Barefoot (53 page)
Authors: Elin Hilderbrand
She woke up in pain. Hideous pain, straight from the fire pits of hell. She woke up screaming.
A nurse gave her a shot in the arm. “Morphine booster,” she said. “You have Duramorph going into your spine as well.”
Still, Vicki screamed. She thought she might feel elation or at least a deep relief at finding herself alive; she had, somehow, made it through the granite tunnel. But as miraculous as that seemed to her intellect, it was impossible to process because of the pain. With the pain, there was only one thought
.
And therein lay the irony: The surgery that had saved her life made her wish that she were dead.
It lasted an eternity. There was a blur of activity: people, machines, procedures—but none of it translated. Vicki, who hated to call attention to herself, especially in a public place, among strangers, screamed for hours. Vicki, who liked to be in control at all times, was not only screaming and howling like an animal, but begging, too.
Help me! Help me! Dear God, please help me!
And then, quiet. Dark. A soft beeping. A dark face hovering above hers. A nurse.
I’m Juanita,
she said.
How are you feeling?
Vicki was sore in some places, numb in others. Her throat was killing her. Her mouth was dry, her lips cracked. She was thirsty. Juanita put a straw to her mouth. The water was cold, as cold as the ice water with paper-thin slices of lemon that Brenda had put by her bedside all summer. Vicki started to cry. The water tasted so good. The summer had been so beautiful, despite everything. She was alive.
Vicki does not want to frighten anyone in the group, but she can’t bring herself to candy-coat things, either. The recovery was long, it was hard (Vicki means to use the word
horrible,
but she stops herself at
hard
). She had seven million stitches through all the muscles she needed to get anything done. With every cough, every sneeze, every laugh or exclamation, she felt stabbing pain along the miles of her incision. She felt like she was going to break open, burst apart. If the cancer had hurt, and made breathing hard, it was nothing compared to how she hurt now, to how she labored for air. Vicki only had one lung remaining. Even feeding herself, even taking a shower, even reading a picture book wiped her out. She couldn’t stand to be awake, and so she slept for great portions of the day. Morphine gave way to Percocet and Percocet to Advil. Vicki went through fifty Advil a week. And still, the pain. For weeks, Ted carried her up and down the stairs. Friends and neighbors brought meals, they sent cards, books, flowers; she heard them whispering,
How is she? What else can we do?
They took Blaine and Porter for playdates. Ellen Lyndon had to go back to Philadelphia at the end of the month. Brenda came two days a week, but the rest of the time she was busy working as a manager at Barnes & Noble and trying to sell her screenplay to a studio that would actually produce it. Brenda’s life, in essence, was busy and back on track, which was great news for her, but Vicki still needed help.
Don’t leave!
Vicki’s voice had returned, like magic she could speak again and she was amazed by this restoration, relieved at how the words she held in her mind flowed right out into the world—but everything she said was negative, unpleasant, confrontational. When Ted suggested hiring a live-in nanny, Vicki said,
I don’t want a stranger taking care of my children. I only want Josh.
To which Ted snapped,
Well, I doubt Josh is available.
After six weeks, Vicki went in for her postoperative scan. Dr. Garcia said the pictures looked “clean.” Vicki appeared to be “cancer-free.” Ted bought champagne. Vicki drank some from a Dixie cup, but that night Porter howled from his crib and the next day he broke out in red spots. Chicken pox, contracted on one of the playdates. Ted took the week off from work. Vicki cursed herself for not being able to deal with it. She couldn’t do
anything
—she couldn’t care for Porter, she couldn’t go to the grocery store, she couldn’t trick-or-treat with the kids, she couldn’t plan a baby shower for Melanie. She was still in such pain, her faculties were compromised. Her body had been invaded. She had been sliced open and stitched back together like a rag doll. Part of her incision became infected. There was an unusually severe soreness, a smell, redness, and an oozing pus. She ran a fever. Dr. Garcia prescribed antibiotics.
Vicki felt empty, and she imagined her chest cavity as literally empty. She imagined that, along with the cancer, Dr. Jason Emery had removed her capacity for getting things done, her good luck, and her happiness. She went to physical therapy; she went back to the psychotherapist.
She was better, yes. She was cancer-free, cured, a survivor. But she wasn’t herself—and what was the point of getting better if her essential Vicki-ness had been lost? All her life, things had come easily. Now, the only thing that came easily was lying in bed and watching TV. She became addicted to the soap opera
Love Another Day
and hated herself for it.
