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Authors: Cathy Lamb

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BOOK: A Different Kind of Normal
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“Both men later touched the cross, heart, and star charms around the necks of Faith and Grace with reverence and love.” Grandma Violet patted her heart. “One would add a clover to the mix for luck, the other would add a treasure chest, for prosperity.” She gave each of us a hug, then tipped our chins up so she had our full attention. “That’s what you have to wait for in your life, dear grandchildren. A spouse who loves you beyond love, a person of goodness and character, courage, and honesty. A wife, a husband, who sees you for the treasures you all are.”
Thinking of that story, in my four-poster bed, orange spice tea in hand, I sighed happily, my hand to the cross, heart, and star charms on my necklace. I had found that same love with Ethan, yes indeed, I had.
 
I took Tate to play chess with Maggie.
They chatted and laughed. He beat her, spared her not at all.
She seemed frail, but she said, “Bishop Tate, I will now challenge you to a duel.”
To which Tate grabbed two white chocolate chip cookies on her counter, intoned, “
En garde,
Maggie Shoes!” and they dueled with the cookies until they turned into crumbs.
“Yum, Maggie Shoes. These are delicious. Can I have six more?”
“Take all you want, Tate.”
Her roses are sticks in her yard. The leaves are brown.
They have no more color.
 
“What have you learned from being on the team, Tate?”
I dipped a banana into melted chocolate. On rainy nights it is my favorite treat. I don’t know why.
“I learned that I friggin’ love basketball and Billy and Bob like to shoot and Road Runner can see things with his x-ray vision. Too bad I can’t see girls’ panties through their clothes, that’d be a gift. I want to play ’til I’m ninety.”
Tate had already had two chocolate milk shakes, a plate of scrambled eggs with cheese, and a pile of grapes. He made me take a photo of him smiling, his lips holding five grapes in a row, for his blog when he was ready to post a photo of himself and General Noggin.
“Ninety-year-old men need something to do. It’ll keep you young.”
“And I learned about the guys on my team.”
“What have you learned, buddy?”
“You know Kendrick?”
“Yes, the guard.” Gecko kid.
“Yeah. His parents are divorced and his dad is in jail and won’t get out for ten years because he embezzled a bunch of money and he said they were sued and now his mom and him have no money.”
I had known that about the family. “I’m sorry to hear that. Kendrick’s a neat kid.”
“You know Jacob on my team? He has all that acne all over? He told me he thinks he’s the ugliest person on the planet. I said, ‘Hey, blondie,’ you know, ’cause he has that white-blond hair, I said, ‘Look at General Noggin, you think I’m a hot chick magnet or something? You think this body is getting jumped?’ and he laughed, and I said, ‘Man, I get laid all the time with this head of mine!’ ”
“Tate!” He laughed at my protest. I knew Jacob. The poor kid had those purplish-pink acne bumps. Being a teenager is soul-destroying sometimes.
“Baron, that tall kid with huge feet who doesn’t get to play that much because he can’t make baskets? He has dyslexia and thinks he’s dumb. I told him, ‘Man, you’re radical. You’re awesome at making people laugh, you’re good at being a friend,’ and he looked at me like I’d sprouted a third head, Mom. A
third
head. Bigger than General Noggin.”
“That’s because he was probably shocked at the compliment.”
“Righty you are, Boss Mom. He goes, ‘Really, Tate? You think that? You think I’m funny?’ and I said, ‘King Baron’—I called him that ’cause Baron’s a fancy name—‘you make me laugh all the time. You’re a wily comedian. You should do stand-up or something.’ And he said, ‘But I can’t write, the words get all mixed up, and I’m dumb,’ and I go, ‘You’re not dumb, you have something called dyslexia, that’s what you told me, so let’s rename it, Dreamin’ of Ecstasy, okay?’ and then he laughed and goes, ‘Okay, so I tell people I don’t have dyslexia, I have Dreamin’ of Ecstasy?’ and I said, ‘And make them call you King Baron, too.’ Then we joked the rest of the day about ecstasy.”
