content. I have no illusions. I expect that, for some indeterminate time, the binder will sit on a shelf in the kitchen of the Atheneum next to a stack of plates or a stewpot, an artifact collecting dust, waiting to be discovered by some curious future chef who is not burdened with the Pappas name.
Thea and I do not ordinarily celebrate our own birthdays. But this year, since July 22 has been circled on the calendar for months, Thea and Tessa and the girls have apparently decided that age sixty-seven is a milestone worth observing. Together, they labor away in the kitchen, baking the two-layer lemon cake to which I have agreed. When it emerges from the oven, Tessa sends me on an unnecessary trip to the grocery store so they can decorate the cake, and the house, without my interference.
Becky and Kat have both changed a good deal since their three-week stay last summer, in ways that were not noticeable to me over the Christmas and New Year’s visit. They both celebrated birthdays in May, but the changes seem more profound than simply the passage of a year. Kat, who is twelve, is now keeping a journal, which she carefully locks with a key that she keeps on a neck chain after making each entry. Also, she seems to cling more to her mother. We are told that Robert will not be coming up for any weekend visits this time, which leads me to think that he is withdrawing from the girls and their mother, sculpting out a more independent life. If so, Kat’s behavior is understandable. Becky, on the other hand, seems almost defiantly stronger. Physically, muscles have replaced baby fat – which Tessa attributes to an authoritarian soccer coach. Now fifteen, Becky dresses more like a young woman, having given up or handed down the flowery blouses and the jeans with the colorful patches. And the Red Hot Chili Pepper phase, Tessa confides, has passed. My daughter is grateful for that. The new obsession is Pink Floyd, she tells us. I seem to recall Tessa listening to Pink Floyd during the summers when she was home from college. How strange, I think.
The other change that strikes me is Becky’s sudden interest in her Greek heritage. She is keeping a notebook with assorted facts about Greek history and geography, and whatever information she can gather about her ancestors. Tessa has answered as many questions as she can, but she is relieved that her daughter can now grill Thea and me while Tessa sits and listens patiently, hearing much of it for the second or third or fourth time.
Mama and Papa died when Becky was just two, and my mother-in-law died just a few years after Thea and I were married, so they are all simply historical figures for Becky. Boxes on a family tree. This is a chance to give them life again, to make them real, and Thea and I rise happily to the challenge. Mrs. Apostolos, Thea relates, worked for years in the front office of the very school that Becky’s mother would herself attend, and where she would later teach. Some nights when she could not sleep, Mrs. Apostolos would creep into the kitchen and bake batch after batch of shortbread cookies. Thea remembers getting out of bed one morning and finding the kitchen counter covered from wall to wall with cookies on warming racks.
And did you know, Thea asks, that your mother was named after my grandmother? Her full name was Theresa Helena Alexandra Georgiou, but she was known to everyone as Tessa. She was born in Athens and she lived there her whole life. I never met her, but sometimes it feels as if I did. My mother used to tell me stories about what an accomplished seamstress she was. The best in her little Athens community. She married a stoneworker who died a few years later. Never remarried, but she made a very comfortable life for herself. Her sewing business was so successful, she actually hired two young women to help out. According to my mother, Tessa once made a dress that the wife of the Prime Minister wore to her husband’s inauguration. Imagine that. I have no idea if it was true, but my mother believed it and she was quite proud of that. As a girl, my mother used to sit and watch and try to move her own fingers in the same way, as if she was sewing some imaginary dress. My mother always said that she could have made a living as a seamstress, but after a time she was bored to death of it. And then she met my father and they moved to America.
Becky writes furiously in her notebook, now and then looking up encouragingly. Telling stories of her mother and grandmother animates Thea, but after a time the energy drains away. So I pick up the narrative, telling Becky all about Damianos and Katerina Pappas, the couple who had known one another from infancy, who had rattled along in buggies to the Farsala town square where their mothers had passed the morning gossiping, who had left Greece for life in New York City, then Chicago’s Greektown, finally settling in Sheboygan and opening a Greek restaurant. I tell Becky about my trip to Farsala with Thea, which now feels almost like a dream, about being taxied around by a young man named Cassius, seeing the town square and the local cemetery and the place where Julius Caesar is said to have defeated Pompey in battle.
I wish I could go to Greece, Becky sighs.
Thea has closed her eyes for a moment, but from her smile I see that she is awake.
