the doll cemetary

On Sundays Grandee used to come, making the drive all the way out from the city. Each and every Sunday it was practically the same, she would arrive and have lunch with Nola and her parents and then right afterwards she would take Nola to the cemetery. Nola’s parents never went with them, not once. As soon as everyone had finished eating Kate would make herself busy clearing the table and doing the dishes while Graham muttered something about having a few things to take care of and headed off to his study. Grandee would sit at the table and announce loudly that she was heading off to the cemetery and taking Nola with her if anyone else was interested in coming. But no one ever was.

Grandee said over and over again that it was important someone from the family look after things at Ethan’s grave. She would often say to Nola, “Promise me that when I’m gone, when I’m there with your grandfather and our sweet Ethan, promise me Nola that you will come here and take care of us, will you do that for your old Grandee?” Nola always vowed she would, and Grandee would pronounce her a good girl.

The cemetery was barely half a mile from the house, on Ramsey Road, the same main road their little street was off of. It was a small graveyard, not much more than four acres. Once there had been a church next to it, and if you went into the woods at the back of the property beyond the last row of headstones you could see the old stone foundation, the granite slab steps leading to nothing more now than a patch of scrub oaks and young birch saplings surrounded by the stacked stones that once supported the church floor. “It must have been a small congregation,” Nola’s grandmother would often muse. “Not like the great cathedrals of Manhattan.”

During nice weather Nola and her grandmother would walk to the graveyard pulling an old Radio Flyer wagon full of gardening supplies and the flowers that Grandee always brought with her, week after week. On a few especially nice days when the weather was just right they’d even skip lunch with Kate and Graham and pack sandwiches instead, eating them picnic style on the grass beside Ethan’s grave while Grandee would talk to him like he could hear her. She’d tell him all about some cookies she’d baked that were his favorite, or about some boys she’d seen playing games in the park that were about his age and how she knows they would have been, “great friends.” Often Grandee would tell Ethan about Nola, about her accomplishments at school or how pretty she looked. She would try and get Nola to talk to him too, but Nola would find herself strangely tongue-tied there in front of her grandmother. Grandee would always say, “no matter, your sister’s just shy, but she loves you dearly, know that sweet Ethan.”

On holidays Grandee would bring special things to leave there, like a heart balloon for Valentine’s Day, flags for Fourth of July, a bunny statue for Easter, or a colorful paper turkey for Thanksgiving. On Christmas Grandee paid the cemetery staff to put a blanket of evergreens over Ethan’s grave. Even in the dead of winter she and Nola would make the trip to the cemetery, only they’d just go by car instead. If it was especially bitter or snowing out Grandee would make Nola stay in the car with the heat on. Nola would watch her grandmother through the foggy windshield as she dusted the snow off the headstone, bowing her head and quickly making the sign of the cross, that’s what she called it. Then Grandee would stand there a few moments, perfectly still, head bowed, eyes closed, lips moving. Nola asked her once what she was talking about to Ethan when she did that and Grandee answered snippily, “I’m not talking to your brother, child, I’m praying, which you’d know how to do if that mother of yours ever sent you to Sunday School.”

Nola’s parents didn’t believe in God. Her father said he went to confession and mass every week until he was seventeen. Then his father, Granda, Grandee’s husband, said it was up to him. He never set foot in a church again. When Ethan was born Grandee told Nola that she begged her parents to have him baptized but “sadly they’d have none of it.”

But when Ethan died, when he was in the hospital before they turned off the machines, Grandee said she brought in a priest to give the last rites; that’s what they do if you are going to die so you can get into heaven, she’d told Nola. Grandee said, “So now sweet Ethan is our angel, he’s with his heavenly father and the Holy Mother will take care of him until it’s our time to join him, God willing.” Nola had asked her once what would make God unwilling, but for some reason Grandee got mad and told her, “that’s a question you should ask your heathen father, that is.”

Even when Grandee was mad, though, Nola liked the way she talked. In fact sometimes she even sounded better when she was flustered or angry. Grandee had what her mother called an Irish brogue, an musical accent from when she was raised in Ireland. The lilt of her phrasing made everything sound magical and believable, you would accept anything she said as inscrutable truth. When Nola was with Grandee she almost could believe there was a God and that Ethan was with Him, looking down on them all.

At Christmas time once a year Grandee was allowed to take Nola to the local Catholic church for a special service. They had a life-size creche set up in front of the chapel and everyone would stop and look at the figures before going inside. Nola could imagine that the baby Jesus was Ethan, being watched over by Mary and Joseph. She told her grandmother that once and it made her cry. Nola never knew when something she said about Ethan was going to make someone cry or smile, it was very hard to predict.

When she was very little and still played with dolls Nola would pretend that different ones were Ethan and that she was his mommy. Then he would get very sick or fall off of something really high up, and he'd die. Nola would pretend to cry and be very sad, sometimes she did it so well that she shed real tears and everything. After that she would carefully put the dead doll in a box and place little toys and trinkets all around it and slide it reverently under her bed. She would never take it out after that because once you were dead that was it, you couldn’t play anymore, you were stuck in the ground and couldn’t come out ever again, forever and ever.

