The Resurrection of Tess Blessing Page 15

Of course, she does.

  Her gammy had given her the St. Nicholas medal. “He’s the patron saint of children. He’ll watch over you and Birdie when I can’t,” she’d told her as she placed it around her neck. Tess had never taken the medal off until she tossed it into the sewer with the half-dollar on the long-ago morning her faith had been buried. A garbage can its headstone.

  When the impact of holding the St. Nick medal fully sinks in, a now-terrified Tess leaps off the couch, and dashes through the dining room straight into the kitchen. She yanks her puffy parka off the ladder-back chair and makes haste for the convent’s backdoor.

  The sisters and I block her way. “You reap what you sow,” I say as I produce a baby carrot out of thin air. “Once you plant the seed, you can’t see it growing beneath the dirt, you just have faith that it is, right?” I hold up the medal in my other hand. “You think you could—”

  “Cut it out!” she hollers.

  I remind her, ever so calmly, “You know in your heart that faith is the Big Kahuna.”

  Sister Hope grins at vastly overweight Sister Faith, taps an imaginary cigar, and says, like Groucho, “I’ll second that motion, little lady.”

  How Low Can You Go?

  Tess is in the midst of a full-blown anxiety attack, one of the worst she’s had in a long time. She can’t go home until she pulls herself together. She can’t let Henry see her like this.

  She rips out of the convent lot and takes the scenic route through Ruby Falls. “Calm down…calm down. Breathe,” she’s telling herself as she passes the town park with the white band shell and stone bridge that arches over the river. The playground is empty, the swings pushed by the wind, but the ducks are out in force, chasing after the crackers a mom and a toddler are tossing into the water while the dad snaps pictures. Tessie’s family had once done the same every Saturday morning, only Haddie was the one with the camera in her hands.

  After my friend makes it through the rest of downtown, she drives west to the wide-open spaces off of County Road C.

  What the hell were you doing with those nuns? Louise asks. Have you finally gone completely insane?

  Tess has already come up with a few rationalizations that could explain the appearance of the sisters and me. She’s juggling an enormous amount of stress, something’s bound to slip, right? She had seen me around St. Mary’s a number of times and I remind her of Calpurnia and that had dredged up some better-off-forgotten childhood memories and she had dissociated from reality. That’s all. Yes. She’s pretty sure that Dr. Drake would agree with that diagnosis. He’d done a few emergency phone sessions with her in the past when a crisis had arisen. She’d call him the moment she got home.

  Dr. Drake: How nice to hear from you.

  Tess: You may eat those words in a few minutes.

  Dr. Drake: What’s going on?

  Tess: I’ve got breast cancer. My daughter is anorexic and bulimic. My son is treating me like I’m something nasty stuck on the bottom of his shoe. My sister won’t speak to me. And I think my husband is screwing around.

  Dr. Drake: I’m sorry to hear that.

  Tess: And I…I’m seeing things. A woman.

  Dr. Drake: Hmmm…are you taking any medications?

  Tess: No.

  Dr. Drake: Does this woman have a name?

  Tess: Grace.

  Dr. Drake: Have there been others?

  Tess: Just a couple of nuns.

  Dr. Drake: (Very long pause) Perhaps a visit to the office is in order. How does tomorrow morning sound? Take the earliest train available.

  As she passes by the Neumeyer farm she comes up with another possible explanation for what she’d experienced. What if she’d driven over to St. Lucy’s to talk to Father Joe about achieving the religious epiphany (number seven) on her new To-Do List and then…then she’d hit her head on something, grew disoriented, and wandered into the convent? No, she can’t convince herself of that. Father Joe is almost senile and doesn’t have much to offer in the way of spiritual enlightenment these days, besides, she doesn’t even believe in his brand of religion anymore.

  There had to be another reason she went to the church grounds this afternoon. Ah, yes. She’d spent time yesterday sorting through Haddie’s and Henry’s outgrown winter jackets, and filled a bag to donate to St. Lucy’s Coats for Kids drive. Before she could drop them off, her lack of sleep, and the sound of the windshield wipers whooshing away must’ve caused her to drift off in the church parking lot and she had a hell of a dream. She checks her rearview mirror to see if the black bag is still in her backseat. She touches it to make sure it’s real.

