Cracks in the Sidewalk Read online

  “No, but I thought maybe you’d like to talk—”

  “If I wanted to talk, I would,” he said impatiently. “That’s why I don’t like coming here; you’re always harping on me about something. I didn’t get here on Thursday, and that’s that. I said I’m sorry. What more do you want?”

  “I don’t want anything,” she answered keeping her voice calm, even though the harshness of his words pressed against her chest. “I simply thought we could have a pleasant conversation.”

  “Oh, yeah, like that’s possible. Try going through what I’m going through, and see if you feel like a pleasant conversation.”

  There was no use in pursuing the issue. When JT got in one of his moods, Elizabeth could only wait it out.

  “I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time,” she said softly, then turned her attention to Kimberly who squirmed closer.

  For a few moments JT stood there, a hard uncompromising look on his face, then without speaking another word he left. He was gone twenty minutes, and when he returned he said it was time to leave.

  “No,” Kimberly squealed. “I wanna see my baby brudder!”

  “Me too,” David added. “You said—”

  “Okay,” JT interrupted, “say goodbye to Mommy, and I’ll take you to the nursery. That’s where they keep the new babies.”

  “Okay,” Kimberly said, scampering down from the bed. “Can I play with him?”

  “Maybe when he comes home.”

  “Can he come home today?”

  “Not today,” JT said. He turned to David and told him to get a move on.

  “I want to stay here with Mommy,” the boy answered and leaned his head against his mother’s shoulder.

  Elizabeth wished she could wrap that one moment in cellophane and save it for a lifetime. David looked like his father but had her sensitivity. He was always ready to cuddle and lay his head on her heart. Kimberly was a three-year-old tornado whirling across the plateau of life, challenging everything. She would chatter in your ear until you were ready to scream uncle then give you a smile that melted your heart.

  Christian. What would he be like, this child who had rocked the world with his entrance?

  Elizabeth smiled at David. “Mommy will go with you,” she told him. “Wait a minute, and I’ll get the nurse to bring a wheelchair.”

  “That’s gonna take too long,” JT said. “I’ve gotta get home, I’ve got things to do.”

  “I’ll ask her to hurry,” Elizabeth replied. “Please?”

  David, still sitting on the bed, curled closer to Elizabeth. “I wanna wait for Mommy.”

  “Me too,” Kimberly echoed.

  A short time later the fragmented family went to the nursery. JT pushed the wheelchair, David beside it and Kimberly scampering ahead. The pediatric nurse lifted Christian from his incubator and held him to the window. Although small, red-faced, and wrinkled, they all agreed he was the cutest baby there. When they returned to Elizabeth’s room, the kids said goodbye. Just before leaving JT bent and kissed his wife’s mouth, something he had not done in many months.

  That day was one of Elizabeth’s last good days. One she tried to hold in her memory during the months to come.

  The following day Elizabeth was scheduled for a CT scan. Claire arrived at the hospital long before the breakfast cart came around.

  “I thought you might appreciate some moral support,” she said, sitting beside her daughter.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Moments later a transport aide shuffled her off to Radiology.

  Claire sat in the chair and waited. Minutes seemed like hours, hours like days. She checked her wristwatch. Liz had been gone less than twenty minutes. She clicked on the television and flipped through channel after channel. Soap operas with tragedies. People trying to win refrigerators by spinning a wheel. Frivolous endeavors for those with nothing better to do. Claire switched it off, stood, walked to the end of the hall and back again, checked her wristwatch. Twenty-five minutes.

  Why so long, she wondered. Wasn’t a CT scan like an X-ray, which took only minutes? Claire removed her watch and held it to her ear. Tick, tick, tick. It worked. She fastened the watch onto her wrist again.

  Almost two hours later Elizabeth returned to the room, her skin flushed, glistening with beads of perspiration.

  “Are you okay?” Claire asked, alarmed.

  After a long moment Elizabeth answered, “I’m just very tired.” She leaned back into the pillow and closed her eyes.