I ask Becky what she would want to see, if she were to make the trip.
Everything. The houses where Grandma and Grandpa Pappas grew up. The house where they lived when they went back. All those cemeteries. The house in Athens where Tessa Apostolos lived. Maybe there’s still someone there, sewing stuff. Maybe Cassius is still there. In Farsala. Driving people around.
I tell Becky that I would not be surprised. I want to explain to her that there are places where the world moves more slowly than the world she knows, and that this is not a bad thing.
Thea is five weeks into her treatments when Maggie arrives. Last year, when my wife was undergoing the first round of radiation, I would watch her energy level decline every week. This time is different only in degree. When Tessa and the girls arrived in mid-July, Thea’s energy could carry her through the day. By the time they left, Thea seemed to be moving in slow-motion and was taking short afternoon naps. Now, the naps have extended to ninety minutes, sometimes more. At times, I see Thea standing at the kitchen counter, staring into space, as if she is trying to remember something important. At supper, she smiles and listens as Maggie and I converse, rarely contributing more than a nod and a word of agreement.
Thea is napping when Maggie takes my hand and pulls me toward the front door. A minute later, we are sitting together on the porch swing.
I wish she hadn’t done the radiation again, Maggie says. All the windows in the house are closed, but she is speaking almost in a whisper.
I do too. There were other options. But your mother knows what she needs.
I’m not sure, Dad. It’s like the radiation is killing more than just the cancer cells. She’s a lot more exhausted than last year. You see it, don’t you?
I remind Maggie that she is seeing her mother near the end of the treatment regimen this year, so the comparison is inexact. But yes, I tell her that the radiation is taking more of a toll on her mother this year, and I can see it.
And what if the cancer comes back again, Dad? Eight more weeks of radiation? Radiate until there’s not a living cell left? I don’t like seeing her like this.
Maggie will be flying back to Denver in a few days. Summer will be over. Tessa and the girls will be back at school. Thea and I will be alone in the house. Leander and Sarah will come over for Sunday supper, and then the week will pass. The radiation treatments will end, but what will our lives be like then?
I don’t want to think about cancer coming back, I say finally. Coming back. It is a weirdly inaccurate phrase. It brings to mind a visitor who has left for a time, is gone but not forgotten, then returns with his baggage, prepared to move back in. But the cancer never left in the first place, so there is no coming back.
Maggie looks at me and shakes her head disappointedly.
I don’t want to think about it, I say again, but if it happens, there won’t be any more radiation. She could have had a mastectomy. I wish she had. Knowing what the radiation would be like, knowing what it did to her body the first time, why would you ever choose to go through it again?
But Dad, it’s cancer. It doesn’t give you a lot of choices, right? There’s really bad and there’s really, really bad. Maybe one’s worse, maybe the other one is. I can’t blame Mom for deciding what she needs to do. She’s doing it for us, you know? She’s doing it so you can have a wife, and Tessa and Leander and I can have a mother, and Becky and Kat can have a grandma.
Maggie grabs my hand, squeezes it. I see that she is crying. I cannot remember ever seeing Maggie cry. Even when she was a girl, even when she fell off her bike or was being bullied at school, Maggie steadfastly refused to cry. Tessa would cry watching a boy hugging his father in a TV commercial for life insurance, but Maggie would simply clench her jaw and stare at the image until it disappeared. Thea knew how to comfort each of the children in the particular way they required. My course of action was usually to pat them on the knee, but I am not so dull-headed as to think that this will comfort Maggie now.
Last year, when the radiation treatments ended, it took only a few days for Thea’s color and energy to return. Our one-week vacation in Door County, our Egg Harbor cottage getaway…it was Thea’s reward, but it also felt like a real revitalization. This time, Thea’s routine of afternoon naps continues well after the treatments end. Along with the fatigue, she also seems to be experiencing pain far more than she did last year. Doctor Powers is mystified and frustrated. I suspect he may believe that Thea is experiencing phantom pains, inasmuch as he is unable to diagnose her ailment. I want to tell him that I have lived with Thea for forty-four years and that she has never, not once, imagined or exaggerated an affliction, that she is more likely to dismiss pain than to complain about it. But this is obviously not a conversation I can have with Thea in the room.