  Her brain, unable to allow one stone to be unturned in its blistering quest to keep her safe, has her thinking now that it could also be a simple case of poisoning that had caused her to hallucinate or imagine me, the sisters, and our Hawaii-inspired home. What had she eaten or drunk today? She’d used that McDonald’s gift certificate Will had stuck in her Christmas stocking on a hot cocoa. The drive-thru girl did look ticked off, and like she wouldn’t think twice about poisoning one of her customers to make a point.

  Tess pulls up alongside Jackson Marsh and parks. She loves this place. Especially in the fall when the surrounding woods are aflame with color. She and Garbo come to walk the wood-chipped path that circles the pond that’s frozen now. Snow-covered reeds are bent at their waists in supplication. Thankfully, the marsh is doing its job to calm and center her. Her breathing is slowing down. Until she spots the lone mallard swimming in a small pool of open water.

  “Will,” she cries.

  Ducks mate for life.

  When Tess finally returns home, she finds her husband hunched over the kitchen table, polishing off a triple-decker club sandwich. She hangs up her puffy parka and removes her boots in the mud room, scratches behind Garbo’s ears, then reaches into the treat jar above the washer and gives her companion a grand helping of Milk-Bones.

  “Where’ve you been?” Will calls through a mouthful of food. “I was getting worried.”

  See how he lost his appetite from all that worrying?

  “Sorry,” Tess tells him with a yawn that would further convince herself of the falling asleep in the car idea versus the poisoning idea she’d considered to explain her break with reality. Especially since she remembered as she turned down Chestnut Street that the McDonald’s drive-thru girl was one Haddie had gone to school with, and really, how likely was it that Trisha Wells could get hold of curare in Ruby Falls?

  You can get just about anything off the Internet, know-it-all Louise says. Ask Otto.

  “The consultation took longer than expected,” Tess tells Will when she comes into the kitchen. “Is Henry home?”

  He takes another bite of his sandwich and points down to the basement. “What did Rob say?”

  “That he loved the rumaki last night.”

  “I meant…when did he schedule your surgery?” he asks with a grin that’s trying to look less sickly than it is.

  Thank the Lord that she’s the one who’s ill and not him. For Will, a stubbed toe is a major incident; he once insisted on going to the emergency room to have a wart removed. If he was the one about to have an operation…. Tess imagines a few nights before the surgery to remove his colon cancer, which would be the worst kind for him to get. (Being a regular fella is quite important to Will.) She would feel his hand shaking her awake. This cancer is making me parched, he’d whine. Can you get me a glass of milk? And a piece of German chocolate cake?

  “Earth to wife,” Wills says. He throws in a little static sound. “We need a status update.”

  Tess digs around in her lucky purse, removes the surgery appointment card, and hands it to him.

  “February 13th. That’s next week,” he says.

  This makes Tess feel like he thinks she’s too stupid to notice the date that something life-ending will be sloshing her way. “No shit, Sherlock,” she says snotty.

  Dr. Drake’s breathing exercises that she’d attempted to summon
forth on the drive home from the convent hadn’t worked, so Tess shuts her eyes and tries something else to put a cork in her anger. Visualization. Someplace peaceful. Water works best. She brings to mind the shores of Waikiki…no, that only reminds her of me and the sisters and lepers…ah…the south of France…Côte d’Azur…hold on, that won’t work either, that makes Tess recall her honeymoon. Lake Michigan looms, but she vanquishes it straight off because it’s bringing up her failure to save her drowning daddy, and number six on her new To-Do List—the disposing of Louise’s ashes. The Atlantic Ocean reminds her of Birdie in Boca Raton. There has to be a body of water that will calm her to the point that she’ll no longer wish to rip Will’s face off. Ahhh…there we go. The river that meanders through Ruby Falls is now wending its way through her cerebral cortex.

  Slightly calmer, Tess tells her husband with an apologetic shrug, “Sorry. Tough day. Could you make me a cuppa?”

  Always happy to run from a conversation, especially a heated one, Will puts the kettle on and searches the cupboard for one of her special cups. She’s watching him from the old pine table. Did he make tea for Connie after today’s shift? Does she have a special cup? Or maybe it isn’t Connie that he’s spending Wednesday nights with. Maybe it’s pharmacist Margaret Mary Holden. She has long blond hair too, like the ones she finds on Will’s shirt, and she always seems a mite too thrilled to fill the family’s prescriptions. And it wasn’t like Will hadn’t been to Boomer’s Drugs recently. She found an empty box of Grecian Formula in the bathroom trash basket. She’ll try to get a whiff of Margaret Mary the next time she pays a visit to the drug store to see if she wears Tabu.

