Please read the disclaimer at the end of this chapter.
I know it has been a long time since I posted. I seem to be bogged down in this story, and I am sorry. I will continue to post this a chapter at a time until I finish it, but I will never again post a work in progress.
It has been just a week since Steve collapsed at Emily's feet.
(Chapter 19. Malibu beach house, Brentwood. March 24.)
Mark stood in the doorway of the master bedroom and watched his son pretend to sleep. He was very worried about Steve, for though his physical condition had improved somewhat, his emotional state had very suddenly deteriorated.
At first, when Olivia had started Steve working with the biofeedback equipment, he had thought Steve was coming out of his depression. Everyone had been astounded by how quickly Steve had learned to maneuver the submarine by controlling his response to stress. Instead of just hiding his negative feelings, he seemed to be letting them go, if not letting them out. By the end of the first day, he could go hours without mishap on the game. Liv took him off the monitor ahead of schedule, and within hours, he had learned to control the glove.
The glove was a thin, flexible, breathable membrane that fit like a second skin over Steve's right hand and forearm. It had red, amber, and green diodes on the back of the hand that lit up to indicate Steve's stress levels. Delicate, precisely placed sensors measured Steve's pulse, blood pressure, temperature, oxygen levels, and most importantly, his galvanic skin response. While most of the measurements were good general indicators of Steve's overall stress level and his emotional well being, they could be affected by factors such as room temperature and physical activity. Only the GSR could not be fooled. When Steve was feeling stress, he could concentrate on controlling his breathing and sit very still, and the other monitors would drop quickly into the green, but when he was stressed, the electrical conductivity of his skin would remain high and the GSR monitor would stay in the red until Steve had truly calmed down.
To show them all how accurate the glove was, and probably to show off a little as well, Mark thought, Olivia had engaged Steve in several hands of poker, promising to soundly trounce him as she had years ago when he was in the hospital recovering from injuries he had received on the job. As Maribeth, Mark, Jesse, Amanda, Steven, and CJ all watched first with amusement, and later with concern, Liv had Steve keep the glove hidden from her view while allowing the others to see it. Whenever Steve was bluffing, claiming a good hand when it was really bad or complaining about the deal when he really had a good hand, the GSR diodes would glow red, indicating stress and tension even if the rest only showed slight elevations. For her part, Olivia had read Steve perfectly, calling every bluff and folding early every time he had half a chance of winning. Steve's increasing frustration with losing showed as all the diodes on the glove crept into the amber and eventually into the red. To Mark's relief, Steve finally called an end to the game. If Steve hadn't finally quit, Mark would have told Liv what was happening, and Steve would probably have been angry with them both.
Just this morning, Mark had again seen the accuracy of the GSR monitor when Steve went in for his gastroscopy. This time, because he had not yet been medicated and he wasn't already weakened by illness, Jesse had fully sedated him. As they waited for the anesthetic to take hold, all the monitors dropped from amber to green except for the GSR. Only when Steve was fully unconscious, did it finally go green. As Steve came to after the procedure, most of the indicators remained green, but again, the GSR climbed to amber slowly and shot into the red when Jesse came back into the room. It only returned to the green when Jesse told him the gastroscopy was clear. The tear in his esophagus had healed satisfactorily and he could begin eating real food again.
A few minutes later, when Steven and Maribeth entered the office and began explaining the next course of treatment, the diodes again went from green to amber. Steve still had five weeks of medical leave, and he would be taking powerful antibiotics and antacids for at least that long. During that time, he would still be required to get at least twelve hours bed rest a day until further notice, and he was forbidden from engaging in any police work aside from attending the Gaudino trial which was scheduled to start in four days.
"Come on, Maribeth, I could just work half days, go in at seven and work until one."
"No, Steve, that's exactly the problem," she insisted. "Your idea of a half day is six hours. Normal people don't work twelve-hour shifts. You need to slow down. You need to give yourself time to recover, and I am going to make sure your do."
"Maribeth, you know my job."
"I know your job put you in the hospital, *again*, just a week ago, and you are a damned fool if you think I'm going to let you go back to work again this soon."
