Page 65 of How to Walk Away

The scarf they were making me knit was terrible. I thought I’d picked a stormy-sky blue, but it turned out to be just plain gray. It looked like a mutant slug with tumors.

“We’ll make some pom-poms for it,” Kit said. “No problem.”

The truth is, some parts of my personality came back to me fairly quickly. I still found human beings—and conversation—to be the best possible distraction. When I had somebody to talk to, I focused on the talking, and compulsively joked around, bantered, and chatted. Those moments felt—if notgood,at least better than usual.

But there were lots and lots of quiet, lost, nebulous moments when I felt the opposite of good. I don’t want to leave them out. Most were like that, in fact. Everything that happened—every PT session, or sponge bath, or viewing ofAuntie Mame—was set against a background of just trying to keep my head up. The minute I was alone, or the second I saw something on TV that reminded me of the life I’d left behind, or the moment I came awake each morning and remembered where I was, the grayness would rush back in. The rule, not the exception.

***

ONE AFTERNOON, DURINGthe lull between PT and dinner that I had come to regard as a sacred napping period, I had an unexpected visitor. Chip’s mom, Evelyn.

She arrived while I was sleeping, and noisily scooted the visitor chair around until I opened my eyes.

“Oh,” she said, “were you sleeping?”

She knew I was. “Yes.”

“You seem surprised to see me.”

I was. I hadn’t seen anyone outside a very small inner circle since I’d been in here. On purpose. “I have a no-visitors policy.”

“I told them I was your mother-in-law. To-be.”

“Guess that worked.”

She hadn’t seen me since the ER. “You look much better.” Her words were kind, but her eyes were critical as she took me in. The way she was studying me made my face start itching. She went on, “Except for those scabs on your neck, and—oh, God!” She’d caught a glimpse of my skin grafts. She looked away and tried to regroup.

“Did they have to shave your head?” she asked after a while, like of course the answer would be yes.

“No,” I said. “It’s just a pixie cut.”

“I’m sure it’ll grow out again soon.”

“I’m going to keep it this way. I like it.”

“Oh, don’t!” she said. Then, “It’s a little masculine.”

“I think it’s cool.”

“I’m sure you’ll change your mind once you’re back to your old self.”

Chip’s mother was a lot like my mother. Overly put-together. Overly focused on how things looked instead of how things felt. Overly hard on both herself and others, but too gracious to say it in polite conversation.

Still, sometimes it leaked out in funny ways.

I’d known her long enough to know what she was thinking. She and my mother played tennis together, and got pedicures together, and had a genuine friendship that they each treasured. They’d lived next door to each other for ten years, and in that time I don’t think they’d ever had a disagreement. It was a remarkable coincidence that two such women should wind up neighbors. They shared the same thoughts on almost everything, and the principal gist of every conversation was to validate each other’s worldview. What are the odds?

Of course they were rooting for Chip and me. Of course they wanted us all to be just one big, happy family.

Which is why I didn’t see it coming when she frowned, pulled her chair a little closer, and said, “I want to talk to you about Chip.”

It was funny to hear his name. He had started showering again, I noticed at his last visit, which felt like progress. He’d also sent several flower arrangements, and even though I’d left instructions for all flowers to besent down to the children’s wing, the ones from him managed to make it through.

My mother liked to arrange and rearrange them on the windowsill.

He was making an effort. I had to give him that.

“He seems better,” I said to Evelyn. “He’s showering again, I think.”

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