Page 6 of Tear Me Apart
The surgery is estimated to take just under an hour. They are in an impersonal, yellow-walled room with brown couches covered in industrial-strength faux leather, the kind that looks like it will withstand a knife attack or a pack of rabid dogs.
Lauren can’t sit. How can she sit? Her daughter is anesthetized, effectively dead, having a metal rod screwed into the fragile bones of her leg. Jasper doesn’t seem nearly as concerned. After looking up the doctor and seeing that he is the number one orthopod for local skiers and sanctioned by the Vail Ski Club, he’s settled in, drinking coffee and making phone calls, updating friends to Mindy’s status, talking to her coach, Steve Hakuri, who is stuck on the mountain in the blizzard, waiting to find out if they are going to keep running the race when the storm clears. The speaker is on so Lauren can hear both ends of Jasper’s conversation—Steve seems to think they are going to call the whole event, which means Mindy will still have the overall lead, and almost more importantly, enough World Cup points to qualify for the Olympic team.
Lauren doesn’t know if they’ll get that lucky. Jasper gives her achin-upmotion from five feet away. The room—the disgusting yellow-and-brown room—is small, but she doesn’t think she’s ever felt farther away from him than she does right now.
There is a chasm. It has been widening all day. As if this is her fault. As if Lauren is the one who’s flung her child down the mountain and slammed her into a flag, snapping her leg in two.
He might say that. It is true, in a sense. Lauren has pushed Mindy. But she wanted to be pushed. She is naturally driven. Naturally talented. She likes the workouts, the running, the weights, the yoga to keep her young body supple and mind clear, the ultra-clean food. And she loves the mountain. It is her favorite place to be, leaning into that hill, feeling the wind whip past, defying gravity, space, time. Truly, Mindy loves it more than she loves them.
Lauren does her best not to be jealous. She doesn’t want to lose Mindy to her life’s joy. She wants to be a part of it, to participate, to support and help. To push, when needed.
The way Mindy describes skiing, it is holy, sacred. A sacrament between her and the gods who created the mountain in the first place. Lauren and Jasper love to ski, but the connection Mindy has with the snow and ice is corporeal. Anyone who watches her knows this. She’s meant to be a skier.
Lauren can’t help the thought:What are we going to do if this ends her career?
She watches Jasper, wondering how he can be so cheerful. She knows he’s trying to keep her spirits up—he’s naturally a happy kind of guy—an eternal optimist. They’ve been married for a long time now, almost eighteen years of ups and downs, of Mindy’s crazy training schedules, late nights and early mornings, homeschooling, tutors, days spent cold and frozen at the bottom of too many mountains, sleeping rough on transatlantic flights, and through it all, he has been a wonderful father and husband.
She resents his forced cheer, which is completely unfair. The stress of the day is catching up to her. There’s only so much coffee can do. They need real food, real rest.
Her Apple watch shows she’s paced two miles before the doctor finally comes out, his face drawn and tired. He is a large man, balding, with small round glasses like a schoolteacher of old. He radiates intelligence and warmth. She trusts him immediately.
But when he says, “Mom, Dad,” Lauren can’t help being annoyed. Why won’t they use their names? Why must they be reduced to the roles of parents instead of being acknowledged as people, living, breathing human beings?
Regardless, they gather at his feet, supplicants.
“We’ve put her back together, and she’s going to be just fine. We’ll have to watch carefully for infection, but we’ve loaded her up with all the best antibiotics. One concern is I don’t know that she’s done growing, so there may be some surgeries in the future to lengthen this bone to match her right side, but that’s something we’ll know more about later on.”
“This is good, though, right? She’ll heal and be able to ski again?” Jasper’s face lights up with hope. Lauren still feels no relief. There is something else. Something is coming.
“Sure thing. It looked pretty bad, but once I got in there and cleaned things up, turns out it was a good break, no splintering, no leftover shards of bone. Her leg’s in a halo, which looks pretty gruesome, but that’s only to keep things stable while the wound heals. Crutches for six weeks, minimum, and lots of rehab, but she’ll come out of it okay.” The frown deepens, the lines of his forehead collapsing in on themselves so he looks like a Shar-Pei puppy. “There is one complication.”
When he says this, another doctor enters the room, as if he’s been waiting in the wings for his cue. Spotlight, stage right, please, and follow.
Lauren resists that urge to say,I told you so. Instead, her muscles tighten.
“This is Dr. Oliver. He’s with oncology.”
“Oncology? What?” Jasper grabs Lauren’s hand. He is crushing her bones, and she wants to pull away, but she clings as hard as he, and at the doctor’s next words, the world bottoms out around them.
3
There are so many words Lauren doesn’t understand. But somewhere in them, a bone-deep terror starts. She ignores the terminology, the foreign, frightening words, and focuses on the face of the doctor as he explains their new normal.
Their daughter has cancer.
Leukemia.
She needs immediate treatment.
Jasper asks all the right questions. He is still holding on to Lauren’s hand, but she gets the sense she is the one holding him upright.
She lets them talk until she can’t stand it anymore.
“How could we not have known she was sick?” she blurts.
The doctor smiles kindly, perfectly square Chiclet teeth that are surely veneers shining in the fluorescent light. “A very good question, Mom. We—”
“Lauren.”