"Look."
Mark tried heroically to suppress a grin. His daughter-in-law wasn't about to let her husband get a word in edgewise.
"No, you look, mister. You *will* do what we tell you, or you *will* be in the hospital again."
Mark saw all the diodes in the glove go red and wished he could do something about it.
"So," Steve said tightly, "this decision has already been made without me, hasn't it."
Trying valiantly to stop the argument, Steven stepped in. "Yes, Pops, the decision has been made, but not by us." At Steve's quizzical look, the young man continued. "This is your body telling you what it needs, and this time, you need to listen. In the past thirty years, not many advances have been made in the treatment of ulcers. I don't know why, but it's just been a neglected field of research. You are getting the most up-to-date treatment available, but ulcers are still very difficult to treat because the bacteria causing them lives within the mucous lining of the stomach and it's difficult to deliver medication to the infection site. We can only accomplish so much so fast, and if you keep going on like you had been, well.Pops, things could have been a whole lot worse than they were last week."
Steve appeared to consider what his son had said, then he studied his nails as if contemplating getting a manicure. Finally, without looking up, he said, "I need a ride home. I'm still too groggy to drive after the gastroscopy."
Maribeth had driven them home. She and Mark had tried repeatedly to engage Steve in conversation the whole way, but he just grunted monosyllabic responses or ignored them completely. Once she'd gotten Steve settled to sleep off the lingering effects of the anesthetic, she went out to the kitchen where Mark and Liv were having coffee. She gave them Steve's medications, two powerful antibiotics and an acid controller, along with a dosing schedule, and then she and Mark tried to explain for Liv what Steve's reaction to his prescribed treatment had been.
"I know you and Keith needed some quiet time together," Maribeth said, "and I'm not saying I think you should have come to the hospital with us, but I do wish you could have been there. It was just too strange, Liv. First, he was really nervous, then he was kind of pleading to be allowed to work what he called half days."
Liv laughed. "Six or eight hours, I'll bet."
Maribeth nodded, "Seven to one. Then, when I laid down the law, he got all pissy, which I expected. What bothers me though, is his reaction when Steven explained how serious things could have been. He just folded, no arguments, nothing. He said he needed a ride home, and that was it."
"I suppose it's too much to hope that he has finally realized a man his age just has to stop once in a while when his body decides it's had enough," Liv said hopefully.
Mark snorted. "Pig-headed fool. He gets it from his mother's side, you know."
"Oh, I don't know about that, Dad," Maribeth said with a grin, then looking serious again, she said, "but ulcers can be a very serious condition at his age, and I am worried that if we let him slide into depression like he did after his heart attack, his medical condition will deteriorate along with his mental state."
Nodding, Olivia said, "I agree. I know about depression from firsthand experience, and one of the first things you do is stop looking after yourself." She looked to Mark, "If you still think it will do any good, now might be the time to let him read those letters. I told you before," she continued, turning back to Maribeth, "I don't mind if you read them. I can understand why you might want to, and for that matter, if you and Steve feel you need to share something with Steven, that's ok, too, but please, don't ask me to talk about anything in there, I.I'm not sure I can do that."
Maribeth reached out and covered Liv's hand with her own. It was so small she had to remind herself that she was talking to a grown woman in order to keep the 'mom' tone out of her voice. "I understand, Olivia, and I know it must be difficult, but we will respect your wishes. Thank you for still caring about my husband enough to open yourself up like this for him."
Liv smiled fondly, then. "How could I not? I was broken, and he fixed me. He gave me the life I have now when he stepped aside thirty years ago."
Maribeth had left for the hospital a few minutes later, leaving it to Mark to decide when and how to best broach the subject of Liv's letters with Steve.
And now, Mark found himself, at four in the afternoon, standing in the doorway of the master bedroom, clutching two large notebooks full of old letters, and watching his son pretend to sleep. Steve had been resting far longer than he needed to sleep off the aftereffects of any anesthetic he'd been given, and the simple fact that he was choosing to remain in bed longer than necessary was cause enough for concern. The lump on the bed was covered head to foot with a fluffy comforter, save for one arm flung out across the mattress. On that arm, four little dots glowed happily green, and one shone an angry red. The very air in the room breathed sadness and frustration.