“Do you know what ecstasy means, Tate?”
“Yeah. It’s when I’m playing basketball, Mom. That’s ecstasy.”
“I see you understand. You’re sure getting to know those kids.”
“Yeah, I am. I think they tell me stuff they don’t tell other people because I’ve got a big head and they think that my problems are way worse than theirs.”
“And they trust you, Tate.”
“They can. My mouth is a vault. I’m telling you what they said, but someone would have to have a sword to my throat and pressing hard into my esophagus”—he used a table knife to pretend someone was stabbing him—“before I told anyone else.” He grabbed three more grapes, tossed them way up, caught two. Impressive. The third fell on the floor and rolled. He picked it up and ate it. “With this basketball team, they’re talking to me.” He picked an apple out of the fruit bowl and balanced it on his head, then balanced a second one and put four grapes between his lips. “Take a photo for my blog for when I want to introduce General Noggin.”
I took the photo. “And what about the other kids at school?”
“Now other kids are sitting with me at the cafeteria, I don’t have to go off and wait ’til everybody’s gone through the lunch line and then go quick and hide out in the corner to have lunch after most of the kids have gone so I don’t have to be a pathetic loser and sit alone. Plus, I didn’t find it fun when they lobbed their milk cartons at me or their bananas. I think they actually want to talk to me now.”
I couldn’t talk because I was all choked up. Not because of the new friends, but because of such a sad, sad picture I had in my head of my son plotting out how to eat, when to eat, where to eat, to have the least amount of embarrassment and hurt. I’d heard it before. It always hurt.
“Now I go to the cafeteria and get out my lunch sacks. I sit down at a table where maybe somebody else is sitting all alone and I say, ‘Hi, dude or dudette,’ and in thirty seconds, the whole table is all filled up and all the dudes and dudettes are talking and laughing and throwing food and stuffing grapes up their noses and making sandwich pancakes and snorting noises. Want to hear my snorting noise, Mom?” He snorted at me.
“You’re a very authentic snorting warthog choking on a hair ball.”
“Gross, Boss Mom! Yeah, we’re all snorting, and having raisin races where we see whose raisin can come closest to hitting Toby Tandem’s lunch sack and it’s fun.” He snorted again. “Toby always wins. He’s got a skill with raisins. I don’t get it. He’s a science nerd but he can throw raisins.”
“A snort-fest.”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “A snort-fest. I’m hungry. I need some Alfredo Pasta Explosion.” He batted those bright blue eyes at me pleadingly.
“You have to be kidding. You can’t still be hungry. I fed you already.”
“I am still hungry. My stomach is totally empty. I’m dying of starvation. Withering. I’ll probably be dead by morning from hunger. I can hardly think. I need more and more food.”
I kissed his cheek, and he raised up those long ol’ arms and hugged me.
“Okay. I’ll make you Alfredo Pasta Explosion.”
“Yeah. That would rock. Thanks, Mom.”
I cannot resist that child.
 
Ethan and I had many other dates. One date was for a picnic lunch with soup, salad, sandwiches, and chocolate that he brought. There is hardly anything more romantic than a man with glasses and a sweet smile carrying a picnic basket. It was winter, but it wasn’t too cold that day, the sun shining, so I brought out a pile of blankets and we settled under a towering fir tree.
“I love you, Jaden.” He cupped my face in his hands. “I have loved you for years, and I will love you forever. I want you to know that. I will love you forever, babe.”
I nodded. My lip trembled, my face scrunched up, I’m sure my nose turned red, and I made a funny sound in my throat. The tears trembled on my lashes, then fell down my face. He did not seem to mind when I had to roll over and blow my nose like a honking turtle.
For long years now I have stuffed my emotions down, stuffed the gentle, fun, romantic part of me down, so I could deal with the many responsibilities that came with Tate’s care and health and the demands of a job that were serious and complicated. I had become too toughened up, rigid in the way I lived, because I had to be, because I had to be vigilant, because I had to protect Tate, because his medical disasters were life and death. It had kicked all frivolity, all lightness, out of my life.
