Lightning (33 page)

Alex was exhausted then, and they had to take a taxi home. It was obvious that she couldn't go a step further, and he even had to help her to her bedroom. Her joints were aching, and she was too exhausted to go another step without assistance.

“Is Mommy all right?” Annabelle asked worriedly, and he nodded, torn between sympathy for his wife, and anger over the anxiety she caused their daughter with her illness.

“She's fine,” he said firmly.

“Will she be all right when we're in Florida?”

“She'll be perfect. Carmen will be here to take care of her.” She found his answers very reassuring, and later Alex got up to pack Annabelle's suitcase. It was fun packing all her little things, but suddenly, as she did, Alex felt a wave of panic come over her. What if a day came when she could no longer take care of her, and Annabelle had to go to live with Sam? What if she lost her, too? Just thinking of it made her feel ill again, and as she sat down, her whole body was shaking. She forced herself to get up again after that, and finish packing the suitcase. She was not going to let anything like that happen, she was not going to lose her to Sam, or that woman. Fearing that made her stay up for dinner with them that night, although she was truly exhausted after all the efforts of Christmas. But she had dinner with them, and then went to bed, and slept until her alarm went off in the morning.

She helped Annabelle dress, and reminded her to have a good time, and call when she felt like it, and swim, and have a great time with Daddy. And then she pulled her close to her, and held her as though she were afraid she might never see her again. Sensing her mother's panic, Annabelle started to cry when she left her, and they clung to each other for a long time. Annabelle knew how much her mother loved her, and instinctively felt how alone she was.

“I love you,” Alex called, with tears in her eyes, as they got in the elevator, and Sam looked at her with the familiar annoyance, as Annabelle cried softly.

“She'll be fine,” he reminded Annabelle again as they went down in the elevator with their bags, angry that he even had to reassure her. Alex had no business clinging to her and scaring her the way she did. It brought back all the same feelings of resentment he'd had since October, and ever since his own mother had died years before. For Sam it was a relief to get away from her. Just being around her was depressing, no matter how hard she tried.

They got in a cab for La Guardia, and by die time they were gone, Alex was standing alone in her bedroom, feeling lost without them. She had seen more of Sam in the last two days than she'd seen of him in the past month, and in some ways it had been pleasant, but in others it was very painful. It was like forcing herself to look at something she could no longer have, and reminding herself of all the reasons why she had loved it. Even after he had hurt her so much and failed her so badly, she still had to remind herself to stop loving him now. Caring about him was destructive and having seen him with the English girl, she knew there was no point hanging on. It was a relief now that he was gone.

After a little while, she washed the breakfast dishes and made Annabelle's bed. Carmen was not coming in. Without Annabelle, Alex had said she didn't need any help, and she had given her the day off. Alex wandered aimlessly around the apartment, and finally went to her bathroom to take a shower. She was trying to talk herself into getting dressed, and going out for a walk, so she wouldn't feel so lonely. But even thinking of it reminded her of seeing Sam with the English girl only three days before. And suddenly she didn't want to. She wanted to go back to bed, and sleep all day. She had nothing to do anyway, since she wasn't going in to the office. But a certain Spartan spirit told her to at least take a shower and get dressed. And to that end, she pulled off her wig, and happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The last of her hair had just come out, and she was suddenly completely bald, without a single hair on her head. The last of it lay in the wig she dropped on her sink, and as she took off her dressing gown, and slipped her nightgown off, she suddenly stood staring at herself, and realized how she must look to Sam. She was bald, she was scarred. The missing breast was a slab of white flesh now, with a narrow pink scar and no nipple. She didn't even look like a man. She was even less than that. She looked like a nothing, like a mannequin, with no hair and one breast, the kind that you find lying disassembled on the floor in department stores on the day that they change the windows.