"Son?"
"What?" the lump grunted sullenly.
Mark sighed. He wasn't going to play this game today. It was too soon. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, Steve."
Even from the doorway, Mark could feel the lump tense. He couldn't allow this to become a battle of wills, not yet. "Now."
The lump shifted and turned, and finally, Mark saw his son emerge from the folds of the bedclothes. For all his seventy odd years, Steve could still be pig-headed stubborn and childish when the mood struck him.
"What?" This time the response was not only sullen, but also tinged with anger, and Mark had no doubt, had he been anyone else in the world, that anger would have contained a threat as well.
Steve looked positively miserable, and Mark's heart went out to him, but knowing Steve's propensity to interpret sympathy for pity, and knowing how Steve hated to feel pitied, Mark kept his compassion to himself. Making his tone as stern as he could manage, he said, "I'm worried about you, son. We all are."
Steve looked his father over for a minute. Why did he have those two binders with him? Steve thought he'd seen them in the downstairs closet once when he'd helped his dad get something out or put something away. He knew his dad was just waiting for him to ask, and he was determined not to give him the satisfaction. He sighed deeply and said, "Look, Dad, I will take all the pills you and Maribeth and anyone else want to give me, until I rattle like a maraca, if that's what it takes to satisfy you. I will get plenty of rest, and I will stay away from work, but don't expect me to be happy about it."
Mark moved over to the bed and sat beside his obstinate son.
"That's exactly what we're worried about, Steve." Steve tried to protest, but Mark just kept talking. "Do you remember how you felt and acted after your heart attack? Do you remember what it was like when you got so depressed?"
As Mark waited patiently, Steve considered his answer. When he'd finally got to feeling better, Steve had secretly done some research on his condition, and was surprised to find that severe depression could even cause permanent memory loss. As near as he could figure, there were about three weeks of his life still unaccounted for in his mind, but he would never admit that to anyone.
Shrugging, he said simply, "Yeah.I guess so."
Mark stared at his son a long moment, then, trying to work out what he'd just been told. Even he hadn't realized Steve had been so depressed that he would suffer amnesia, yet that's what he seemed to be admitting without really saying it. Testing his theory, Mark said, "Well, I suppose you remember enough to know you never want to go there again."
Steve tried, and failed miserably, to keep the surprise from his face. Except for a few years in his misspent youth, he and his dad had always been close, but it never failed to amaze him how well his father could read him. Sometimes, he thought his dad might even have a touch of ESP where he was concerned.
For a long while, he sat silently, tracing patterns on the bedspread with his index finger. He always felt he could tell his dad anything, but this? He wasn't sure. He felt his chest tighten and a lump formed in his throat. He saw the damned diodes on the glove, all of them glowing amber and red now, and he slipped his arm beneath the blankets. How much did his father know? How much could he stand to hear?
"Son?"
Taking a deep breath, Steve admitted as much as he dared. "I remember wishing I had died of the heart attack, Dad. Then the next thing I recall is wanting to take a walk on the beach. I still wasn't feeling good, then, but I knew I was better than I had been in a long time. I'm not too clear on what all happened in between."
Clearing the frog that had formed in his throat, Mark patted his son's leg and said, "Sometimes, son, it's good to forget the details."
None of them had ever been able to decide whether Steve's alcohol-sleeping pill binge had been an actual suicide attempt or just clumsy self- medication exacerbated by very poor judgment due to depression, so they had tacitly decided not to discuss the matter. Upon waking up in the hospital yet again, Steve had been so overwrought he'd required sedation and had spent the next three weeks in the psych ward, much of the time wearing a straight jacket to prevent him from injuring himself.
Mark had no idea how long he'd been sitting there, reliving those horrible, endless days of worry when Steve's voice called him out of his reverie.
"Dad?"