  “Sleep,” Claire replied, “it’ll be good for you.”

  Long after the last visitors’ gong sounded Claire remained by her daughter’s bedside, listening for the fragile sound of air passing through Elizabeth’s lungs. She stayed, trying to will the doctor to walk through the door with the results of the CT scan. She wanted to hear that Liz would be okay. That despite any treatment needed, Liz would, in time, return to her old self. When the sounds in the hospital corridor became the whispered hush of evening, Claire realized Doctor Sorenson wouldn’t come.

  The clock read almost nine when Claire arrived home. Charlie had abandoned hope of any supper long ago and sat at the kitchen table with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  “How’s Elizabeth?” he asked before she was halfway through the door.

  Claire gave a weary shrug. “Okay, I guess. Nothing new.”

  “Did they do the CT scan?”

  She nodded. “This morning, but we haven’t seen the doctor yet so I don’t know what the results were.”

  “Oh.” Charlie pushed back the half-eaten sandwich.

  “I can fix you an omelet,” Claire volunteered, “or a grilled cheese and tomato.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not all that hungry.”

  Claire watched as he slid the salt shaker first to the left side of the table and then to the right. After nearly thirty years of being married, Claire knew when Charlie was avoiding something that had to be said. He fidgeted with things—adjusted his belt buckle, shined his watch crystal, polished the fork lying in front of him, anything to keep his fingers moving so his mouth didn’t have to.

  After Charlie had moved the salt shaker a number of times, she asked if he had something to say.

  “You’re not gonna like this,” he warned. “JT stopped by my office today looking for more money. He claims the store is on the verge of bankruptcy. He’s four months behind on the rent and overextended with vendors.”

  “I hope you reminded him we’re already taking care of Liz’s hospital bill!”

  “What good would that do?”

  “It’s his responsibility,” Claire said bitterly. “Elizabeth is his wife! Instead of worrying about his miserable business, he should be thinking about her.” The muscles in Claire’s throat began to quiver. “He should care what happens to her, but he doesn’t. He hardly ever comes to visit. He won’t even let me bring the kids to see her. He won’t—”

  Charlie wrapped his arms around Claire as she began to sob. After a while he said, “Aren’t you going to ask what my answer was?”

  She held back the remainder of her tears and looked up at him.

  “I said no. I told him we couldn’t spare any more money.”

  “How’d he take it?”

  “Not well. This was the worst I’ve seen him. He was like a crazy man.” Charlie shook his head sorrowfully. “I feel bad for JT, with all the problems he’s got, but I sure never thought he’d behave the way he did today.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Called me a son-of-a-bitch, punched the wall, knocked over a chair. He said if we’re not willing to help out when he’s down on his luck, he’s through with us.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Probably nothing. I think he’s just desperate right now. Once he calms down enough to think things through—”

  The telephone rang and Charlie answered it. He listened for a minute then asked, “At Saint Barnabas?”

  “Is that Doctor So
renson?” Claire whispered.

  He nodded. “Okay, I understand. Ten-thirty, right?” He replaced the receiver.

  “Doctor Sorenson said she has the results,” Charlie said, “but would prefer to discuss them with the entire family. She’s already spoken to Jeffrey, and he’s going to meet us at the hospital.”

  A washboard of wrinkles appeared on Claire’s forehead.

  “Don’t worry,” Charlie said. “I’m certain everything is all right.”

  Claire might have believed him, had she not noticed the way he picked at his belt buckle.

  Saint Barnabas Hospital

  Jeffrey planned to be on time for the meeting with Doctor Sorenson. After her phone call, he drove back to the store and taped a hand-lettered sign to the door. It read, “Caruthers Couture closed until noon.”

  But at 8:47 the next morning, a power surge sizzled through the downtown area of Westfield and triggered fourteen store alarms. The first call came from the security company minutes after Maria Ramirez walked through the door.

  “Can you get that?” JT called from upstairs.

  “A-llo,” Maria said, wrestling herself from the arm of her coat. She listened for a half-minute then dropped the receiver and ran up the stairs.