I didn’t want to be tough or rigid with Ethan, ever. I wanted the frivolity of love, the lightness of life.
I put my hand behind Ethan’s head and pulled him closer, the warmth of his body heating me from head to foot, the warmth of his love heating up a heart that had always been hopeful, but way too alone, way too lonely, for way too long. “I love you, too, Ethan.”
We piled three blankets on top of us and made love.
I tried to keep it down. It was hard to keep the noise in. I do believe I startled a blue jay.
Ethan is extremely talented at carnal activities, especially when under a pile of blankets, under a fir tree, the winter sun shining.
16
F
or our next meeting, Dirk brought his attorneys, Ralph Tol-loway and Nigel Pinkerton. They were expensive people from a prominent firm. I was pleased at their expense.
Dirk’s hair was slicked back, expensive designer suit buttoned up tight. His suit was a reflection of him: controlling. I’ll bet the Porsche was waiting for him. He probably masturbated in that car. Yuck.
Our attorney, Sandra Torelli with the oversized teeth, sat next to me at the conference table at the hospital. Dr. Baharri was there again, as was Sydney, and a few hospital administrators and other doctors who had been involved with Mr. Hassells, Senior’s care.
When Dirk walked in, throwing the door open as if making an impressive entrance, Sydney whispered soooo unprofessionally, “Ta-da! The egomaniacal hero with a short man’s complex on the white horse has charged in!”
Dr. Baharri said, “I will need to meditate extra long tonight.”
Sandra said, not quietly, “It’s a question of white wine or red tonight. Maybe both. I shall mix them together.”
We had the usual settling-in sorts of conversation, with Dirk huffing and puffing, the outraged son, I had killed his father, medical care was poor, what about all that morphine forced down his father’s throat, etc. He kept staring at me, his eyes wandering down my front, ticked off that I hadn’t plopped my head in his lap when I met him. My blood boiled to the point that I was surprised my skin didn’t fall off.
But we had a killer witness, mark my words.
Who?
Beatrice.
Mr. Hassells, Senior’s loving, caring daughter and Dirk’s sister.
She’d heard about the lawsuit, called me, then Sandra, who had eagerly invited her to come.
Sandra flashed those teeth, the teeth that seem to shine before she goes in for the kill, and said, “Dirk, I’m going to get one more person in here to give us another perspective, if you don’t mind.” She opened the door to the conference room, and Beatrice walked in.
Beatrice had lost forty pounds since her father died. It was the first time she didn’t seem exhausted. Her hair was brushed, she wore makeup. She had greeted me with a hug in the hallway, a kiss on my cheek, and said, “Don’t worry, Jaden. Dirk has an asshole for a brain.”
Sandra asked Beatrice questions and gave her time to be completely honest, at length. Some of what she said:
“Jaden was at my father’s house all the time. She offered my dad, my kids, and me care, comfort, and friendship. In my years of working with medical people, and I had to work with them with my mother’s illness, my ex-husband’s heart attack, and two friends’ bouts with cancer, I found Jaden to be the most competent of all medical personnel.” She leaned toward Dr. Baharri. “No offense, Dr. Baharri. You’re in second place, but Jaden was with us all the time.”
Dr. Baharri smiled and nodded his head. “No offense. It is an honor to be second place to Miss Bruxelle.”
Beatrice also detailed how Dirk never did anything to help with his father or his care, and only rarely came to visit his father until he met me. “He started to bring his ‘too busy’ self on over after he saw Jaden and began pestering her to sleep with him and ‘ride him like his Porsche,’ that’s a direct quote from my brother.”
“That’s a lie!” Dirk said, flushed and seething.
“Only truths, please,” Ralph the attorney intoned.
“My client disputes her claim,” Nigel said. He peeked at his cell phone.
“It is not a lie,” Beatrice said, chin up. “You accused Jaden of killing Dad, and I will tell the truth to defend her.”
“You’re going to defend our father’s murderer?” Dirk shot me a malevolent glance. It said,
If you had hooked up with me, this wouldn’t be happening.