Once when her mother found several of the dolls all boxed up in their pretend coffins, Nola had to tell her why they were all there under the bed and not in her doll basket. She thought Kate might get mad or cry...or perhaps even smile, it was one of those times she couldn't tell what reaction she was going to get. But Kate didn't do any of that. Instead she just closed her eyes real tight, scrunched up tight like she didn't want to see anything around her, not the dolls, Nola, not anything. Then she left the room with out a word. Nola’s mother never looked under the bed again after that, and she never gave her any more dolls, either. But that was okay, there wasn't that much more room under the bed anyway.

a phone call

“Graham, I…we need to talk.”

Kate held the phone in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. She paced her kitchen floor back and forth, feeling the smooth, warm wood against her bare feet. She was nervous about this conversation and how it would go. She’d barely spoken to Graham in the year since the separation, and now she needed him more than she ever had in her entire life. It figured.

When she found out he cheated on her everything happened quickly. In a white-hot haze she was made bold by the injustice and lashed out, struck back. She told him to leave, no fight, no dramatic scene, just get out. She even threatened to call the police if he weren’t gone by that evening. Her bravery was fueled by his acquiescence; he complied with her demands entirely. But she knew he would, knew he’d rather die than have anyone find out what went on behind closed doors. Valuing privacy was his Achilles heel.

After the shock wore off she realized his infidelity was the greatest gift of her life. She was not only glad he’d done it, she was relieved. It finally gave her permission to do what she should have done years ago, end the marriage. She'd repeatedly planned their demise year in and year out but never managed to gather up the guts to follow it through. Now he not only provided her with the motivation, but with impeccable justification…she couldn’t second-guess herself this time and no one would ever fault her. For once in his perfect life Graham Collins had been unequivocally wrong, and Kate could play that card to the hilt for all it was worth. It felt good to be in the right. Liberating. Satisfying.

During the first few monthgs he begged to come home, begged forgiveness, but she would hear none of it. He’d call and she would hang up, he’d leave notes and she’d rip them to shreds. He tried to speak to her through Nola but she silenced the girl. All those times she refused to talk to him other than to exchange the most basic information through Nola, “Tell your father this bill needs to be paid,” or “Tell Daddy there’s mail to be picked up,” nothing beyond that, nothing beyond the incidentals.

She’d even declined to let him in the house on more than one occasion. The place had been deteriorating as fast as their marriage towards the end, but now that he was gone the rapid decline was startling, even to her. She didn't want him to see, didn't want him to think she couldn't handle things without him. So Kate changed the locks and would simply refuse to answer the door when she saw his car. Who cared about a stupid mess anyway? She was done. She was free.

But now she had cancer and her bravery seemed to be as savagely stripped away as her body would soon be maimed.

Immediately after her diagnosis all Kate could think to do was numb the terror, not think beyond the minute in front of her. But anxious thoughts wouldn't leave her for long. She was alone. She was scared. Slowly she would pace her house like a caged animal, trapped, unable to find her escape. As she walked from room to room and looked at the filth her panic grew. The conditions were nothing short of disgusting. This was the home Graham had loved and bought for her, the home they’d shared together with Nola and where Ethan had lived his short, precious life with them. How could she have let it go this far? It only proved she needed help, this was too big a mess to clean up by herself. She knew what she had to do. It was time to dig out.

This house, her entire life was practically trashed, let go way beyond her ability to put it back into any semblance of order, especially now with all that was coming at her. She was going to be sick, ill beyond her imagination; she might even die. Graham was now her only hope, her best plan. Putting the marriage back together was the only thing that was, perhaps, within her control. So, she would allow him to come back. Allow, what a joke! Kate needed him to come back, to the house, to her, and most importantly to Nola. She needed to create order out of the swirling turmoil and if nothing else Graham could do that; he was very good at order.

But Graham’s voice on the other end of the phone was terse, “What do you want, I don’t have much time.”

Kate knew that was a lie, she still knew his rigid schedule by heart. “Graham, there’s no easy way to do this, so I’m just going to start, okay? But I want, I need, you’ve got to hear me out and just listen and not say anything. If you say the wrong thing I think I’ll break right now and I can’t…”

“Kate, would you just tell me what the hell this is about?”

“Okay, see, that’s what I mean, you aren’t being very…supportive.”

Graham let out a slow, annoyed breath, “I’m listening, just tell me.”

“I have breast cancer.”

Kate waited, wondering what his face looked like, wondering if it sunk in immediately or if this was going to take a while. She remembered the accident with Ethan, the episode with Nola and that awful boy, when his mother died, all the terrifying events that changed their lives together. Each of those times she’d been with him, right there with him, yet now she couldn’t remember his first reaction in any of those moments, she could only recall her own.