  “Policia! Policia!” she screamed. “The store, she’s been robbed!”

  “Robbed?” JT echoed. With his left shoe still untied, he flew down the stairs and jumped into the car. As he gunned the motor and roared out of the driveway, the tires kicked up a swirl of gravel that sprayed the mailbox.

  Maria Ramirez charged only half what another babysitter would, but she sometimes listened with only one ear and was prone to hysteria, so she only caught one part of the recording that stated, “The alarm at Caruthers Couture has been triggered by an electrical overload. There has been no break-in. Please reset your alarm system as soon as possible.”

  Believing his store had been burglarized, JT rounded the corner at Elm Street without slowing and smashed into the rear fender of Ruth Kessler’s Pontiac as she backed out of her driveway. Ruth, who prided herself on strict adherence to the proper way of doing things, insisted they call the police and fill out an accident report before any evidence was removed. She also insisted on taking photographs and documenting every spoken word, which was why at ten-thirty that morning Jeffrey Caruthers stood on the corner of Elm Street, instead of in his wife’s hospital room.

  At ten-thirty-seven, Doctor Sorenson entered Elizabeth’s room with an armful of X-rays and a clipboard of notes. She placed them on the table and came toward Elizabeth. “How are you feeling? Any pain in that left arm? Dizziness? Headaches? Nausea?”

  “I’m still having the headaches,” Elizabeth answered. “Maybe I’m watching too much television.”

  Doctor Sorenson offered a sympathetic smile as she pressed her fingers to Elizabeth’s wrist for a pulse count.

  “I’m afraid that’s to be expected,” she said. “It’s all part of this problem.” She turned to Claire and Charles. “I’d like to review the results of our tests. Is Mister Caruthers here?”

  “Not yet,” Charlie said.

  “A shame.” Doctor Sorenson clipped a large X-ray to the wall-mounted viewer. “I know he’s not much for visiting, but I’d hoped he would at least participate in this meeting.” She glanced at her watch. “I suppose we should move ahead.”

  “He’ll be here,” Elizabeth said, looking toward the door. “Can’t we wait five minutes?” she pleaded.

  “Okay, five minutes.”

  Relief swept across Elizabeth’s face. “He’ll be here, I know he will.”

  But five minutes stretched into ten and then into twenty. Finally Doctor Sorenson said, “I’m sorry, but I really must get started.”

  Claire moved closer to Elizabeth and wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulder. “Jeffrey’s probably stuck in traffic,” she said. “Morning traffic’s the worst.”

  Claire called upon the lie often but had stopped believing it. The more likely scenario was that JT had blown off this promise, just as he’d blown off so many others. But Liz didn’t need to hear the truth, especially not now.

  “Elizabeth, I wish I had better news for you and your parents,” Doctor Sorenson said, her voice solemn and strained.

  Her left eye suddenly began twitching like a rapid heartbeat. “Sorry.” She paused a moment, rubbed the back of her hand across her eye, then continued.

  “Unfortunately, the CT scan shows a growth in the area of your brain behind the hypothalamus. It’s the pressure from this growth that’s causing your memory loss, the headaches, and the excessive weight gain.

  “The hypothalamus, located here in the middle of the base of your brain” —she pointed to a section of the X-ray film—“is virtually the brain’s control box. Think of it as command central. It sends messages to your body so that you know when to eat, when to drink, and a lot of other functions we consider normal.

  “The growth, this dark area here”—she slid her fingertip ever so slightly to the left—“is pressing on the back side of your hypothalamus. Because of this pressure, your pituitary gland is malfunctioning.”

  The doctor rubbed her hand across her eye a second time, then continued. “A malfunction like this inhibits the release of certain hormones. They’re the hormones that affect your thyroid and regulate your ability, or, in this case, inability, to lose weight. As a result your central nervous system, or what we’d consider your control panel, is being bombarded with a flood of mixed messages.”

  As they listened, Claire tightened her grip on Elizabeth’s shoulder.

