The Pirate Queen (18 page)

“I thought I was dreaming.” Bender’s voice startled Saphora.

“Bender, you’re up.”

He lay stretched out on the sofa. “I wake up most every night. The same drug that puts me to sleep startles me awake. I hate nights because of it. I heard a noise. I turned off my light to see outside. You were going through the neighbor’s gate.”

“It’s only Luke.”

“Oh. What’s on your hands?”

“Helping him dig a hole.” She put her hands behind her, even though she had nothing to hide.

“Lunar gardening, I guess,” he said.

“I don’t know much about him. I’m sure he’s affected by his wife’s death. Why do you look so strange?” By that she meant it was as if he were looking at her for the first time.

“I’m admiring my wife. Is that all right?”

She was still flush from digging.

“Jim says I should watch so I don’t get eaten up with regret. Seize every minute, he says. Try to make your wishes come true.”

“Like what?”

“Every cancer patient makes a wish. I wish I’d done more for you.”

“You’re tired.”

“If I had, instead of you traipsing through the neighbor’s fence for companionship, you’d have come to me.”

His epiphany should have made her feel flattered or justified. But he was only annoying her. “Luke’s not my outlet for companionship, Bender.”

There was a silence during which neither Saphora nor Bender engaged for about a minute. It was exactly the kind of minute that married people usually used to gather up ammunition so they could lob words like Eddie’s knight hurled magic goo at the dragon. But Saphora only wished for something between them besides tension.

She moved closer to get a better look at him. He had used the walker, obviously. It was beside the couch. His head lay against the sofa pillow. His eyes closed, like one of his animals shot down in the Serengeti. Saphora helped him settle more comfortably. “Let me help you.” She took him by the shoulders and helped position him into a reclining position, his head falling into the sofa cushion. She covered
him with the afghan. He was snoring so fast she thought he was kidding around. It was an attractive quality; it made him like everyone else.

The only way she could fall asleep was to bend their rule and take a sleeping pill. Sherry was right down the hall anyway. So she did and slipped away into that deep nonawareness that comes with prescription sleep aids.

The next morning Sherry had to wake her and bring her strong coffee.

Saphora did not bother to change out of what she had slept in before coming downstairs. She found Eddie at work on a bowl of oatmeal. Sherry was coaxing him. “Throw raspberries into it,” she said, “for vitamins.”

Saphora poured her own juice and sat across from Eddie. She could see the top of Luke’s fence beyond the tree house. Whether or not he had returned to digging holes, she didn’t know. Bender’s words and the fact that he was sitting and waiting for her to return from Luke’s place made her feel as if she had betrayed her husband. Even if that was not exactly it, Bender had stirred up a mixture of emotions that deflated her.

“Where’s Dr. Warren?” she asked Sherry.

“I’ll see about him,” said Sherry. She had not been gone a half minute when she came out, wide-eyed. “Miss Saphora, you’d best come.”

In the seconds it took her to cross the kitchen into the library, she could only think of how Bender was so close to opening up to her the night before and how she could have responded differently. But she
had lived most of her married life between guilt and regret. When she followed Sherry into the room, she found Bender sitting on the side of the hospital bed. He looked frail. His arms were thinner since beginning the chemo. He buried his face in his hands. On his pillow lay all of his blond curls, downy as if a goose had nested there overnight.

Sherry told him, “I’ll take care of all that, Dr. Warren. I’ll put it all in a bag and get you a clean pillowcase.” She was trying not to cry, but her voice broke. “I’m sorry, Miss Saphora. I’ll pull myself together.”

While Sherry went for cleanup materials, Saphora stood stunned at the sight of Bender without hair. She tried to comfort him. “We knew this was coming. You know bald heads are back,” she said. “All of the young men shave their heads now.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “You don’t have to think of the right things to say.” He had lost every bit of his hair. His eyebrows, even his lashes lay like kitten hairs on the pillow.

She offered him coffee.

“Just hot tea is all,” he said.

She went into the kitchen, where Sherry rummaged through a drawer for a plastic bag. She was wiping her eyes over finding Dr. Warren in such a state. “This is so sad, Miss Saphora. I can’t believe this is happening.”

“We can’t do him any good falling apart,” said Saphora. She took the kettle off the burner and poured hot water into the teapot he had brought home one winter from Austria. It was the color of the Austrian sky, he had told Saphora. Now it was the color of her mood.

“It’s just so hard to watch him lose a little more of himself every day.”

“You gather up his hair, and I’ll bring him his tea.”

Saphora was about to break open, and Sherry must have realized
it. She grabbed on to Saphora, and the two of them stood there with Dr. Warren’s tea brewing while they held on to one another. There was no script for what to do next.

“What do I do with his hair?” asked Sherry.

“Take it out to the trash bin in back of the house so he’ll forget about it.”

