They want me to send their emotions soaring with goodwill and belief in possibility. Even though I would actually like to provide them with what they need, with what would keep them believing and carrying around those recklessly hopeful cards, I have nothing left in my tank. I no longer own the Mr. Vernon Super Teacher Mask. So I turn around, push past Portia, and limp my way out of the building.
“Where are you going?” she says. “Yo!”
I ignore her and make my way down the steps, onto the street, and under the trestle so I can climb my way up the hill and out of here.
Portia follows, yelling, “All of these people showed up for you! You can’t just leave!”
“We had a deal,” I yell back over my shoulder. “And this was not part of it. You lied to me!”
“Some of those people in there took off work to be here—drove hours! Tonya Baker flew in from Ohio!”
“Not my problem,” I say, and attempt to escape.
“Hey!” she yells, standing in front of me. “At least have the guts to tell me our showing up for you doesn’t rekindle the spark and—”
“It means absolutely nothing,” I say, looking her dead in the pupils. “It doesn’t change a goddamn thing.”
Portia Kane searches my eyes for a long time, maybe looking for the spark that is no longer there and never will be again, before she says, “I believed in you! You fake! You coward!”
And then she’s slapping me again, and I’m flashing on Edmond Atherton, feeling my bones break along with my pride and confidence and maybe everything that was ever good in my heart, and she’s no longer hitting me so much as crying into my chest and pounding my back with her fists, and then there’s a man with us and he’s yelling at Portia, telling her to stop calling me names, and restraining her, and so I try to escape once more, caning myself out of there as fast as I can, silently cursing my limp, thinking I can find a pay phone and arrange for a cab to drive me to the train station so I can get the hell away from here forever—or maybe I can just find some quiet place in South Jersey to end it all, because I am done, finished.
This woman has drained me dry.
There is nothing left.
And soon there will only be ash, this godawful cane, and the metal pins that once held my bones together.
I’m ready to follow Albert Camus’s good example.
PART THREE
SISTER MAEVE SMITH
CHAPTER 17
February 15, 2012
To My Sweet and Good Son, Nathan,
It’s been some time since I last wrote to you.
Please know that I have prayed and will continue to pray for you every single day, multiple times, and ask my sisters to hold you up to God as well. There is an army of nuns praying for you always, and there is great strength in our prayers. I think about you with every breath I take. That will never change.
Then why have I not written to you for months? you might ask.
It is hard to write many letters and never once receive a reply. It’s like talking loudly to a brick wall, never knowing if the person on the other side hears a thing you say, or if the bricks merely bounce your words right back into your face like well-struck tennis balls.
And so maybe you will now feel I have a lack of faith and have failed you once again in some way that I cannot see? I fear this greatly, but I also didn’t want to be an overbearing mother, sending you so many letters that you didn’t want.
I didn’t want to become your equivalent of “junk mail.”
When a son doesn’t write back, it is hard for a mother to know what to do!
Nor did I want to upset you, and I began to feel as though God were telling me to give you space, that He would take care of you in His own way. That I was being asked to show my faith by doing nothing—letting go.
Trust and obey.
And I know you will find these ideas silly, because you don’t share my faith.
But I gave you to God regardless.
I hope you will understand that it was not an easy message for a mother to receive—that she had to let go of her only son—and it is even harder now that I believe I may have misinterpreted what God was trying to say to me, which is what this letter is about.
Two weeks or so ago, completely out of the blue, Mother Superior forced me to get a physical; she insisted that I see a doctor even though I hadn’t been to one in years, and my refusing to see any medical professionals had never been a problem before. I told her that God was the only doctor I needed, but she is a stubborn crab of a woman—albeit a strong wife of Christ—and she made the arrangements for me, and then when I refused to go, she threatened to take away access to our wine collection. An extra glass of red every once in a while is a comfort, so help me Jesus.
Long story short, they found a surprisingly large lump in my breast, which immediately prompted more tests—mostly womanly things you will not wish to hear about in great detail, I would imagine—and they ultimately concluded that I have stage IV cancer, which means that it has basically spread everywhere. It’s uncanny, because I had been feeling fine! I’ve heard others say, “If you want to be sick, go to the doctor,” and now, whether they are right or wrong, I finally understand why people say this.
Two days ago my doctor, a Japanese woman much younger than you named Kristina, sat me down in a room to tell me the news, and she looked as though someone had already died, God bless her soul. She was trembling even. I wondered if this might be her first day as a real doctor, and if I were the first person she had booked on a one-way trip to heaven with her diagnosis.
She took my hand in hers, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Your breast cancer is terminal, Sister Maeve. We caught it too late, and it’s already spread, and rather aggressively at that. I’m sorry. There is simply nothing we can do for you at this point but make you feel as comfortable as possible.”