After supper, I bring out the travel brochures Thea has been collecting, and I spread them out on the dining table. The Parthenon. The Acropolis Museum. The Temple of Zeus. The Central Market of Athens. The Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. The Colosseum and the Roman Forum. The Spanish Steps. A tour of the catacombs. A class in pasta-making. Thea fingers the brochures with a distant sadness, as if each one represents a memory. I am resigned to the certainty that our Europe trip will have to be postponed. I am not resigned to the possibility that Thea and I will never experience these places.
But September passes and Thea’s condition does not improve. Doctor Powers schedules her for another screening. I prepare myself to insist with Thea that she agree to a mastectomy. But when we meet with Doctor Powers to review the results, he informs us that mastectomy is not an option.
The cancer, he tells us, has spread. He describes rogue cells that migrated, undetected, from Thea’s right breast to distant places like her lungs and liver. The cells could have been hiding and moving about for months, possibly years. Last year’s lumpectomy had excised the main colony, and the radiation had killed any survivors in the area. But others, apparently, had already escaped and were looking for a place to settle.
Thea looks numbly at me. I ask Doctor Powers the only question that matters.
What do we do now?
Doctor Powers frowns as if I have not understood the point of his little speech about rogue cells. I think we need to look at palliative care, he says quietly.
Palliative. I know what the word means, but I cannot make sense of it. It means that the medical establishment has fully surrendered to the enemy. Cancer has prevailed. Thea grabs my hand. I know that one of us has to be strong for the other, and I know what my role is supposed to be, but I feel utterly weak.
Doctor Powers leans forward, focuses on my wife. Thea, I know you’ve been experiencing pain. There’s no way around it, but there are ways to mitigate the pain. I want us to look at certain medications that will make this period easier.
I hear Thea inhale sharply. How much time do I have left?
The doctor shakes his head. I don’t know. I wish I could give you an answer. And if there was a cure, or a promise of a cure, I wish I could give you that.
I’m not asking about a cure. I just want your medical opinion. I need to make plans, so I need to know how much time I have. Your best medical opinion.
Doctor Powers looks down at his hands. If he does not give Thea a direct answer, if he prevaricates again, or if the answer if not what we want to hear, I think I might reach across the desk and grab him by the neck.
Possibly a year, he says finally. If I were making plans, I would plan for a year. But things can happen that we can’t predict. Bad things or good things. If bad things happen, it may be six or eight months. If good things happen, it may be a year and a half or two years. Cancer does not follow a script. It does not behave as we want or expect it to. It writes its own script.
One year. Doctor Powers has warned us against holding Thea’s cancer to a schedule. But it is impossible not to watch the pages of the calendar turn and to imagine every holiday, every birthday and anniversary, the passing and arrival of each season, as the last Thea and I will have together. We have been completely honest with the kids. I should say that Thea has been completely honest, because she insisted on talking to each of them, explaining in plain language about rogue cancer cells migrating to other parts of the body, and the fruitlessness of any treatment other than medicines for the relief of pain. To the extent that their lives allow, Maggie and Tessa and Leander all spend as much time as possible with their mother. They run errands and help me in the kitchen and around the house, but what Thea most appreciates is their sitting and talking to talking to her. Tessa’s detailed narratives of Becky’s soccer matches and Kat’s attempts at baking shortbread cookies. Maggie’s accounts of hiking and camping with her friends in the Rocky Mountains. Leander’s stories of frustration, trying to find good quality lamb and tomatoes that taste like tomatoes. Maggie insists on meeting with Doctor Powers, and neither Thea nor I can persuade her otherwise. But afterwards, she has nothing to say about Thea’s prognosis and the path she has chosen. Or rather, the path that was chosen for her, because cancer is now dictating everything about our lives.
Becky and Kat join their mother for many of her weekend trips to Sheboygan. Tessa has taken the spring semester off, so she is able to stay with us for longer stretches, sometimes over two or three weeks. Thea worries about the girls being left alone, or left with only their father, when Tessa is away. But Becky’s schoolmates are all old enough to babysit, and I have no doubt that Becky is more responsible than any of them, so having two sometimes-latchkey children is not the worst thing in the world. I have no idea what kind of parent Robert has become, or whether he has changed at all, now that his obligations at home have increased. But he is driving up with the girls on occasional weekends, and he does not seem resentful. So maybe I am not the only one who has been scolded about stepping up, and not the only one who has made some necessary adjustments in his life.