“How do you know? Did you have…?”

“All the tests, yes, it’s for certain, no doubt.”

“When did you find this out, how long…”

“Six weeks ago.”

“Six weeks, Christ Kate, why didn’t you tell me sooner!”

“Graham, remember I asked you to be supportive. This is about me, not you.”

“Still, that’s a long time…does Nola know?”

Kate knew now that she’d done this wrong, once again she hadn’t handled something the right way. Damn, he was her father, she should have told him before Nola! They should have told her together. She tapped her fingers nervously on the side of her wine glass, “Yes, she does, she lives here, it was hard to hide it from her,” she offered.

“I would live there too if you hadn’t asked me to leave.”

Clearly, this was not going to go smoothly, Kate thought. “Graham, you know damn well why you don’t live here anymore. And besides, that’s not the point. Look, I don’t have time to worry about your feelings, okay? Geez, Graham, seriously. I’m probably dying here, don’t you get that?”

“You’re not dying, Kate, I know it’s bad but it’s not necessarily a death sentence, Joe Donovan’s wife had…”

“I am not Karen Donovan. I am me and this is bad. Considering the way my life has gone thus far I’m not thinking the odds are in my favor. Okay, can we move on now?”

“What are you doing about this, I mean, what kind of treatment, who is your doctor?”

“Graham, I can tell you all of that, and I will. But right now I want to talk about Nola. She’s, she’s not handling this well at all, today she—“

“Can you blame her? Kate, I, I know you want to talk about Nola, and we will. I promise. But Kate, I need some time, some time to digest this, some time to get this straight in my head and figure things out.”

“Time? Graham, I don’t exactly have oodles of time on my hands right now. What do you mean you need time?” She could feel the shrillness of desperation creeping back into her voice, that voice that she just realized went away when Graham left.

“Kate, I just…let me call you back, okay?”

“Call me back, are you kidding me?”

“Kate, please, just, I’m hanging up now, I’ll call you back later, I promise.”

“Graham, don’t…” but she heard the click before she could finish. This wasn’t the response she expected. She stood looking at the phone receiver with disbelief, as if somehow the telephone itself was to blame. Kate wasn’t exactly sure how to feel. She understood not being able to process this all at once, but to essentially hang up on her after she told him she was probably dying of cancer was not even in the sphere of possibilities that she had considered!

Dying. Oh that word, it did still sound melodramatic even to her. Yet whenever she said she might be dying the ring of truth that phrase held resonated more and more with her as the days flew past.

When they’d told her it was Stage II she didn’t know exactly what that meant. She vaguely understood it had something to do with the size of the cancer itself, the tumor or lump or whatever it was you called that thing found growing in her like a ticking time bomb.

During those first days of doctor visits and a battery of endless tests she mentally agonized over what she thought were going to be her decisions, the treatment choices and options she expected to have. What a fool she was, a hopeful naïve little fool. Because once she fully understood her diagnosis the decisions were actually few and simple -- there were really none to make beyond hospital location and which doctor she thought was the nicest. Every single one of them, one by one, every doctor wanted to do the same thing. There was no difference in opinion, no glimmer of a reprieve. Bilateral mastectomy, both breasts are to go, simple as that.

As the truth sunk in she felt brutalized, under attack like the victim of an evil assailant about to hack her to pieces in some second rate horror movie. She couldn't face it. Maybe if she saw another doctor, went to another hospital? She wanted to find someone, anyone to give her another choice, something else beyond the violence of amputation.

But sooner than she could have ever imagined she gave up. It was surprising to her how easy it was after only six weeks to think of letting them go, her beautiful breasts, her lovely body, to be mutilated beyond recognition. But they weren’t hers anymore; these breasts belonged to cancer, to a villain that was trying to murder her with them like weapons of torture. Let cancer have them, they were toxic now anyway, damaged goods. Maybe her whole life was damaged goods, seeping poison that created the cancer in the first place. But she couldn’t go there. She needed to get things in order.

The doctor insisted the operation would be nothing; no more painful than a cesarean section is what she was told; tho not nearly as rewarding of course. It was the treatment after that scared her most. Being sick and alone was terrifying, unthinkable. Who would ever want a mutilated invalid? She would be alone for the rest of her life, however long that was to be. Alone except for Nola, of course.

Nola had been a trouper, at first. Taking care of so many things, not telling Graham a word about it. It wasn’t hard to keep it from him, eventually after the flurry of reconciliation attempts he’d stopped coming around or calling as much. It seemed he’d given up on both of them after only a few months. Strange how he’d suddenly just let go so easily, Kate had thought, surprised. Sure, he’d tried for a while to convince her to let him make it up to her, to take him back. Promised her everything and more. He even tried taking Nola out on Saturdays for the first few months like a typical weekend-Dad…but Kate threw it in his face, told him she knew it was just for show, just to prove something to her, to try and make himself look like the dutiful father she’d always hoped he’d be. After that he stopped calling, stopped everything.