"Hmmm? Oh, well, Steve, the way you've been acting lately, sometimes cranky, sometimes cooperative, sleeping way too much.That's how it all started after your heart attack, and well, like I said, we're all worried about you."
Steve had been cooperating as much as he could lately, but now he balked. "I am not going to see a shrink, Dad."
Mark grinned. He had known that protest would come, would have been frantic with worry if it hadn't. "I'm not suggesting that you do, son, not yet anyway." He bit his tongue to keep from laughing at his son's confusion.
Steve was truly perplexed. What, other than psychiatric treatment, could his father have been working up to? He knew he'd never find out if he didn't ask. "Ok, I'll bite, what are you suggesting? And what are the notebooks for?"
"Glad you asked," Mark said, barely suppressing the humor in his voice. "But I'm not going to tell you." He knew he had Steve's interest now, and that alone was an improvement from when he'd walked in. "I think what's in here might help you.cope with your situation a little better, and all interested parties have given me permission to try this, but if you want to know what's in here, you'll have to find out for yourself."
As both nightstands were cluttered with books, magazines, a water carafe and glass, and other miscellany, Mark moved over to the vanity and put the notebooks down. Then he fished a paper dose cup out of the pocket of his cardigan.
"Now, it's time for your meds. No sedatives, but don't be surprised if the antibiotics make you nauseous or give you diarrhea."
He poured Steve a glass of water from the carafe and watched as his son washed the pills down. Then he took a bottle of liquid antacid out of his other pocket and measured a dose of the stuff into the paper cup for his son. Steve tossed it back, made a face, and gestured for another glass of water.
When he had washed away the taste, Steve grimaced again and said, "That stuff's almost as bad as the nutrition shakes."
Mark laughed slightly. "At least there's not nearly so much of it," he said, heading for the door.
"Thank God for small favors, huh?" Steve mustered a half-grin. Loath as he was to admit it, that was the chalky liquid's one redeeming quality. "So," he said, eyeing the notebooks on the vanity, "what do you have in those binders, Dad?"
Giving his son his best, disconcerting, up-to-something grin, Mark said, "See for yourself," and pulled the door shut behind him.
"Well," Liv asked expectantly, as Mark came into the living room.
"I definitely got his interest," Mark smiled.
"But will it do him any good?"
Mark nodded. "I think it will. I think if he starts to read them, it will distract him from his own situation long enough for him to accept it. Then, I think he'll be ok."
"What did he say when you told him what you had?"
"Sweetie, I didn't tell him," Mark said mischievously, "but I got him curious, and sooner or later, he won't be able to stand the mystery any more, and he'll have to find out for himself."
Olivia giggled with delight and smiled at Mark. "Oh, you are wicked, aren't you?"
Mark nodded regally and added, "And very good at it, too. I put them down on the vanity so he has to get out of bed to get to them."
Steve sighed and shifted position. He'd been trying to read one of his magazines for the past half hour, but he kept catching himself staring at those damned notebooks. Steve loved his father, but sometimes, the man was positively infuriating. He felt like a cat, being taunted by a twitching bit of ribbon, but he'd be damned if he'd pounce.
He rolled onto his side, turning his back to the binders on the vanity, and spread the magazine open on the mattress next to him. They were plain, black vinyl binders, somewhat dusty, and he'd noticed they were labeled only with dates, 2003 to 2018, and 2019 to.and the last date was blank. Whatever was collected in there, apparently, the collection was incomplete. Steve realized his shoulder was aching and his arm was shaking from the strain of supporting his upper body, and he hadn't even started to read the article in front of him yet.
He rolled over onto his stomach, pushed the pillows out of the way, and propped himself up on his elbows with the magazine open in front of him. He started with the captions of the photos first to find out what the article was about. As he reached up to turn the page, he caught sight of the diodes on the glove, all of them glowing amber, and groaned. In his mind's eye, he saw his father's smug grin again, as he left the room without giving away a thing, and suddenly all the diodes turned red.