“Shut up, asshole brain,” Beatrice said mildly. “Jaden didn’t kill him. The liver cancer killed him.”
“Let’s be kind, stick to the facts,” Nigel the attorney interjected. He seemed bored.
“Beatrice wasn’t in there one night, sometimes she was out with her bratty kids, and that’s”—Dirk paused—“that’s when it happened.”
“When what happened?” Sandra asked. Teeth flashed.
“When Jaden poured that morphine into my dad. If she hadn’t overdosed him, my father would have had more time.”
Sydney said, “False.”
“The last time you came to see Dad was a month before he died, Dirk,” Beatrice said.
“But I know she used the morphine the same way many more times! Pouring it down him!”
“Again, you are wrong. You are wrong often, aren’t you, Mr. Hassells?” Dr. Baharri said, smooth as silk. “Jaden did not overdose your father. Let me tell you once again about liver cancer and your father’s medical history.” He went off on another medical lecture while Dirk squirmed.
“You have to understand me, Dirk Hassells,” Dirk tried again, interrupting Dr. Baharri. “I don’t want more trouble.”
“What do you want?” Sandra asked.
“I want an apology from her.” He stabbed a fat finger at me, then leaned back, arms crossed on his chest. “You, Jaden. A nice apology, too. Where you tell me you did wrong and ask for my forgiveness and tell me you’re willing to start over and you mean it. A few tears wouldn’t hurt.”
Sydney flung her head back, hands in the air, her braids swinging, as if searching for divine intervention. “Not in my lifetime on this planet.”
“I will not allow that,” Dr. Baharri said. “As she did nothing wrong.”
“You will have to wait forever for that, Dirk,” I said. Gall, he was obsessed with me and bringing me down, smashing me, controlling me. “It will not happen.”
“And I want a payout for the early death of my father, who was my best friend, and because of poor treatment and poor care and poor bandages and a hospice nurse who would not do as she was told to do to help me, I mean to help my dad, and to tend to my needs as a grieving son, same as she did for Beatrice, which is part of her job to help
all
the members of the family!” He banged his hand again.
Beatrice laughed.
“How come you’re not supporting me, Beatrice?” he semi-shouted.
“Because you’re a liar.”
“I am not. I will never speak to you again after this, Beatrice.”
“My relationship with you was over years ago, Dirk. You just didn’t know it because you’re wrapped up tight in your narcissistic self.”
Nigel said, and I knew that he knew there was no case here, but he is a slimy slick lawyer and Dirk was paying him, “We feel our client needs to be compensated for the preventable death of his father, incompetent medical care, medical malpractice.”
“Shouldn’t have happened,” Ralph droned. He needed to earn his outrageous fees. “The father had more time. Payment for lack of companionship is due.”
“You’re as likely to get that money as I am to grow a lemon tree in Antarctica,” Sandra said, smiling.
“And along with the money I want her”—Dirk stabbed a finger at me again; his ego had taken such a hit when I’d turned him down—“to acknowledge that she over-morphined my dad and to say she’s sorry to me personally, she and I, in a room alone, sorry, that’s what she has to do. A profuse sorry. On her knees, sorry.”
“I will not do that,” I said. “I especially will never be in a room alone with you on my knees. The image disgusts me. I provided excellent care to your father. I’m sorry that you’re pissed off that I didn’t want to sleep with you, but you are a vomitous creature with slits for eyes and slobber constantly on your mouth and a forest of hair growing out of your ears and you are egotistical, boring, and have a personality disorder so I wasn’t interested at all. My rejection of you doesn’t mean you are justified in bringing a false lawsuit against me.”
Dirk’s mouth gaped open and shut.
Nigel said, “Let’s not be brutal, Miss Bruxelle.”
Ralph said, “I think that was rather mean.”
Dirk stood up, shaking, “I don’t have to sit and take this shit anymore. Come on, Nigel, come on, Ralph. Jaden Bruxelle, I will see you and your sorry, tight, thin ass and those weird blue and green eyes of yours in court, and you will regret crossing me, you’ll regret being such a snit and a snob and a snit and you will get on your knees and give me a . . . a sorry! On your knees!”