“You think he’ll forget about it?”

“Just get it out of his sight.”

Sherry drew back her shoulders like she was about to go in and clobber Dr. Warren’s cancer. She walked into the room, holding out the plastic bag and not showing that she had been crying.

Eddie came up behind his grandmother. He wrapped his arms around her and said, “Sherry was crying, Nana. I saw her. Is it Papa? Is he dying?”

“Eddie, don’t think like that.”

“Can I go in to see him?”

“Good idea. Get the breakfast tray and put some of those berries on a plate. Maybe he’ll eat for you,” she said. A minute later she pulled the bags from the tea and put the pot on the tray Eddie had found.

Eddie led the way, Sherry opening the door for him. “Papa, eat,” said Eddie. When he saw his grandpa’s slick head, he glanced down at the floor but kept walking toward him, carrying breakfast.

“Eddie’s brought you fruit, Bender. What do you say?” asked Saphora.

“I’ll try, Eddie.”

Sherry cleared away the lost hair from his pillow. Saphora replaced the pillowcase while Eddie wobbled around like a little Pinocchio, balancing the breakfast tray on the end table.

“What do you think about Papa’s new hairstyle?” asked Bender.

“Very cool,” said Eddie, barely above a whisper.

Saphora watched Eddie, his forced smile, the way he stood awkwardly in front of Bender. She had seen Turner stand in a similar manner. He could put on such a show for his friends, but in front of Bender he quietly stood as if under an obligatory spell, awaiting his father’s dispensation. Bender did not dole out compliments regularly.

“Dr. Warren, you want something else?” asked Sherry. “A sandwich? Or I could make a breakfast pizza.”

Bender’s hand trembled as he lifted the spoon to his mouth. “I didn’t hold down the last pizza,” he said. “Better feed me like you would a helpless baby.” He dropped the berries back into the dish.

Self-pity did not look good on him. It took only a glance from him for Saphora to realize that he wanted Eddie taken out of the room before he broke down.

“Eddie, I think you should go into the tree house and straighten it up,” she said. “Tobias could visit and it’s a mess.”

Eddie walked out quickly and Sherry followed.

Saphora said to Bender, “Gwennie’s coming today. You should try and shower, put forth your best foot, all that.” She felt her lip quivering, so she bit it until it nearly bled.

“Today’s Friday? How did I lose a day?” He lay back onto his pillow. The rims of his eyes were outlined in the color of Eddie’s raspberries. “I don’t want Gwennie seeing me helpless. It’ll kill her. Help me into the shower, Saphora.”

“I’ll get the water ready. You come along on the walker. It’s good practice,” she said.

She got the water misting up the stall like a steam room. Bender made it as far as the door, but then he stopped as if his soul hovered
between the ceiling and the floor. Saphora helped him to the shower. “It can’t help your equilibrium to lie down all day. Try and stay up,” she said.

“I feel weak. Good Lord, am I dying already?”

“Dizziness is just a symptom of, you know, drugs and all.” She was grasping for an explanation. He shouldn’t see her afraid. “Here’s what I’ll do.” She helped him undress as she said, “I’ll help you clean up.” She pulled off his shirt.

“That’s the best news I’ve had all day.” He hobbled into the shower.

“You hold on while I scrub,” she said.

He let her take over. Then he smiled and looked younger doing it. “Here I look like an old man and you’re as youthful as the day I married you,” he said.

He had not told her she looked young in so long he surprised the wits out of her. She joined a gym years ago, but he never said he noticed when she firmed up or, busy with running after the kids, had to let herself go.

She poured soap into a loofah. “This is rough. Maybe too rough. If your skin is too sensitive, I can use something else.”

His skin did look thin, like the skin of a premature baby. Saphora half expected to see his heart beating through his chest. He used both hands to brace himself against the tile. “It’s fine.” Then came the tears, coming over the rim of his emotions like a waterfall. Bender had not been a man to cry, so it was painful to see him letting go. But strangely comforting, as if he were turning into a mortal in plain sight of her. Maybe the Bender of the Serengeti was never a real person after all.

11

The last thing Gwennie told Saphora was not to pick her up from the airport Friday afternoon. She wanted to drive in and have time to think, she said. She was one of those girls who thrived in isolation. That was why she could spend hours poring over court records or writing up a dissertation as if the whole world waited expectantly for her to release it.

But knowing that Gwennie planned to arrive at two fifteen left Saphora with too much time to pace and watch out the front windows. She cleaned up the formal living room and then the guest room so that she could work with the blinds fully opened to the front drive. A car pulled into the drive, and her heart nearly stuck in her throat.

“What are you cleaning for, Miss Saphora? I cleaned those rooms yesterday,” said Sherry.

“I think Gwennie’s here,” she said.