Sighing, Steve hung his head and knew he was beaten. He closed the magazine and tossed it onto the bedside table. Then he stood up, stretched and cracked his back, straightened the bedcovers and the pillows, and stalked over to the vanity, feeling all the while as if someone was going to bring him a bowl of milk and a toy mouse.
The binders were thick, four or five inches each, and crammed full of papers. They were heavy, too, as Steve lifted them from the vanity and carried them over to the chair by the window. Whatever they held, if he was going to cave in to his father's taunting, he wanted to do it in a good light.
Steve settled into the armchair, put his feet up on the ottoman, checked the spines of the notebooks, and dropped the one with the most recent dates to the floor beside him with a soft thump. The other he held in his lap for several minutes, wondering what it could contain. What possible reading material could hold so much meaning for him that it could make him forget his current wretched state? His dad believed that it would pull him out of his foul mood, and that in itself, was enough to convince Steve that it was powerful, near magical stuff, but what could it be?
Taking a deep breath, he opened the cover of the volume in his lap. The faint perfume of lavender and a musty old house mingled with the sharp tinge of decaying paper. Neat, clear handwriting, long, fluid lines of text spilled across the page. The paper was a delicate blue, yellowing at the edges and sprinkled with a border of flowers and butterflies at the bottom. If the floral scent hadn't been enough, Steve would have recognized Liv's orderly, delicate script anywhere.
He turned the pages of the notebook. Pages and pages there were, all of her tidy writing, on various types of stationery. Vivid pink note cards, greeting cards, several sheets of paper with elephants fluttering about on butterfly wings and the Bible verse, 'If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.' Steve smiled at that; it was pure Liv, whimsical, funny, yet with a serious message. There were some cream colored sheets with a picture of peanut-shaped people in what appeared to be a set of bleachers and the caption, 'Comments from the peanut gallery,' lots of floral patterns, and an elephant in a bathtub with a rubber ducky. Liv was certainly a woman of eclectic tastes.
Steve turned back to the first letter. It was dated July of 2003, nearly thirty years ago. Curious, he picked up the other volume and checked the last letter, February 18, 2033. So, this was his dad's plan to pull him out of his foul mood. He was to catch up on the last thirty years he'd missed of Olivia's life. Suddenly, Steve began to feel.he wasn't sure what.embarrassed? Ashamed? He was invading someone's privacy. This was something akin to reading another person's journal. Liv seemed to have set down the past thirty years of her life in letters to his dad. Letters he'd never seen. Surely, she had not expected him to ever read them, or had she?
His dad had said he had permission to share the contents of the notebooks, so maybe Liv did expect him to read the letters. She might not have planned it this way, but Steve knew his dad wouldn't give him all these letters without checking with Liv first. He thought a moment. What of Maribeth? Did she know? Steve decided she did, and approved. After all, his dad had said, 'all interested parties,' and the only ones who could be interested were Liv and Maribeth, maybe Keith, but he didn't seem to be either the sentimental or the jealous type.
Putting the more recent of the two notebooks back on the floor, he took a deep breath and opened the older one to the first letter.
*** Dear Mark,
It has been almost a year and a half since I last saw you, and I am missing you and all my friends in California. It is strange that I am home at last, and still feeling homesick. I hope you don't mind my writing and asking for news, but I miss you all so much.
Well, I am sending this to you at the hospital because I have no idea what has become of Steve, how he's doing, or how he feels about me, and I have no wish to upset him or cause him further pain. I hope you can forgive me for hurting him as I did, but to marry him when I knew Keith was there would only have hurt him worse in the end. I trust you will fill me in and keep me informed, but until you tell me otherwise, I will just keep writing you care of CG.
Since I am asking you for news, I suppose I should share mine first. I guess the biggest, and best, bit of news I could share is that Keith and I have a daughter. ***
Steve felt something twist in his chest, his stomach washed acid, and his breath came fast. This might be the answer to that terrible question he could not ask. Without giving it any thought, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. Looking at his wrist, he saw that all the diodes on the glove were fully red, and he knew there was only one hope of changing them back to green. Swallowing hard against the nausea that could have been nerves or his medication, he looked back to the letter.