She started to cry as she saw herself, and realized that not only Sam was gone but Annabelle. She had already lost her husband, and eventually she might lose her daughter. It was as though she were being stripped of everything she had ever been or loved or wanted. The only thing left to her was her work, and she couldn't even do that the way she had once done it. She was like a broken bird, limping to earth, stripped, and dying. She felt ugly, useless, and sick. She almost wondered if it wouldn't be easier to die, to just give up now, before she lost even more than she already had. Why wait until the rest was taken from her? Until Sam told her he wanted a divorce so he could marry that girl, and Annabelle fell in love with her. Why wait for them to kill her? Or leave her all alone.

She just stood crying, staring at herself, and in the distance, she heard the phone, but she didn't bother to answer. Her stomach revolted finally from all the anguish of her illness and her realizations, and naked, she knelt on the floor and began vomiting, and eventually there was only retching. It was all too familiar now. It was what she had become, a broken machine that could only spew bile. There was nothing left of her. And when it was over, she lay on the floor and cried until finally, she went back to bed, just as she was, and lay curled under the covers. She ate nothing all day, and Sam and Annabelle never called. They were too busy having fun at Disney World. They had moved on, toward life, in a world of sunshine, while she lay alone in the dark shadows of her own winter. She lay crying in the dark, until the emptiness in her stomach made her sick again, and she went back to the bathroom. It was an endless day of vomiting and tears, and always the bald ghost she saw in the mirror. She didn't even bother to turn the lights on, but still she saw her.

And then the phone rang again late that afternoon, but she still didn't bother to answer. She was too sick, too tired, too crazy, too willing to die, even to reach out to anyone who would call her. Annabelle didn't need her now. She had Sam. No one needed her. She was nothing. No one. Not even a woman.

The phone rang incessantly, as she lay in her bed, in tears wishing it would stop ringing, but it just wouldn't. She reached out finally, and picked it up, without speaking.

“Hello?”

She knew the voice, but she wasn't thinking clearly.

“Hello, Alex?” the voice repeated.

“Yes.” Her voice sounded vague and disjointed. “Who is this?”

“It's Brock Stevens.” It didn't sound like her, and he wondered if she had gotten a lot sicker, or gone back for additional treatment.

“Hi, Brock.” Her voice sounded dead, and he was worried. “Where are you?” She sounded as though she didn't care, but she knew she had to say something.

“I'm in Connecticut, with friends. I wanted to ask you about Vermont again. I'm going up tomorrow.” She smiled. He was sweet. But he was also very stupid. She was dying. Why did he need a dying friend? It was a waste of time to help her.

“I can't make it. I have work to do.”

“No one's going to work this week, and we caught up on everything.”

“Okay,” she smiled weakly, overpowered by nausea again. Not eating earlier had made her sicker and she knew it. “I'm a liar. But I can't go anyway.”

“Is your little girl there?” he asked, unwilling to let her off the hook without a fight. He wanted her to go with him. He thought it would do her good, and Liz had agreed with him when he asked her. Alex needed to get away, and the fresh air would be healthy for her as long as she didn't overdo it.

“Annabelle's in Florida,” she answered his question. “And Sam's probably with his girlfriend,” she threw in for good measure. She was a little giddy from lack of food and water.

“Did he tell you that?” He sounded annoyed when he asked her. He thought her husband was a complete jerk, and he didn't deserve her. But even as a friend, he felt he couldn't say that.

“I saw them together, the day before Christmas Eve. She's very young, and
very
pretty.” She sounded almost drunk, and Brock got suddenly even more worried about her. “And I'm sure she has two of everything. Sam hates anything that isn't perfect.”

“Alex, are you okay?” he asked, glancing at his watch, and wondering how long it would take him to get into the city to see her. Or he could call Liz, and she could go over. He was contemplating doing one or the other. He didn't like the way she sounded, especially since she was alone. There was always the possibility that in light of her present state of mind, she might do something crazy.

“I'm fine,” she said, lying very still with her eyes closed, so she wouldn't vomit. “The rest of my hair fell out today. It looks a lot neater.”