  Will delivers the tea and says, “Do you want to come down later? It’s Tuesday.” Luau night at the diner had been Tess’s idea. “Maybe that would take your mind off things.” He glances down at the appointment card.

  If she’s in the right kind of mood, Tess enjoys watching the customers get silly during the weekly re-creation of the Hawaiian parties that harken back to the fifties. Thing is, she isn’t in the right kind of mood. She’s feeling abandoned by the man who she wishes would understand that she couldn’t receive a death sentence a few hours ago and get a kick out of watching folks dancing the limbo tonight while bystanders shout, “How low can you go?”

  She closes her fingers around the appointment card’s sharp edges until they bite into her skin because new pain can sometimes erase old pain. “No, thanks,” she tells him. “I want to eat with Henry and catch a movie.”

  She shoves her chair back and opens the basement door behind her. The video game her son is playing—Doom—is booming so she’s forced to holler, “What do you want for supper?” This is somewhat of a rhetorical question. She knows it will be either pepperoni pizza or scrambled cheese eggs, and bacon, of course, goes with anything.

  Haddie has begun the transition to independence, but Tess is concerned about what will become of Henry when she dies. He’s smart and sensitive, but stubborn, qualities that she knows will not become gifts until he learns how to put them to good use. Will spends so many hours at the diner, and when he is around, he only seems to connect with his son when they’re playing golf, watching a ball game, or tinkering with the Chevy.

  Her hubby grabs his keys off the hook above the kitchen desk. “I’ve gotta stop at the party store. A couple of the grass skirts need to be replaced.” He pecks her cheek. “Love you,” he says before he closes the backdoor behind him.

  Those two little words used to mean something to Tess, but lately they sound like the patter he passes out to the customers. “Thanks for your business. Have a nice day. Love you.”

  Henry shouts his order up from the basement, “I want p.p.” (Pepperoni pizza.)

  How will he remember me when I’m gone? Tess wonders. As a devoted mother, or the chunky woman who was only useful when he needed dough?

  She slides the pizza into the oven, sets the timer, and steadies herself. The pepperoni reminded her of nipples and she suddenly feels the urge to hunt down the culprit that might end her life, the same way Rob Whaley had.

  She mutters to herself, “Why should he have all the fun?” as she steps into the guest bathroom off the kitchen. She lifts her sweatshirt and bra, and explores her right breast with her fingertips until she finds the growth about an inch right of her nipple. Down deep. Like one of those sneaky sea creatures that blends into the bottom of the ocean until they explode through the water to snatch the life away from some unsuspecting crab. She isn’t surprised that she didn’t find it during one of her monthly shower exams, which she has to admit—since cancer didn’t run in the family—she performs with about as much care as she does flossing. She wouldn’t have even known there was something wrong if she hadn’t had that stupid routine mammogram. Why had she gone looking for trouble? She should’ve waited until she saw tumors popping out of her chest to make an appointment with her gynecologist, who prides herself on her direct approach to women’s healthcare. Wow, Tess, Dr. Sheila would say when she ran her hands over her patient’s Braille bosom. I wouldn’t buy any magazine subscriptions, if I were you.

  Henry races up the basement stairs, and with a ticked-off tone shouts through the bathroom door, “Haddie’s right. You are going deaf. Can’t you hear the timer goin’ off?”

  Tess calls, “Be right out.”

  Henry is waiting for her next to the stove, drumming his fingers on his special plate, the one with the rotund cartoon Italian man dressed in chef’s gear. She nudges the pizza out of the oven and cuts him three pieces. “After you’re done, how about a movie?” she says. “I heard a lot of good things about this new one at the Oriental Theatre.”

  “Can’t.” He grabs a Mountain Dew out of the fridge. “I’m in the middle of a level.” He stops half-way down the basement steps and shouts back, “Oh, yeah. Haddie called when you were out today.”