*** Her name is Emily Morgan Stephanie Theodora Stephens. My in-laws say it's pretentious, but Keith and I wanted to honor the people who brought us together and still give her a name she could use without bringing up all the bad things tied to the past.
She is a precious and precocious thing, and will be a year old in September. Keith jokes that it is a good thing she looks just like her mother, else she would be bald still. She has my curly red hair and my two- tone eyes, but no freckles yet, though I imagine they will come when she starts going out in the sun, and she is HUGE! She is as big now as her dad was at a year and I was at two. ***
Steve grinned. Emily had to be six feet tall. Then he frowned. There was no specific mention of her birth date. Surely, there had been some questions when the child was born just seven months after the wedding. He continued reading.
*** She is as hale and hearty a child as you would ever want to see, and, Mark, she is smart as a whip. She is already speaking, not just baby talk, but real words. She asks to 'play computer' and 'see gramma', and every afternoon when Keith pulls up, she shrieks, 'daddy home,' and starts to giggle.
Well, that is my news for now. I hope to hear from you soon. If I don't, I will take it to mean you would prefer I quit writing you.
Please do write back.
Love, Liv ***
Steve alternately smiled and frowned again. His dad had obviously written back, often, and he was glad of that, but he was puzzled that there had been no mention of Emily's September birth date. He couldn't believe no one had noticed that she was just too early to have been Keith's baby.
He turned the page to a pale pink sheet edged with a lacy embossed pattern. Perhaps the next letter would answer his questions. It was dated August of 2003, just a few days before he married Maribeth.
*** Dear Mark,
Oh, I was so very glad to hear from you! I was beginning to worry that you had written me out of your life for good, but I do understand how the wedding plans delayed your reply, so there was no need for you to apologize. I also understand why you want me to continue writing to you at the hospital. I have found married life to be alternately a joy and a trial, and I wouldn't want our correspondence to make it more difficult for either of the newly weds.
I am delighted for Steve and Maribeth. She is getting a wonderful, honorable, compassionate man, and having met Dr. Inscoe at a few conferences, I can tell you, though I am sure you have noticed, that Steve is getting an intelligent, strong-willed woman fully capable of keeping him in check when needed. You will have a strong ally in her; you can count on it.
Be on the lookout for a package from me. Inside you will find a wrapped wedding gift and an unsigned card. It is a pair of heavy silver candlesticks Keith and I found in a rather large antiques shop along US15 near the Virginia-Maryland border while we were on our summer vacation-- Gettysburg; Washington, D.C.; and the hills of Northern Virginia. The building looks like a castle, and we stopped just because it seemed so interesting.
The trip was wonderful, and Emmy took her first steps on the wall round the reflecting pool in front of the Washington Monument. Then, being stubborn and independent like her father, rather than walking from me to him as she was supposed to, she headed toward the water and landed with a plop in the reflecting pool. Keith hauled her out squalling and with a sodden diaper, and a nearby officer gave us a ticket citing us with something or other, I have no idea what.
We took her to the Museum of Natural History, one of my favorite places in all the world, outside of home. It was just down the mall, and Keith rested on the bench beneath the charging elephant while I took Emmy into the ladies room to wash her and dry her and change her into some clean clothes from the diaper bag. (There is no telling what lives in that reflecting pool. Years ago, I saw a vagrant whizzing into it, and on a later visit, witnessed a frat boy losing his lunch there after a long binge.) Half an hour after her splash about, Emmy was giggling and babbling and toddling ahead of us, determined to throw herself beneath the hooves of the 'hursees' on the Carousel.
Well, just call me 'Babylon,' for lately that's all I seem to do about my child and my trip.
Take care, Liv ***
Steve was surprised to find that Liv and Maribeth had met before and neither of them had mentioned it to him, but he shrugged it off. As long as they were getting along now, that was good enough for him. He remembered the candlesticks. They had quickly become one of Maribeth's favorite decorations and graced the table at every special family meal ever since. She had gone to great lengths to discover who had sent them, and when no giver owned up, she had asked every guest at the wedding to thank the person for her if they knew who it was. Steve smiled, too at the story of Emily going for a dip in the reflecting pool and wondered if Liv ever looked back on it as an early sign of the trials her daughter was about to put her through.