“Why don't you just rest for a while. I'll give you a call in about an hour. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said sleepily. She hung up and forgot about him. She wanted to forget everything. Maybe if she just starved herself for six days until Annabelle came home, she'd be dead when they found her. It was a lot easier than dying by chemo. She drifted off to sleep, and a little while later, she heard an alarm, or a bell, or a sound. She tried to ignore it for a long time, and then she realized it was her doorbell. She couldn't imagine who it was, and she tried to ignore it some more, but it wouldn't stop. And then someone started pounding on the door, so she put her dressing gown on, and went to the door and looked through the peephole. It was Brock Stevens. She was so surprised, she opened it and they stood staring at each other, she in her beige cashmere robe and he in a heavy sweater and parka, corduroy pants, and heavy boots. There was a smell of fresh air about him, and he looked very worried when he saw her.

“I was worried sick about you,” he said as she stood there.

“Why?” She looked a little vague and she was weaving, but he knew her well enough to know she hadn't been drinking. She was just very sick and probably hadn't eaten. She stepped aside to let him in and he followed her into the living room, and then she saw herself in the mirror and realized she hadn't put on her wig. “Shit,” she said, and looked up at him like a little kid, “there goes that.”

“You look like Sinead O'Connor, only better.”

“I can't sing.”

“Neither can I,” he said, still looking at her, thinking that she really looked like Audrey Hepburn. She was even beautiful without her hair, it was so simple and so unadorned. All the beauty of her face stood out like some exquisite being from another world. There was a luminousness to her that never failed to touch him. “What happened?” he asked her. It was obvious that something had. It was as though she were trying to let go and die. And she was. But even over the phone, he had sensed it.

“I don't know. I saw myself in the mirror this morning, and Annabelle was gone, and I was sick again …it's just too much to fight anymore …Sam and his other woman …it's all such a mess. It's just too much trouble,” she said honestly, and he looked angry.

“So you gave up. Is that it?” He was shouting at her, and she looked startled.

“I have a right to make my own choices,” she said sadly.

“Do you? You have a little girl, and even if you didn't have her, you have an obligation to yourself, not to mention the people who love you. You need to fight this, Alex. It won't go away for a while. It's not going to be easy. But you can't just lie here and die, because it's ‘too much trouble.' ”

“Why not?” she said, sounding strangely disassociated from everything. Even him.

“Because I say so. Have you eaten today?” he asked, sounding savage. And not surprisingly, she shook her head in answer. “Go put some clothes on. I'll make something to eat.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“I don't care. I'm not going to listen to this bullshit.” He grabbed her shoulders then, and shook her gently. “I don't give a damn what anyone has done to you, or what you think about your life right now. Stripped down to bare bones, with one breast or two, and bald as an eagle, you have an obligation to fight for your life, Alex Parker. For you. For yourself. For no one else. It's a precious commodity. And the rest of us need you. But when you look in the mirror, and you don't like what you see, you remember that that woman is you. All the trappings mean nothing. You are exactly who you were before all this happened. If anything, you're more, not less. Don't forget that.” She was in awe of him as he stood there, lecturing her, and without a sound, she walked to her bathroom. She took off her dressing gown and turned on the shower, and then she stood there for a long time, looking into the mirror, and she saw the same woman she had seen there that morning, the same broken bird, the woman with the scar where her breast had been, the woman with no hair, but as she looked at her, she knew that he was right. Not for Annabelle, not for Sam, not for him, or anyone, she had to fight. For herself, for what she had been, and could be, and always would be. She could lose a breast and her hair, but she couldn't lose herself. Sam couldn't take that away from her. She cried softly then, thinking of what Brock had just taught her, and she turned on the shower, and let it run across her head and down her shoulders, and in warm sheets across her body.

She put jeans and a sweater on, and the short wig she had left on the sink that morning, after she shook her own hair out of it. And then she walked into the kitchen barefoot.

“You don't have to wear a wig for me,” he smiled, “unless it makes you feel better.”

“I feel weird without it,” she admitted.

He had made scrambled eggs and toast and fried potatoes. The potatoes were too much for her, but she struggled with the toast and the scrambled eggs, and managed to eat a little. But she didn't want to push her luck and spend the rest of the night sick in the bathroom. Her stomach was a disaster but she suspected that for once Sam was right, and it was due to emotions.