When she is at the house, Becky will sometimes sit with Thea for hours. Thea tries to spend as much time as she can in the living room, sitting in the recliner with the curtains open and the sunshine painting the carpet, listening. Sometimes, after being up for a time, she will ask me to help her to the bedroom, where she can lay down flat, close her eyes and try to nap. If Becky is here, she often follows, sitting bedside in a straight-backed chair, watching her grandmother, saying nothing. She has a way of intuiting what an adult needs that I think is unusual for someone of her age.
At times, I allow myself to believe that Thea is getting better – or, at least, that her decline has slowed. I help her out to the front porch where we sit and enjoy the morning sun. She asks me to talk about Nicholas, and I dig around in my brain for some half-buried childhood memory. I sometimes forget that the two most important people in my life never met one another. So I sit there with my wife, reminiscing about my twin. I drink my coffee and Thea sips her tea. But she has lost her appetite and I can see that she is growing thinner, more frail. Doctor Powers wants her to consume at least one protein drink a day, but she can rarely finish it. Most solid foods cause her to vomit.
One afternoon in May, Thea emerges from the bedroom dressed in slacks and a short-sleeved blouse. Aside from doctor appointments, I rarely see my wife in anything other than a nightgown or a jogging outfit. She stands at the doorway for my inspection, her arms slightly raised.
You look great, I tell her. Do we have an appointment I’ve forgotten about?
We’re driving to the lakefront. I can’t remember what the lighthouse looks like.
On the drive, I detour past the house where we lived when we were first married. I pull up along the curb and shut off the engine. Remember this place? This was our first house.
We used to sit in the back and look out at the field. I remember. Everything looks the same. Even the field. It is late in the month, and the flowers are nearly spent, but there are still a few bright splashes of color.
We sit there for another minute. I can see a woman standing at the kitchen window, apparently with her arms in the sink. She has not noticed us. She is either talking to someone behind her or she is singing to herself. The last time I drove past, the property seemed to be in need of upkeep, but the lawn has been recently mowed, and the bushes appear to have been trimmed. Thea is right. Everything looks more or less the same. Everything is as it should be.
I start up the car and point us east, toward the lakefront. I drive slowly, letting Thea take everything in. An older man walking a German Shepherd with a red bandana around its neck. A young couple standing on the streetcorner, waiting for the light to change. Two women in maid’s outfits sitting together on a bench, waiting for the bus. A young man dressed in military fatigues, looking lost. This is Sheboygan, I say to myself. This is the place where Thea and I have lived our lives, where we have sketched ourselves into the landscape, a town that has shaped us and, in a modest way, one that we have shaped, in the same way that Mama and Papa and their ancestors shaped and were shaped by Farsala. There is so much of life that is a happy accident, so much cause for gratitude.
I park at the breakwater. We are facing the lighthouse, and Thea gazes at it for a long time, imprinting the image in her mind. Finally, she asks me to get her out of the car. I keep Thea’s wheelchair in the trunk, for medical appointments, and I unload it and bring it around to her door. The waters are calm, so I am able to wheel Thea a good distance along the walkway. There are several couples sitting on the edge of the pavement and two teenaged boys performing skateboarding stunts. But this is a weekday afternoon, so the place is relatively quiet. There is a point beyond which I do not feel comfortable maneuvering the wheelchair, and I stop there and apply the brakes. Thea is facing the lighthouse, her back to the shoreline. She tilts her head back, catching the sun, and she smiles faintly.
We have been here a good number of times over the course of our marriage, but I would not call the breakwater one of our special places. When we are here, it is hard not to think about the days after Nicholas died when I sat on the rocks with Vic Yarborough, drinking moonshine and wishing that I had a different life. It was not long before I was granted that wish, but I should have been more specific about the length of time I was asking for. I lost track of Vic shortly after the wedding. I went for years without seeing him around Sheboygan, which led me to conclude that he left the area for parts unknown, either for a better life or for life in a different setting. Sometimes the two are the same. Usually, it seems, they are not.
Tell me a story, Thea says, breaking a long silence.
This is a new game of ours. Talking and concentrating exhaust Thea, but she can sit and listen if I am talking. I think she hears my voice sometimes without absorbing all the words, so I do not have to worry about misremembering something, or attributing some witty remark to Tessa when the speaker was actually Maggie.