Now she prayed with all her heart that those accusations were unfounded. She hoped with all her heart she’d been wrong, and that he really was capable of change, of loving Nola enough for the both of them, enough to make up for the years they were too wrapped up in themselves to put her first. Enough to make up for the fact that her mother now had cancer.

She always told Nola that her father loved her. She’d make excuses for his tyrannical behavior and say he just didn’t know how to show it, didn’t know how to express him self. Imagine that, a writer that can’t express him self, wasn’t that ironic. Who was she kidding? This was a man who wrote books with beautiful passages about quiet cowboys awkwardly professing true love, yet couldn’t manage to do so to his own wife or daughter. Jesus Christ, now he couldn’t even manage a telephone conversation with his dying wife.

Kate’s attention was snapped back to her surroundings; there was a knock at the back door.

It was Graham.

growing up

(not a full 1000 words, but Nola needed to be here)

When Nola stepped out of the bathroom and walked thru the hallway towards her room she noticed Ethan’s bedroom door was open. Kate was sitting on the floor against his little bed, her shoulders bouncing up and down with silent heaving sobs. She was holding something in her hands…what was it? Was it Ethan’s stuffed dog, that little one he loved so much? Nola had often seen her mother asleep in Ethan’s bed clutching the tattered dog like a child, her tearstained face evidence of another long night of endless mourning.

But this time Kate wasn’t holding one of Ethan’s toys. Instead she was staring at Nola’s blood stained underpants. Nola approached slowly, not wanting to startle her…half not wanting to disturb her mother but needing to understand.

“Mom?” Nola said, barely audibly.

Kate didn’t turn her head towards Nola in the doorway but her shoulders stopped rising and falling momentarily. “Yes honey,” she said in a voice that sounded softer than usual.

“Mom, are you…what are you doing?”

“I’m just, thinking.”

“About what?”

“About growing up.”

“Oh,” and then she couldn’t resist, “Me or you?”

Kate laughed a little and said, “Both of us I guess.”

Nola laughed back. Then they were silent again and she wasn’t sure what to do next. Her mother seemed different to her and she didn’t know how to deal with it. She didn’t know if she liked it or if she didn’t. It just seemed strange. A part of her wanted things to go back to how they were, her mom in the distance and not so…so…present. But another part of her sensed, or at least hoped, that maybe somehow this would be better. Maybe things would actually get better.

Nola walked into the room and sat down next to Kate, leaning her back against the bed the same way. The two of them just sat there for a while, quiet and comfortable.

crinkled paper

(Finally, a new excerpt!)

Kate sat on the edge the exam table, trying not to crinkle the paper as she adjusted her position. That sound of body on paper always bothered her, grated on her nerves, but even more so now. It reminded her of the sound of meat being slapped on brown paper at the butcher shop her father ran. That sound was etched in her memory as much as the raw smells, the vision of skinned carcasses hanging from the ceiling and the piles of fat tossed aside while her father sawed the fragmented body parts of animals into palatable sections for someone’s dinner table.

Now, here she sat, waiting to find out if she too would be butchered, if she too were to have the now unpalatable parts of her own body tossed aside, useless, “fit only for the grinder” as her father would say. She shuddered at her own analogy.

The room was cold and cramped, dimly lit. Dominating practically the entire space was an ultrasound machine on a metal stand. Between the exam table where she perched and the machine there was little room left. Everything was functional, cold and sterile, yet in surreal contrast to the rigid technology of the softly humming machine and the hard metal edges of the table there was a large, vibrant print nearly covering what little available wall space there was. Trying to forget the butcher’s knife, she decided to lose herself in the picture.

The depiction was of an Irish cottage and garden, or what she imagined an Irish cottage and garden would look like, all rambling vines and masses of flowers surrounding a whitewashed cottage with a thatched roof. She tried to let her mind drift, to think of what the original artist might have looked like, was this their home, was it a man or a woman? But inevitably all she could think about was Deirdre, dear old Grandee, and how much she wished she were here. Her mounting saddness grew quickly.

How she hated waiting alone like this; it only gave you more of a chance for the mind to wander. No matter how much you tried to keep your self occupied by the inane or the ordinary, deeper thoughts would always manage to prevail, intruding, forcing their way in and leaving you feeling as emotionally exposed as your body was in the ubiquitous ill-fitting hospital gown, like meat on a hook.

The more she tried to maintain her composure, the harder it got until finally the tears came. A feeling of panic and dread rose up in her and tightened every muscle in her chest, closed off her throat so that her sobs came out as choking gulps. She dug her fingernails into her palms, trying to hold back the flood of tears. Nothing had happened yet, no one had told her anything new, no further bad news. If she didn’t regain control of her self the doctor would walk in any minute and find her crying. That thought set her off further and now the tears flowed unrelenting.