  “Because of this particular growth’s deep location,” Doctor Sorenson continued, “it’s inoperable. If it were located here on the pituitary gland”—she slid her fingertip a fraction of an inch to the right—“we could remove it surgically and follow up with radiation.”

  “If it’s inoperable,” Elizabeth asked anxiously, “then how do you treat it?”

  Doctor Sorenson hesitated for a moment, again rubbed her hand across her eye, then spoke in a softer voice. “Unfortunately, there isn’t any real treatment.”

  “Isn’t any?” Elizabeth replied incredulously. “Isn’t any?”

  “Not given the position of the tumor.” Suddenly the “growth” had progressed to a “tumor.”

  “What then?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes brimming with tears. “I stay this way? I keep getting worse? What?”

  Without waiting for the answer to her question, Charlie said, “This has got to be a mistake! Liz is only twenty-eight years old. She’s always been in good health. Did anyone check the X-rays? Did anyone make certain—”

  “I wish it were a mistake, Mister McDermott, believe me I do. But unfortunately, the scan simply confirms what Elizabeth’s symptoms have already indicated.”

  “How can something like this happen so fast? Up until a few months ago—”

  “The probability is that it didn’t happen quickly. Given its size, the tumor has probably been there for some time. Unfortunately, there was no reason to look for anything until Elizabeth began experiencing symptoms from the tumor pressing on the pituitary gland.”

  “Are you telling us there’s nothing we can do?” Charles asked angrily. “Nothing? Given the technology of this day and age, I find that impossible to believe!”

  “Medicine has come a long way,” Doctor Sorenson replied, “but we’ve still got a long way to go. Elizabeth’s tumor is inaccessible, that’s the primary problem here. With a tremendous amount of luck, we might be able to reduce the size of it with radiation, but even that is iffy.”

  “Iffy is better than nothing,” Charles said.

  “That’s yet to be determined. Before we decide on radiation therapy, Elizabeth needs to get a second opinion, preferably from Sloan Kettering or NYU.”

  “If a second doctor does suggest radiation,” Elizabeth asked, “what then?”

  “We try it and see. It might help, it might not. I can’t promise anything. In a
case like this, there is rarely an absolute cure. What we can hope is to put things in remission. Make this cancer something you can live with. If the therapy works, it will shrink the size of the tumor. Once the tumor is smaller, the pressure against the hypothalamus will be reduced.”

  “And then?”

  “We wait and watch. Even if we’re successful in shrinking the tumor, there’s always the chance it will regenerate itself and start growing again when we stop the treatments.

  “Also, radiation therapy has its own side effects,” Doctor Sorenson warned. “Everyone responds to it differently. It’s difficult to say how it will affect you, Elizabeth. You’re young, and that’s in your favor. You may tolerate the treatments quite well. But with your health compromised as it is, I can’t promise that.”

  “I don’t care,” Elizabeth said. “If radiation is the only way I can get control of this thing then I’m willing to try.” She wouldn’t call it a tumor or cancer, it was simply a thing—an ugly thing that stood between her and a return to normalcy.

  Doctor Sorenson smiled. “Well, before we proceed with anything, I want you to get a second opinion. That will tell us whether or not you’re a candidate for radiation therapy.”

  “And if I am?”

  “Then we start radiation treatments and monitor the tumor’s response.”

  “How long before we know if it’s working?”

  “We could see improvement within two or three months. But we need to get some of this fluid out of you first and let your stomach heal from the cesarean. Even if we do get a favorable second opinion, you still have to regain your strength before we can start radiation treatments.”

  Elizabeth leaned back into her pillow and stared at the X-ray as Doctor Sorenson explained the medications she’d be taking.

  “Am I going to die?” she suddenly asked.

  The question sizzled through the air like a lightning bolt.

  “Well,” Doctor Sorenson said hesitantly, “the prognosis is never good when the tumor is as large and inaccessible as yours. But if, if you are a candidate for radiology, it’s conceivable that we’ll be able to shrink the tumor.”