I begin with a story about the time when Nicholas and I decided to see how far west we could ride our new bikes. We had just turned twelve. It was a summer weekday, and our parents were busy getting ready for work. When they left, Nicholas and I made ourselves turkey and cheese sandwiches, filled our canteens with cold water, and started pedaling toward the horizon. We both had gauges that told us how fast we were riding and how far we had gone. When one of us hit twenty miles an hour on a downhill strait, he would yell it into the wind. We marked every mile covered in the same way. The devices were not exact. Nicholas’ odometer showed more distance traveled than mine, the difference increasing a little bit every mile. We rode for more than an hour. We were close to the town of Plymouth when we decided to stop and eat our sandwiches. We left our bikes on the side of the road, jumped a fence, and hiked into a field, avoiding cowpies. We found a large tree that had fallen, and we sat on the trunk together eating our sandwiches and drinking water that was no longer cold, watching delivery trucks speeding down the highway. It struck me then that what we were doing, pedaling alongside traffic on our matching red Schwinn Excelsiors, was not the smartest thing we could have done. We could have ridden several times around the neighborhood, or to the restaurant. We could have ridden to the breakwater, hiked out to the lighthouse, maybe jumped into the lake to cool off. After finishing our lunch, Nicholas and I agreed to head back to Sheboygan. We had pedaled almost all the way to Plymouth. When I would see my friends and tell them the story, I decided, I would say that we pedaled to Plymouth and back. That was simpler. I do not remember calling out the miles on the return trip, or yelling into the wind when one of us reached twenty miles an hour. It was mid-afternoon when we got home. Mama and Papa were at the restaurant. We never told them about our cycling adventure.
When I finish the story, Thea’s eyes are closed. Behind her, the sun is making its descent. I release the brake on her wheelchair, turn her around, and head back to the car. I am helping her into her seat when she asks if we can make a stop at the restaurant.
I know that Thea does not want to eat. Even the smell of food might upset her stomach. But it has been a long time, and I imagine she wants just to see the place again, to sit at a vacant table with a cup of tea, watching the waitresses scurrying around with their trays, watching the young busboys clearing and wiping down tables, listening to conversations, surprising Leander. It is the beginning of dinner service, and the place is about two-thirds empty. Rebecca, one of the veteran waitresses, recognizes Thea and me and hurries over to greet us. She shows us to a table against the wall with a good view of the entire dining area. I order tea and water. I never used to drink tea, but Thea cannot tolerate anything stronger – so I adapted, and I have found that I actually enjoy a cup of chamomile in the afternoon. I ask Rebecca to let Leander know that we are here. A minute later, our son appears.
I didn’t know you were coming. I would have done…something.
Thea makes a little dismissive handwave. Your father drove me to the lighthouse. It was my idea to make it a date.
Leander pulls up a chair. I can’t stay out here long. I’m training a new cook. I don’t want to leave him alone for more than a few minutes.
I tell Leander that we just wanted to see the place and say hello, that he need not entertain us. This outing is already occupying more time than anything Thea and I have done outside the house in months. I can see that she is getting fatigued, but I will not be the one to dictate when the visit is over.
We sit there for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Each of the waitresses come by to say a few encouraging words to Thea. All of the diners at this hour know Thea and me, and they stop by to tell us that they are saying prayers for Thea, that she looks healthy, that she needs to stay strong, that God has a plan, that Thea and I are missed but the restaurant is in good hands. I appreciate the thoughts, and I believe they are sincere. But I do not care to hear in particular about God’s plan. If our lives have been following any kind of divine plan, I certainly cannot discern it. Thea tells me, finally, that she is ready to go home.
A few weeks ago, Doctor Powers stopped referring to palliative care and began talking about end-of-life care. I know that Thea detected the shift just as I did, although neither of us spoke about it at the time. Now, he is suggesting that we look at hospice care as an option.
It can be in-patient care, he tells us. There are good facilities, here and in Milwaukee. Or we can look at in-home care, if that makes you more comfortable. It can be a blessing for the caregiver. Dr. Powers looks at me as if he wants me to concur with him, or to make the decision for my wife.
We don’t need in-patient hospice care, I say. I know that, on this, Thea and I are in agreement. And before I can think about it, I add, And I’m a capable caregiver for my wife. I’m retired. I know what medicines she takes. If I need to leave the house to run an errand, my son or daughter-in-law can relieve me.