She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter, certainly doctors had seen women with breast cancer cry, she wouldn’t be the first. But it did nothing calm her. She feared doctors thinking she was incapable and not telling her what she needed to know, dismissing her as some fragile-minded ninny. She reached into her purse and got out the vial of Valium, then thought better of it. She needed to get a hold of herself without it this time and be completely alert, to have her wits about her. She must understand what was going to be said. This was too important to deaden her senses for.

Mastectomy or lumpectomy. That was what would be decided here in this room. She’d had her exam, her scans, her X-rays. Now this radiologist would do the follow-up ultrasound and finally she would know if she were a candidate for saving her breast.

She’d met a woman named Karen, a teaching assistant at the college, who had a lumpectomy. Now five years later she was healthy and happy, hardly a trace of the scar left. She had willingly, even happily showed it off to Kate in the ladies room. Compared to how Kate’s mother had looked after her own mastectomy, it was as if nothing had happened to this woman, it was a mere footnote in her life story, just a bad memory left in the dust of her past. Kate so wanted to know that this would be a memory for her someday too, not like it was now, some dark phantom stalking her every waking moment. She wanted her cancer to fade out softly like that woman’s scar, a slight shadow the only point of recollection.

Just then the doctor walked in. Kate had managed to compose herself a little after all and being suddenly startled by the doctor’s abrupt entrance further helped shift her focus. “My name is Dr. Ester, Mrs. Collins, how are you today?”

“Fine, well, you know,” Kate managed a weak laugh.

“Yes, well, let’s see what we have here, okay? Can you lie down on the table for me and reach your right arm up over your head. Good, now, I’m going to open your gown…this gel might be a little cold…”

The radiologist took a long time, slowly and methodically running the wand over Kate’s entire breast, centimeter by centimeter, stopping and clicking the computer mouse with his other hand over and over. Sometimes he pushed down hard and Kate winced. This escaped the doctor’s notice completely. Kate’s arm also went numb but she was afraid to move for fear of somehow causing a mistake in the reading. She said nothing, just let the tingling sensation further divert her from feeling anything else.

Finally the doctor said, “I’ll be right back, Mrs. Collins, just a moment please,” and with that he casually draped a towel over Kate’s exposed breasts and quickly left the room.

Now what? Was she allowed to move? She decided she must and carefully moved her arm down from its overhead position, trying not to shift her body any more than necessary.

“Mrs. Collins?”

“Oh, uh, yes,” Kate hadn’t heard the door this time and nearly jumped off the table, the doctor returned more quickly than she thought he would. Standing next to him was an attractive young woman in a white coat. Perhaps a nurse, maybe a woman was supposed to be there during the exam like at the gynecologist? She wasn’t sure there was going to be enough room for all these people.

“Mrs. Collins this is Doctor Neville, I wanted to consult with her on your ultrasound, okay?”

“Okay, sure.” Kate remained laying on her side, her hips oddly twisted, her breast barely covered under the towel and still coated with the gel.

“Did Dr. Placido speak to you, Mrs. Collins?”

“I’m not sure, I mean, I’ve seen him but not since the MRI, why?”

“Well, I spoke to him after sending him the written MRI report and my recommendation was for him to discuss that report with you, are you saying he didn’t do that yet?”

“No, no one has discussed the MRI with me, why?”

“Mrs. Collins, I’m going to call Dr. Placido right now and leave you with Dr. Neville for a bit, okay, I really want to touch base with Dr. Placido before I speak further with you about this, okay?” The radiologist turned and started to whisper instructions to the other doctor as Kate’s mind raced and she felt herself lose the tenuous grip she had on her emotions.

“I want to know what is going on and I want to know right now!”

She heard an unrecognizable voice, strong and deep, nearly shouting. The sound echoed loudly, reverberating in the cramped little space, sucking all the air out of the room. It took her a moment to realize she had spoken the words herself. She was sitting up, breasts fully exposed, crinkled paper torn and sticking to her back. She didn’t care one bit. Not one bit.

meet Graham

(Not long ago I was exploring the character of Graham, writing some notes, jotting down descriptions & ideas, when towards the end of my writing he surprisingly began to speak in the first person. I got a glimpse of his internal dialog and a better view of his personality. I’m not sure about him being a first person character in the finished product, but I’m leaving it in this extremely rough draft for now because I think it gives insight into what makes him tick and I can use it for reference at the very least. Since it’s been a while that I’ve put something up, I thought I’d share it.)

People either loved or hated Graham Collins’ work. The fans he had were passionate about his books, collected them, read them again and again. There were book groups and fan clubs devoted to his novels. His classes at the college were always full. Freshmen got on a waiting list and hoped they would be able to squeeze in before they graduated.

