“Oh, dear. That sounds painful.”
“It is,” Joyce said, shocked to find herself instantly close to tears. “Her room is right off the kitch
en at home, and from the time Nina was a baby she made us keep that door open. She liked to listen to us moving around. She liked to know we could hear her. She told me that once.
“But in January — God, it was just a few months ago really — she closed the door. I remember it was a Sunday. And that was it. One day we were friends, tickling, and going to movies together. The next day I was a terrible embarrassment, clueless, terminally annoying.
“I wonder if the whole adolescence thing is going to be harder for me because Nina is an only child, or because she was a miracle baby. I had three miscarriages and two surgeries before we had her. I used to give myself hormone shots in restaurant bathrooms, like some kind of junkie.” Joyce paused. “I haven’t thought about that part of my life in ages. We worked so hard to get her. Now that she’s such a royal pain in the ass, I should probably remember how much I wanted a baby. But that’s not my first response when she screams at me for asking if she needs lunch money.”
“I think boys are easier,” Kathleen said. “But there is an undeniable loss when they get to this age. And it’s never as sweet as when they’re little and sitting on your lap.”
They sat quietly for a moment, each savoring memories of little shoes, effortless kisses, bath time.
They smiled at each other. This is good, thought Joyce.
The conversation turned to work, and Kathleen talked about the never-ending budget battle over funding for the library. Joyce told Kathleen how her first national magazine article was completely “edited” to say the opposite of what she had intended.
They agreed to a second cappuccino and traded favorite authors.
“Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison,” Joyce said.
“Beverly Cleary, E. B. White, Maurice Sendak,” said Kathleen.
“Oh, Sendak is a genius.”
Kathleen beamed. “Absolutely.”
“Did you ever try writing a children’s book yourself?”
“Once upon a time. It was pretty awful. I’m good at helping children find books to love.”
The door opened and two men walked in, shouting greetings to Philomena in Italian. A moment later, four Japanese tourists crowded in. Kathleen looked at their cameras and whispered, “They’re early this year.”
Out on the sidewalk, Joyce suggested that Kathleen and Buddy come for dinner the following week; the deadline would help her get some painting done.
Kathleen hesitated and the invitation hung in the air for a moment too long.
“Don’t feel you have to,” Joyce said.
But Kathleen heard the catch in Joyce’s voice. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that . . . I, umm, I’m facing radiation treatments, and I don’t feel like very good company.”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. What is it? I mean, why are you having radiation?”
“Breast cancer.”
“Oh, shit.” Joyce flinched, afraid Kathleen would think she was crude.
“It’s not that I don’t want to get together again. I’m just . . . I don’t want to talk about it anymore and I don’t want to be treated like a patient,” Kathleen said, a little louder than she’d intended. “They’re all as sweet as can be — my family, neighbors, people at school — but ever since the diagnosis, it’s all anyone can talk about. Any room I’m in just fills up with cancer. My cancer. Their best friend’s cancer. Their dog’s cancer! Honest to goodness! One woman cornered me and told me about her twelve-year-old dog’s liver-cancer treatment, like I was an expert on the subject.
“Oh, dear. I sound furious, don’t I?”
“Well, why the hell shouldn’t you be furious?” Joyce said softly.
They smiled at each other. They were going to be okay.
The next day, Joyce called to say that she had found the Olsen poem about Gloucester, and they chatted about the weather for a minute. Then Kathleen said, “I’m getting measured for the radiation in a couple of days. They’re going to make some kind of a plastic form for me to lie in so the ray goes to the right place. And then they are going to” — she took a deep breath and tried to sound casual — “put tattoos on me. So they zap me in the right spot, I guess. Or maybe so they don’t shoot the wrong one by mistake.”
“That sounds hideous!”