I have tried not to impose on Leander and Sarah. But they have both reminded me that they would like to be of help, and I expect that I will be leaning on them more as the weeks pass.
In late June, Tessa and the girls drive up from Elmhurst, packed for the summer. Leander and Sarah have been good about coming over when we need them, sitting with Thea while I run to the pharmacy or the grocery store, bringing her tea and crackers, helping her out of bed and into the bathroom. But having Tessa and Becky and Kat in the house with us, all the time, is a great relief. Becky spends hours sitting with her grandmother, sometimes reading to her, reading aloud even when Thea has fallen asleep. If Becky, as an adult, does not choose some kind of career as a caregiver, it will be a waste of her innate compassion and empathy. She is sixteen now and has her learner’s permit, so I give her the keys and sit in the passenger seat while she drives us around town.
In early July, Tessa takes me aside and asks if it might not be a good idea to suggest that Maggie fly home for a visit. I know what she is saying, as much as I do not want to hear it. Maggie has planned on coming in August, as she has done the last two years, but I am growing doubtful that Thea will make it that long.
I say nothing for a long moment. Tessa allows the time to pass. Finally, I ask her to call Maggie and summon her home.
The family is whole again. Maggie has flown out from Denver and had moved in with Leander and Sarah. Robert has driven up from Elmhurst and moved into the guestroom with Tessa. It is early on the morning of July 21, before dawn. Thea has had a restless night. I have been up with her several times, helping her into the bathroom, giving Thea her morphine tablets, bringing her water and crackers. She is awake now, but quiet. The house is quiet.
I’m glad everyone is here, Thea whispers.
Me too. I like having the kids around. Everyone.
We did all right, Julian. With Maggie and Tessa and Leander. Parents always worry about how their kids are going to turn out. They turned out fine. We did all right.
It was mostly you. You were their model. I was here, but it was mostly you.
Don’t say that, Julian. It was us. It was always us.
I can just make out Thea’s face in the dark. She raises her hand to her face. She is crying, I think. Suddenly, I am crying too. I am trying to suppress it, but a great sob escapes. End-of-life, I think. End of whose life? How can the end of Thea’s life not be the end of mine as well?
It’s all right to be sad, Thea says after we both compose ourselves. But don’t be sad forever. There were things we wanted to do together. You can still do them. Do them with Maggie or Tessa or Leander. Do them with Becky or Kat. Do you know how happy it would make Becky to see Greece with her grandpa?
Greece. I can’t think about Greece.
I’m not saying to think about it now, Julian. But you’ll want to go back. You’ll want to see Farsala again. Don’t close yourself off. Promise me.
I wake Tessa and Robert and the girls. I call Leander and tell him to come to the house, and to bring Sarah and Maggie. It is not yet six o’clock in the morning. The sun is just now making its appearance over the eastern horizon, over our beautiful, wild Lake Michigan. The house is ordinarily quiet at this hour, but today it is a hive of activity. Everyone has crowded into our bedroom. Robert and Leander have brought in kitchen chairs and positioned them against the wall, but no one seems interested in sitting. Thea periodically opens her eyes, surveys the family, closes her eyes. She does not appear to be in any pain. I am sitting on the bed, holding my wife’s hand. Tessa and Maggie and Leander are all bedside.
Maggie takes her mother’s hand, looks around the room. I’m remembering the time Dad brought Tessa and me to the hospital when Leander was born, Maggie says. It’s one of my earliest memories, but I definitely remember it. Tessa wasn’t yet two, and I don’t think she knew exactly what it meant that we were going to be coming home with a baby brother. Mom was in bed with little Leander, and Tessa was trying to poke at him, I guess to see if he was a real baby or maybe a doll. Mom was telling us all the things that a big sister had to be responsible for, and how she was going to need a lot of help with the new baby, and all the things that a little brother was going to need. Then one of the nurses came into the room and took Leander and put him in the bassinette and wheeled him off, and Tessa started crying hysterically. I think she must have thought that she had done something bad and now the hospital was taking our baby brother away. Dad picked up Tessa and held her and whispered something to her, and she finally was quiet. And it was two or three days later when we took Leander home.
So the morning passes, with everyone sharing stories. There are no tears. Thea smiles occasionally. I hold Thea’s hand, more tightly than I should. I cannot let go.