There were still a few people, even critics, who didn’t realize the “Wicked Creek” series of Western novels were written by a college professor from New Jersey, a man who’d never been west of the Delaware Water Gap until after the first novel was published. Sometimes when they found out they would be angry, feel cheated or stupid. Like sour grapes, critics would often lambaste him and say they could tell his writing was inauthentic, that he was a phony hack. But others, even actual working cowboys, loved him all the more for it. They could tell he was an admirer who painted them in a glorious light and saw his work as a tribute to an ideal that was fading fast in contemporary times. He’d be invited to speak at touristy dude ranches and working cattle ranches alike. His fans crossed a wide demographic and even his harshest critics had to give him credit for his scrupulous research and attention to proper detail. This from a man who didn’t mount a horse until he was 35 years old.

There were women who liked his work too, something else the critics both praised and scoffed at. They often said he was actually a glorified romance novelist wrapped up in a saddle blanket. Most critics with any sort of feminist leanings trashed his female characters as being barely more than a revamped version of the old damsel in distress dressed up in cowboy boots and too much lipstick. But when they made a TV movie out of his second novel in the series, Trouble in Wicked Creek, it did so well in the ratings it was up for an Emmy Award. The movie didn’t win, but he was forever linked with the words, “Emmy nominated”.

None of this ever seemed to faze him outwardly. He took it in stride, never felt pressure to perform, to out do his previous work. That’s probably what kept him successful. That and he’d found his niche. The college asked him to teach additional classes, this time not on writing or fiction, but on Western Expansion, Manifest Destiny and the Gold Rush. Graham easily rose to that challenge.

Fans and colleagues alike all held the same opinion of Graham Collins. He was one of the nicest most genuine guys you’d ever want to meet. A gentleman in the real sense of that word, a gentle man, not larger than life, not self aggrandizing, but mild, friendly and sincere.

That was perhaps the most cutting wound of all to his wife and daughter. They suffered his wrath relentlessly; his exacting standards unmet could produce an anger so hot it seemed ready to erupt into violence at any second. That it never actually did was little consolation. The power his words, his unremitting anger had to wound them was worse than any blow could ever be. He either terrorized or ignored his daughter, belittled his wife and generally created a silent, seething storm of rage that swirled around his family practically at all times.

How could that angry being be reconciled with the persona the world saw? He was not a smooth man, not suave or adept at acting a part, pretending to be something he was not. So how was it that both these characters lived in one person? To Graham these were not incongruent personalities, not a dichotomy at all. His family was worthy of one type of interaction and the general public was deemed worthy of another. It was not devious, not contrived. This was just how he saw things. He saw nothing hypocritical about being kind to the outside world and brutal to his family. The outside world held no sway in his life, no power to disappoint him or hurt him. And he need not share how he felt about his wife and daughter with anyone...you didn’t air your dirty laundry. The fact that his wife and daughter were a constant irritation at best and a colossal disappointment at least, was the cross he bore silently beyond the walls of his home.

If they would just tow the line, if they would just do what they were supposed to do and not screw up everything they touched then he wouldn’t have to get mad. It was their fault; they were the ones playing games. They’d act like they were being victimized when it was really him; he was the victim of their constant fuck ups. How hard was it to keep a house clean? How hard was it to pick up after yourself, to be polite and not intrusive? The outside world appreciated him; they admired him even. They didn’t think his simple requirements were so monumental or unreasonable. But his own wife, she couldn’t seem to meet even the most basic needs a husband might have. And she’d turned his daughter against him too. He saw how she looked at him when he disciplined Nola; she undermined him at every opportunity. And that just made Nola even more of a baby than she already was. Kate just babied that kid; let her get away with murder because she couldn’t be bothered. Kate can’t be bothered to do the simple stuff like keep the kid clean and teach her to behave. She couldn’t keep dogs from destroying the house or knives from ending up in toy boxes and she couldn’t keep track of a two and a half year old for one half hour…that’s all he was late, just 30 goddamn minutes. If she’d just watched him for 30 goddamn minutes…

Kate would never change. No matter how hard he tried to get thru to her she was unwilling to keep up her end of the bargain. Wasn’t that what marriage was? A bargain. A deal. You do this and I’ll do that. Graham had kept his end of the bargain. He’d provided for her and the kids and came home every Goddamn day. He wasn’t out gallivanting, wasn’t out with the boys. He was working at school or working at home. Even when he traveled, even then he never strayed. He was honorable and faithful and he’d made his bed so he lay in it without looking back.

Kate once had looked at him like he knew everything. She’d thought he was smart and funny, distinguished and rugged at the same time. She smiled, God, how she smiled at him all the time. Everything he said to her was witty and charming, she made him feel like the most virile guy in any room.

Now, now she could barely look him in the eye, barely even spoke to him let alone smile. She just looked away with that fake resigned expression, like she was some beleaguered wife that had to bare the brunt of his harsh treatment. Fuck that. Fuck that and fuck her. She was the one that changed, not him. She was the one that didn’t keep her end of the bargain.

clouds

Kate kept going from room to room; trying to find a place to settle down and rest, to just stop thinking, escape from the terrible new knowledge. Cancer…the new word could not be formed by her own lips, it would hurt to speak it aloud. But even in staying silent there was no escape, one couldn’t leave cancer someplace and shut the door. There would never be escape or peace or numbness again; those days were over. She was trapped, inextricably tangled in this mutation that had taken over her breast, a stranglehold that was going to last forever.