“Recovery is a long, tough road,” Vicki tells the group. “But in my case it was a road with an end.”
Somehow, she pulled herself up. In spite of her deep despair, the lingering pain, the adjusted expectations, or perhaps because of them, she got better. It might have started with something little—a note came from Dr. Alcott, Ted made a joke and she laughed without splitting open, she had enough stamina to stand at the counter and make a sandwich. She followed her therapist’s advice and built on these minor successes rather than dismissing them.
Now look at her: Five months later, she is here, in the circle, head bowed for closing prayer. She has changed. She is cancer-free, yes, but the change is something else, something more elusive, harder to pinpoint. She has been on a journey, and the place she finds herself now is the place she hopes everyone else in this circle will arrive. It is a place of wonder. It is a place of enormous gratitude.
You don’t believe in a greater plan?
Josh had asked her.
Vicki’s answer—still—is
I don’t know
. Some people in the circle will die, some will live. Who’s to say which will happen, or why?
I want to throw her back. I want to let her live.
Could it all be just that random?
Vicki recalls the night she stood on Sankaty Bluff, with the waves pounding the beach below her and the embarrassing riches of the night sky above.
Everything matters. Every little thing.
“Amen,” Dolores says.
The closing prayer is over. Vicki has missed it. Or has she?
This book marks a new beginning for me. I would like to thank my agent, Michael Carlisle, for his wise counsel; he has been with me every step of the way. Also, David Forrer, for his canny suggestions, which resulted in a better book all the way around. I thank Jennifer Weis and Sally Richardson for sticking with me through seven years and five books; they are both extraordinary women. At Little, Brown, I would like to thank Reagan Arthur and Michael Pietsch for taking me on with such enthusiasm, as well as Oliver Haslegrave for his gallant assistance. I feel like I have been born anew.
Thank you to Dr. William G. Porter, who is not only a friend and a discerning reader/critic, but an oncologist. We talked extensively about lung cancer and its various treatments. Any inaccuracies in the text, however, are mine alone. Thank you to Dr. Jason Lamb, thoracic surgeon, who briefed me on the pertinent details of a pneumonectomy. And thank you to my aunt, Ruthann Hall, who is a cancer survivor. Her details of chemotherapy and its mental / emotional/physical side effects were both inspiring and helpful.
One of the beating hearts of this novel is the parenting of small children. I am blessed to have a close-knit circle of friends on Nantucket who are rearing young families right alongside of me. My friend Debbie calls it “the village.” My friend Liz calls it “the squad.” So thank you to said village/squad for your support and your friendship: Amanda and Richard Congdon, Elizabeth and Beau Almodobar, Rebecca and John Bartlett, Debbie and Jamey Bennett, Leslie and Tom Bresette, Betty and Rhett Dupont, Renee and Joe Gamberoni, Anne and Whitney Gifford, Sally and Brooks Hall, Wendy and Randy Hudson, Wendy Rouillard and Illya Kagan, and Marty and Holly McGowan.
I could not have written a word of this novel without the steadfast kindness and rock-solid care that our au pair, Suphawan “Za” Intafa, provided to my three children. Thank you, Za. You will never know how much I appreciate your help.
Thank you, Dan Bowling, for giving Nantucket a shot in the summer of 2004. I exonerate you from all comparisons to Josh Flynn, except that you will always be a favorite with my boys.
As for Chip, Max, Dawson, and Shelby Cunningham, my family: When I wake up each morning, I marvel at how lucky I am. Everything, always, is for you.
Elin Hilderbrand has lived on Nantucket for fourteen years. She has written about the island in
Barefoot
and her five previous novels not only because it is her home but also because it provides a rich ecological and historical background for her characters. Hilderbrand is married to hotel manager Chip Cunningham, and they have three young children. Ms. Hilderbrand is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, but has traveled extensively on six continents. Her dream is to someday spend her winters in Fremantle, Australia.
Copyright © 2007 by Elin Hilderbrand
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group USA
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at
www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com
First eBook Edition: July 2007
ISBN: 0-316-00724-2
1. Female friendship — Fiction. 2. Escape (Psychology) —Fiction. 3. Vacations — Fiction. 4. Summer — Fiction.5. Nantucket Island (Mass.) — Fiction. I. Title.
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