Chapter One | Eliza
Part One | Winter
It’s Tuesday, I remind myself as I put the car in park. Gather my belongings. Tuesday, January 2nd. Two days into the new year. Two days into the next chapter of my life. This will be a good year, I told Mike this morning as we sat across from each other drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. It will be full of health, happiness and family, I remind myself now as I lock the car and head towards the staircase in the parking lot. The air is cold, so crisp it makes my nose pink and tender with frostbite. My coat is zipped tightly around my body, a warm blanket, cocooning my tender, fragile skin. I am on my way to the doctor for an annual check up. To scan for any signs of danger. To confirm that I’m healthy. Still my normal self. Everything is working properly. Yet all these years later, I’m not even sure what a normal self would feel like. Should I be able to jump on a trampoline without peeing myself? Should I be able to tenderly hold my breasts, to squeeze them with my hands? Should I be able to smile without the bruise in my heart, the guilt in my stomach? Should I look at my husband Mike and feel the ache in my heart, a burning desire to make love to him, feel his skin against mine?
A part of me knows what’s coming every time I make a trip here. To see my doctor after all these years, feel her smile radiate against my skin. She’s so happy. How can she be so happy all the time? Doing the work she does. Telling the truth to all these people’s lives she shatters, then tries to put back together. People just aren’t that lucky. They can’t be that lucky. To survive cancer and remain the rest of their lives cancer free. How can this be true? How can this not haunt their every waking moment, consuming the empty spaces of their mind? That’s how I feel all the time. Haunted by a ghost, my own ghost, that follows me as I pick my kids up from school. As I make my way to a pilates class. As I treat my clients at work. She’s there, with a sealed envelope, my death warrant inside. And then, I leave my appointment year after year and the doctors confirm that I am fine. In perfect health. No cancer in sight. I have nothing to worry about. That is until I come back next year for my next appointment. Who knows what could happen inside my body in a mere three hundred and sixty five days.
When I woke up this morning, I knew something was wrong but couldn’t quite put a finger on it. It’s that eerie sensation I get some nights, when I wake up in the middle of night, 3 am and just know one of my children is not in their bed. The front door isn’t locked. Something is amiss. It’s right there - the feeling - blazing like the candle I forgot to blow out when I went to bed the night prior. Still burning bright. Thank god, I tell myself the following morning, the house didn’t burn down. And on some nights, that inner knowing is wrong, the front door was locked, all my kids are in their bed and yet I still feel icky, sick with worry. But, that’s what fear does to you. It makes you crazy. Paranoid. Overwhelmed by thoughts that aren’t real.
I move casually through the bodies, some walking in my direction others fleeing the premises, towards the parking lot. I wonder if these people are here for the same news I am bound for or are they getting a routine checkup? A flu shot. Brown baggie full of medication. I look up at the sky as I make my way into the building, one last glimpse of the cloudless horizon before my world may shift. One of two ways. I don’t want to think about that now though. I would rather take in the bright blue sky, so vivid and pure this time of year. Amongst the chill of winter. Storm clouds that have passed. Somewhere beyond the buildings, the city skyline there must be a rainbow, big and bright. Glimmering for some lucky souls to see. To catch in the corner of their eye and make them smile.
I wish I had stopped at Blue Bottle coffee this morning and enjoyed a steaming americano with a belgium waffle. I could’ve brought the kids with me, they love their waffles dipped in chocolate. I scold myself for not thinking of that. For thinking of it now, when it’s too late. The boys are already at school.
I’m being paranoid, Mike would say if he were here with me now, holding my hand. Stepping onto the crosswalk. “You spend too much time in your head, Eliza,” he would say with a kiss on the cheek. “Everything’s going to be alright.”