It made her think how much of her life had been about escaping. She’d almost even managed to escape the anguish of her child's death…sometimes she could forget Ethan was really dead by dwelling only on the memories of him, mentally flipping through them like folders in a secret file cabinet, pulling out certain ones when needed.

But that was different now, too. Now she couldn’t even find Ethan, couldn’t find that sweet spot that she went to in her mind’s eye, that place of happy days and precious visions. Cancer seemed to change whatever she was trying to focus on. Somehow it magnified everything, brought more and more to the surface. It was as if every single bad thing that ever happened was suddenly feeding off the cancerous tumors and growing too, growing beyond the boundaries of her ability to stifle it. Nothing worked to keep the dark feelings at bay. There seemed no speck of happiness left to cling to, nothing, not one thing she could conjure up to look forward to or place her hopes upon. “What was the point?” was a phrase that kept coming back into her head over and over.

Of course Nola was the point. Nola needed to be the point here. For crying out loud, what kind of mother was she that her first, second and third thoughts weren’t for her daughter? She knew that’s how she was supposed to feel, what she was supposed to do. But it wasn’t how she felt and she couldn’t do it. There was something broken; a disconnect. Had it always been damaged, or did the cancer eat that away too?

Nola barely acknowledged her existence these days, and who could blame her? She’d hadn’t been there for this child, really. Memories haunted her…were they ever close? It was stunning the thoughts that kept rolling in her mind without stopping. No, wait, yes, they were, maybe, when she was little, younger. Or at least Kate had been going through the motions, was it good enough, did she love her enough?

“Good God, what have I done?” Her own voice echoed through the empty house.

The sudden clarity with which she saw things now was blinding, it was almost as painful as the knowledge that her life was probably over, that she might die soon. It was as if every thing became crystalline, pure thoughts just flew through her brain without cessation or censor, without bidding either. Nothing was within her control anymore. Not one thing. This was all beyond comprehension.

Wandering around and around the house she kept talking to herself just to hear a human sound, to know she was real, this was all happening. The awareness, realizations just kept coming in waves, mistakes she made, ways she could have been better, memories of times she should have been happy. “Why wasn’t I happy more, why didn’t I notice all the things that were there to be happy about?”

Now, now when she saw those very same things that should have made her happy before instead they made her mourn all the more, grieve for the life she had thrown away so far. She had wasted so much time…if only she’d known there was to be so little of it. If only she had known.

“Would I have had Nola?”

If she’d known that she might die would she have had another child after Ethan? She knew the answer. No. But yet she couldn’t bring herself to begrudge the life of her daughter, as disconnected as she felt she couldn’t let herself stay in that thought.

Instead she kept moving, kept doing, kept trying to find a place to land, a place to let go. Eventually she found herself in the bathroom opening the medicine cabinet. Plenty of painkillers. Just to sleep. Just two, maybe three.

The next morning as the sun shown brutally thru the lace curtains Kate wished she had remembered to draw the blinds, wished she could continue to sleep, go back into the depths where she had drifted…far past dreams and awareness of any kind. Sleep was now probably only going to be available to her artificially, she knew that, had suffered from insomnia enough to know that there was no way she could ever just lie down and sleep with the awful knowledge of cancer now looming over her, as if a monster from a childhood nightmare had come to life, no longer just lurking in the forgotten dust under the bed. But sleep was also her only refuge. The night before was a complete blank, she barely remembered falling into bed. There were no thoughts, no more flurry of memories and realizations. Just the empty relief of complete nothingness. She should call the doctor and get a regular prescription for sleeping pills. Surely they give that to people like her? Who has cancer and can sleep on their own?

But no doctors today. She knew there were phone calls, arrangements she needed to make, appointments to schedule, facts to learn, decisions to be made. The thought of it all was completely overwhelming. It was impossible.

“Where do I start?”

The sound of her voice alone in the house was no longer comforting. It was unfamiliar, as if it were someone else’s. It was. It belonged to someone with cancer. She didn’t know that person. She didn’t want to.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would face things. For today she wanted nothing more than to sleep again, just a little longer. Thankfully she had plenty painkillers left to last till she got something of her own. Graham was always getting prescriptions for his back and not taking them, he was too tough, said they clouded his mind. That’s exactly what she wanted, to cloud her mind. There were plenty to choose from. For today, she could just use what she had and sleep. She would bury her mind in a thousand clouds until there was nothing but softness to smother all thoughts of cancer.

a friend for Nola

Nola waited by the old lockers after school, an excited little flutter in her stomach. She had a friend, a real friend. There was someone who thought she was funny, interesting, who liked to hang out with her. Melanie Woodman was her friend. Nola and Melanie…Melanie and Nola. Have you seen Nola? Oh, she’s with her friend Melanie. Nola practically hugged herself as she stood waiting for Melanie to meet her as planned.