Dirk lumbered out, ran into a chair, and tried to shove it out of the way. It got caught on another chair and he had to push that one out of the way, too, and the first one fell on his foot. I laughed out loud. Beatrice laughed louder than me.
The expensive attorneys stood up and, after saying good-bye to us, have a pleasant day, thanks for your time, no vindictiveness or anger in their voices, they followed Dirk.
They were there for Dirk’s money.
What did they care?
 
The next day was tough, too. Not all deaths are fair, we all know that. When my patients are over seventy, I honestly feel that they had a fair shot at life. Seventy years. That’s a long time. Not long enough, but a gift.
And often I have patients in hospice care who have run themselves into the ground. They’re smokers, drinkers, obese, addicts or ex-addicts, with sedentary lives, junk food diets, etc. They didn’t need to die so young, but they do because of consistent and unbelievably poor lifestyle choices.
But sometimes I am caring for younger people. In their twenties, thirties, forties . . . most are married or have partners. Many have children. They lived healthy yet, for some inexplicable reason, death came knocking.
It was a young one I lost today, and his wife’s wailing, the young daughter’s sobbing, the son who ran to hide in the closet with a stuffed purple giraffe his dad gave him . . . it was still in my head. Unfair. Not right. It was as if death made a mistake, took the wrong corner and hit the wrong house, the wrong person.
Several days before the young father died, of a disease no one could predict he would have, he held my hand and said, “Thank you, Jaden. You made this easier for me.”
I had to eat a dozen red cinnamon Gummi Bears after that and cry in my greenhouse under my Chinese lanterns and hanging lavender.
Some people, emotionally, are ready to die for whatever reason. Maybe they’re old and grateful for the time they’ve had. Maybe they’ve had it with being critically ill. Maybe they’ve grieved for the life they’re losing but have reached some sort of philosophical, religious, or spiritual peace.
But others are anxious, panicked, depressed, regretful, grieving, angry, and confused. The treatment they received previously has worn them out, physically and emotionally. They are not accepting of their deaths. They will fight for their lives until the last millisecond, usually because of their children. They are “not ready.” They’re leaving a first grader with an interest in cheetahs or an eighth grader who is headed off the tracks, behaviorally speaking, and nothing can make them ready.
The ending of their life is unfair, and they know it. We all know it.
Death is not always fair or right. I’ve stopped asking why not.
Sometimes my patients seem to be getting better, a surge of energy, they finally eat a full meal one night, they sit up, even walk around, laugh and talk, and their bodies shut down overnight.
Sometimes patients won’t die until they get permission from family to go; other times they seem to wait until everyone is out of the room, as if they can’t get their death done with relatives crying over them. Patients have also waited, in semiconscious or unconscious states, for relatives to arrive. I’ve seen that happen many, many times, with family members saying, “Grandpa, Beth will be here in six hours, can you wait?” Within an hour of Beth being there, Grandpa starts to shut down.
It is different for each person.
As everyone’s life is different, too.
Thank you, Jaden. You made this easier for me.
I make the journey easier. That’s what I do.
It does not stop the tears, though, shed in my greenhouse or rocking chair, staring out at the fields, the roses and red poppies, the herb and vegetable gardens in summer, the columns of maple trees down the drive, the same scenes that generations of women in my family have stared at, as they rode the joys and sorrows of life, tears coursing down their cheeks, too.
 
Tate’s team won their next game by twenty-two points.
They were on a winning streak, and it revitalized our town.
During the next game, Tate passed the ball off even more than usual. All the players scored. In fact two kids scored who never did so. Both made four points.
Coach called time-out in the fourth quarter and pulled Tate to him. I knew what he was telling him. We all did: Quit passing, let’s make some points, we’re down by five.
So, Tate shot. And shot. And shot. When we were ahead by eight with one minute to go, Tate started passing the ball off again. In the last seconds, he passed it off to Baron, the one with the problem with dyslexia who thinks he’s stupid and who doesn’t get to play much.
BOOK: A Different Kind of Normal
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