Page 64 of Don’t Tell Me How to Die
SIXTY-TWO
It was an easy decision, and on the Friday morning of Labor Day weekend, when most people were gearing up for summer’s last hurrah, I was sitting on a table in Noah Byrne’s examining room talking about my own last roll of the dice.
“I’m glad you’re doing this, Maggie,” he said.
“It’s a no-brainer,” I said. “My kids need me. They’re better off with a bald mom than no mom at all.”
“We don’t have time for lab error, so I’ve told Rachel to take two samples and FedEx one of them out to Kensington in St. Louis.”
“How soon can I start treatment?”
“It’s a holiday weekend. I won’t have a definite answer until Tuesday morning. Both reports will be in my computer when I get in. Meet me here at seven thirty. We’ll go over the numbers, and we’ll outline an aggressive plan to give you more time with your family.”
“I think I’d like to bring Lizzie.”
“Don’t think. Bring her. You can’t have a bigger champion in your corner.” He looked at my chart. “Your vitals are normal. How have you been feeling?”
“I had a little incident a few weeks ago. I was in the city, and I passed out and wound up in an ER. But right now, I’m feeling good enough to brave the crowds and go back-to-school shopping with the kids.”
“One condition,” he said. “Don’t shop till you drop. You need all the strength you can muster to fight this disease.”
Later that morning Katie, Kevin, and I made our annual trek to Woodbury Common, a sprawling complex of over two hundred high-end outlet stores in Central Valley.
Alex’s death had completely altered our lives, but there was no getting around the fact that my growing teenagers needed clothes, shoes, school supplies, and most of all, an escape from the Heartstone fishbowl where we were bombarded by well-meaning well-wishers who made us relive events we were trying to put behind us.
Three hours later, having found everything on our list plus a few things that weren’t, we were desperately in need of sustenance. According to the mall directory, we had twenty-two options, but for the third year in a row, the unanimous choice was the double burger, cheesy fries, frozen custard experience at Shake Shack.
“You know what I hate about this place?” Katie said, chomping down on a burger. “They ruin everything by posting how many calories I’m eating.”
“It’s the law,” I said.
“Grandpa doesn’t put calories on his menu.”
“He will when McCormick’s becomes a chain. All he needs is nineteen more stores.”
“Do you think Grandpa would do that?” Kevin asked.
“What? Open a second restaurant? I doubt it,” I said.
“Why not? McDonald’s started with one store. KFC started with one store. We could sell franchises.”
“What do you know about franchising?” Katie said.
“More than you. I was talking to Hunter, and he knows a ton of shit about how to make money.”
“Language,” I said.
“Sorry, Mom.” He squared off with Katie. “For your information, Hunter Wilding, who is marrying Aunt Misty, so he’s practically our uncle, has money up the wazoo, and I was talking to him, and he said I could intern at his company next summer.”
“Doing what?” Katie said.
“Learning how to get rich,” he said. “Currently I have zero money up my wazoo, but Uncle Hunter said he’d teach me how to make a bleep-load of it. What are you doing next summer?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, taunting her brother. “I was thinking about writing a book. It’s called The Sad Tale of the Delusional Boy with the Empty Wazoo .”
I cracked up, and Katie joined in. Kevin, doing his best to keep a straight face, came back with, “Laugh now, peasants, but one day I will be president of the First National Bank of Wazoo.”
That opened the floodgates for a round of sibling insults, most of which made no sense, but which were deemed hysterically funny because they all had the word wazoo in them.
Our laughter was infectious, and people around us started smiling, probably wishing they knew what was so hilarious, and imagining we were the happiest family around.
And maybe for one brief moment we were. I felt like we’d broken the logjam of unhappiness we’d been trapped in, and I sat there beaming at my two children who had suddenly been hurled into adulthood.
Katie, who was born with the gift of laughter, knew how to use it to help people heal. And Kevin, who never thought twice about money, had this sudden desire to strike it rich, and I wondered if it was his way of shaking off his insecurities and assuming the mantle left behind by his father.
The two of them had a long road ahead of them, I thought. But somehow I knew they’d be fine. My only goal was to share the journey with them for as long as I could.