That night at the slumber party had been very enlightening. Nola had missed so much of the big picture before that evening that she couldn’t help wonder what else she overlooked, what other social constructs she missed? She would have to be more observant, this was new territory.

Melanie Woodman had seemed to be just like all the other girls, part of the blur, the out of reach social unit that was the eighth grade class. But Nola failed to see that Melanie was almost as much an outsider as she herself was. The only difference between them was that Melanie was rich, and therefore she was useful to the other girls so they acted nicer to her. She had concert tickets, cool clothes, a limo that picked her up from school and would take her anywhere she wanted to go, parents that traveled and didn’t care if she had parties. It seemed maybe the other kids didn’t even like Melanie anymore than they did Nola; they just liked what she provided.

At the beginning of Melanie's party Nola hung back, she stayed around the edges of the room, moving just enough so that no one noticed she didn’t have anyone to talk to. She wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, just trying to make it through the evening without looking like a reject. But eavesdrop she did.

She kept a constant eye on Melanie, thinking at first that since she was the host, the one that invited her, if there was going to be trouble or if a trick was going to be played that she would be the one orchestrating it. Nola wanted to keep track of Melanie to make sure she wasn’t ambushed. She also kept a keen eye on Gwen Van Matre.

Gwen Van Matre had invited Nola to her own birthday party at the beginning of the school year, when Nola was still hopeful that skipping ahead put her in a class with kids that wouldn’t pick on her, where she’d be able to fit in better. The party was to consist of a horseback ride and picnic by a lake in a nearby state park. There were fifteen girls, so since the Van Matres only owned six horses themselves, some were rented from a nearby stable.

Nola had been crazy for horses since she could walk, she’d taken riding lessons at Lynchwood Stables when she was younger and Grandee could still bring her. She was a decent rider for her age. But when all the girls were mounting up at the start of the trail it turned out it had been specially arranged for Nola to ride a saggy old pony, the only pony, in fact, that was there that day, brought just for her since she was “so young”. A toddler could have ridden the animal, and in fact Nola was tall and lanky for her age, she matched most of the eighth grade girls inch for inch in height.

But perhaps what was worst of all is that the creature had been decorated as if for a little girl’s birthday party, bedecked with streaming ribbons and barrettes in it’s mane and tail, a colorful rainbow blanket peeked out from beneath a sparkling pink and white saddle. It was a sight to behold and the minute all the other kids saw it the laughter had been nearly deafening.

Nola had two choices, ride that pony or not go. She was sort of frozen, not sure what to do. But in the moment, unsure, she chose to ride the pony, to try and suck it up. As if the humiliation weren’t already enough, though, someone had also given strict instructions to the stable owners that a guide needed to be provided with the pony as well. Even though Nola assured the young woman that it wasn’t necessary, she was unmoved, only following orders. So to add insult to injury this young woman, a teenager barely taller than Nola herself, insisted on holding the reigns and walking the pony the whole way. It was going to be humiliating.

She looked ridiculous on the little pony, like a giant on a toy horse. The other girls towered over her as one by one they headed down the woodland trail on their graceful mounts. The poor old Shetland was so slow, so tired, that halfway there she just stopped and would go no further. Try as the guide might, the poor beast would not be budged. Again Nola had a choice, either walk the rest of the way to catch up with the others, already miles ahead, or go home. This time Nola chose to go home. She walked rather than call her mother for a ride, trying not to cry the whole way.

The next day at school some of the girls made fun of her. They teased her for how ridiculous she looked riding the pretty little pony and they busted her chops for being such a baby that she couldn’t be a sport about the whole thing, that she went crying home to her mommy. It wasn’t true; she knew it was no innocent error. It was a purposeful joke meant to put her in her place, to let her know that she would never fit in. And she certainly didn’t cry to her mother. Her mother would not have understood. She would have thought it was an honest mistake; that the Van Matres had only tried to get a horse appropriate for her age. Kate would have thought they were being accommodating. Nola’s mom never seemed to get these things. The social nuances of middle school were lost on her. Nola couldn’t prove it wasn’t a miscommunication, of course, but she sure doubted it.

Apparently societal scorn at this advanced age could be subtle. It was different than the overt treatment Nola had gotten from her peers before. Their acts had been obvious, quick. This new echelon needed careful navigation; schemes were potentially more elaborate. After Gwen’s party Nola had waited for another incident, another situation. But there had been none, none until Melanie Woodman’s party.

Understandably Nola was worried the slumber party at Melanie Woodman’s house was another set-up. She was right, it was, but not by Melanie. Poor Melanie had been an unwitting pawn in another of Gwen Van Matre’s attempts to humiliate Nola. This time though, it backfired.