Like when Jackson was four and he split open his knee and I called the ambulance because there was so much blood. Everywhere. On the kitchen floor. My favorite, faded blue jeans. His shirt. Mine. He was screaming and Blake was gagging as the sight and before I knew it, he was throwing up. Where was Mike? Where was my husband when I needed him? I called for him. Trying to feign an air of ease within my shout. My dry throat, choking on my own tears, brimming at the surface. And then he was there, in front of me. Cheeks pink, flushed. He composed himself, grabbed a dish towel and wrapped it around Jackson’s knee. He picked up Blake and wiped his face, then the floor. He looked at me with his warm, blue eyes and said, It’s going to be okay, it’s just a scratch. His large body, tall and lanky found his way to the floor where he tickled Jackson, bringing that familiar smile back to his face. Blake found his way to his father’s lap and the three of them started to laugh, forgetting what had happened a few moments before. Mike was good at that. At putting things back together when I fell apart. Holding his composure and steadiness. Swiftly acting in a moment of chaos and with two boys, there were a lot of moments of chaos.
I move through the sliding glass doors, close my eyes and take a deep breath. I told Mike I could do this alone, that I wanted to do this alone. That the last nine appointments have come back normal, why wouldn’t this one? There was no need for him to take time off work to join me, he was needed at the office.
Maybe I should’ve brought him with me? Held his hand. We could’ve leaned on each other for support. Laughed about it when it was done, I stressed over nothing. I press the elevator button in the lobby and wait. There’s an elderly woman next to me with hair as white as clouds, the shade of white every woman hopes for. Not peppered like the woman coming out of the pharmacy. I softly pat my hair, as if to check it’s still there and run my fingers through it, twirling it at the end. Still shoulder length, straight and blonde. Nothing’s changed in the last three minutes of my life.
The elevator doors open, I step inside. Press the number five. I ask the woman next to me what floor and she says three, Primary Care. I smile and think, how lucky, to be eighty and healthy. We nod at each other on her way out of the elevator and I clasp my hands together, both of which are becoming clammy. I try to breath slowly and tell myself to relax. It’s going to be fine. It will be fine. I’m fine. The doors open, I suck in my breath. Floor five. Here we go.
I step out of the elevator and into the patient waiting room. It’s empty. I’m the first appointment. Seven am. I walk up to the counter and check in.
“Hi,” I say, the woman does not look up. “I’m here for an appointment, my name is Eliza Waterhouse.” I hand her my medical ID and my driver’s licenses.
She takes them swiftly with a smile that fills up the width of her round face.
“Hi there,” she says and then types things into her computer. “Please fill out this form and the nurse will call you when they are ready.”
I take the clipboard with the form and sit down at a chair. I fill out the questionnaire. When was your last drink? A few days ago, last night? Do you smoke? No. Are you allergic to medication? No. Do you have heart disease? No.. Are you taking any medications? No. The list continues. I finish filling out the document and wait. The waiting kills me, always has, always will.
Like when we had to wait to find out the gender of the baby. Those grueling first weeks, wondering. Wishing. Wanting to know. Or, the tormentous few weeks I was waiting to hear back if I passed my final examinations at school. Was I qualified to bring on my own clients and practice acupuncture? Checking my email over and over again. Refresh, refresh. Horrific feelings of waiting for test results to come back. How many times? For STD check ups in college. Hearing appointments when I was having tendonitis. Getting my eyes checked out to confirm that I did indeed need new reading glasses for my declining eyesight. “Aging”, the doctor had said with a comforting smile, “It happens to all of us.”
I close my eyes, why am I thinking about these things? I should be thinking about work. All my unread emails. How many appointments I would need to move around to be able to attend Jackson’s lacrosse game on Saturday. The empty fridge that needs to be restocked, a grocery trip required. Dry cleaning that needed to be picked up as well as the boys from school since it’s a short day. I take a deep breath and hear my name, “Eliza”. I pop open my eyes and a woman in a pink nurses outfit looks over at me.
“Eliza,” she says, almost as if it’s a question. “We’re ready for you.”