  Her daughter rarely phoned, and when she did, it was Will she spoke to first and in length. When it was Tess’s turn to talk, she was careful to skirt the eating issue because it made her girl feel like she was giving her the third degree instead of caring for her so deeply, so she would barrage her with other questions like, “Are you enjoying your classes? How’s Drew? Shoot any great pictures lately?” Haddie would invariably reply, “Ask Dad. Gotta run.”

  Tess wonders briefly if Patience got too chatty with someone in Ruby Falls, or maybe Rob Whaley told his wife and she let it accidentally slip to their daughter, Mandy, who called her ex-teammate to sympathize. Why else would Haddie be calling if it wasn’t to confront her with the cancer? Could she have been in an accident?

  Rushing to the den phone, Tess punches in the oft-used numbers that’ve begun to look more like hieroglyphs. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier, honey. Henry just gave me your message. Everything okay?” she says after her daughter picks up.

  “No big deal. Just wanted tell you that they have a new therapist at school. Dr. Chandler. She’s an eating disorder specialist. I’ve still got a long way to go, so don’t get excited and think that I’m all better, but…,” Haddie sounds both proud and scared, “I ate some french fries today, Mom, and they’re still in my stomach.”

  She doesn’t trust herself to reply. She can feel the tears coming and Haddie can’t stand it when she cries. Any suggestion that her mother is a mere mortal is confusing. So instead of bawling, and showering her daughter with compliments as is her nature, she snorts back her tears and says, “Good job. That’s a step in the right direction, honey.”

  But the moment my Tess replaces the phone back in its cradle?

  What a crybaby.

  A Few Words on the Brink of Death

  During the days leading up to the surgery, Tess acted the same way she usually does. Like she was under surveillance and she was the one doing the surveilling. She traveled from Olsen’s Market to the post office and to the Horizons Home, so the old folks could coo and fuss over Garbo the way they do every Wednesday afternoon. She waitressed. Mar
e Hanson was in with some breaking news. Her bladder cancer was in remission. “Until it comes back,” she’d said with a snarl. “I’m sick of all this healthy crap. Get me some fries, a Blessing burger with extra cheddar and fried onions.” Tess gave her the order on the house because she was glad that her pissy attitude had returned, no matter how short-lived.

  Richie, her ALS customer, stopped in on his regular day as well. For this visit, Tess drummed up an old joke that had been a favorite of her father’s. The one about the Lone Ranger and Tonto getting into a fuss with a tribe of war-painted Comanches. Clearly outnumbered, the masked man assures his faithful companion, “Don’t give up. We can beat these Injuns,” and Tonto looks over at him and says, “What do you mean we, kemosabe?” But when Tess stopped by the table to lay the joke on Richie, she saw that he had worsened. So instead of kidding around with him, she set down his malt and rubbed his shoulders, which she wouldn’t have if she’d known it would make his wife hide her eyes in her napkin.

  She also stepped up the e-mails to her medical transcriptionist sister:

  “Dear Birdie,

  For sure, I have cancer. You better come. You’re going to feel guilty if I die on the operating table. You’ll probably develop a phobia about dead sisters or breast cancer that could affect your work and cut into your bottom line. How will you pay your rent? Or buy witch hazel and Q-tips?

  Love,

  Tessie”

  The night before the surgery, Tess raps on Henry’s bedroom door.

  “Yeah?”

  Garbo and I are already sitting together on the edge of his bed on top of a navy-and-white checked bedspread that Tess covers in kisses when it comes out of the dryer. Shoes are littering the floor and laundry is scattered everywhere. He’s added a new poster to his wall alongside the cowboy and poker-playing Phils. It’s one of Mr. Hefner’s Playmates. The glass aquarium that holds the current incarnation of Snakey sits atop the white dresser alongside a boom box playing Phish at an indecent level. Tess wonders if it might be the vibrations of the jam music that are killing the reptiles off, which she could completely understand. With a start, she realizes that she’d been so scared about the impending surgery that she’d forgotten to check on Snakey Nine the last few days. She reminds herself to come back later with her flashlight once Henry’s asleep. If the snake is no longer alive, she’ll push the creature into the back of the plastic cave and sneak in and remove him in the morning when he’s showering. After Will drops her off at the hospital, she’ll insist that he head straight to the Pet Palace to buy another so by the time her boy gets home from school tomorrow, all will be right with his world again.