Steve read quickly through the next several letters, then. They were full of news and stories of Emily's growing up, Keith, Kenney, and Beechie's exploits in the woods during buck season, and the beginnings of a romance between Kenney and Sue Redmond. One letter mentioned Liv's regret that Maribeth had found his box of souvenirs from his time with her, and typically, she had been, "So sorry that I am causing him further pain after all this time." The pages flowed with Liv's characteristic tone of wonder and amusement at life in general, and he could hear her voice in his head as she told him all her stories. Then he came across a letter that seemed to have seen a lot of abuse. The edges were worn, the pages, splattered with tears. The folds had become soft and translucent, leading Steve to believe that his father had read it many times over the years before he finally put it in the binder. It was dated June 2004.
*** Dear Mark,
A grandson! I know you are thrilled and he will be spoiled, and I'll bet Steve is just beside himself with pride and joy. That is wonderful news. And with a name like Steven Mark Sloan to grow into, I am sure he will be a remarkable man. With the help of his family and friends, he cannot fail to distinguish himself.
Watch for a baby gift from Keith and me, a fat silver piggybank Keith picked out at a local silversmith's shop. It seems our 'rustic community' has become a haven for all sorts of artists and artisans--as well as a few long-haired, pot-smoking, acid-dropping, time-warped hippie wannabes, but that is another matter altogether. The few coins in the bank--a liberty dime, a wheat penny, a bicentennial quarter, and a shiny new penny--are just for luck. Superstition says it is bad luck to give a gift of an empty wallet, and I suppose that holds true for an empty bank as well.
Again, congratulations. I am so pleased for you all.
As for me, well, I will tell you about that later. Emmy on the other hand is proving herself a truly remarkable child. At just twenty-one months, she is speaking fluently in full sentences and reading first and second grade books. Keith now jokes that she may have gotten her looks from me, but her brains must come from his side of the family. When friends point out that he's no smarter than I am, he agrees, but says her intelligence must be from him, because she's far too pretty to have taken any of his looks.
We are blessed with an uncommonly beautiful and intelligent daughter, but sometimes, I worry. Already, I think she spends too much time playing on her own. At the day care, she is among children a year or more older than her. She is so big, they notice no difference in size, but she seems to lack patience for their company. While other children tinker with the blocks for a while then are off doing something else, she spends hours in concentrated activity creating elaborate set ups. If another child has something she needs, she is not at all shy about simply taking it from him. It is not so much that she is ill mannered, either, though she is that, but she is so focused on her 'projects' that the people around her tend to fade into the background.
I was for a while concerned that she might be autistic, but extensive tests have ruled out all the likely disorders. In fact, Keith and I have been told repeatedly that she is exceptionally gifted and that we should encourage her to develop her talents. Frankly, right now I would prefer to develop her manners and her personal skills more than her mind. She has few friends, and those children who do play with her often seem uneasy around her.
Any advice you have would be most appreciated.
Now, Mark, I don't wish to spoil your joy, so would you please put this letter away for a couple days. What I have to say next is not good news. ***
Steve felt his chest tighten. He was glad she was so happy for him and Maribeth, and he remembered the piggy bank. Steven had treasured it, and it was now stuck away in storage somewhere, probably with the coins still inside. He and Maribeth had wondered when they received it if it had been from the same person who had given them the candlesticks. He found himself sharing Liv's concern for her daughter, as well, and he had no idea what the rest of the letter might contain, but he was sure his father had done just as he was about to, and forged ahead despite Liv's warning.
*** I do hope you have done as I asked, and waited to read this part of the letter, Mark, for what I am about to unload on you will surely spoil your mood. I am sorry to share this with you, but your shoulders are broad, and you are a good, dear friend. I need to share my fears with someone, and I find I cannot speak to my husband or friends without bursting into tears. ***
Wondering what Olivia had been afraid of, Steve turned to the next page of the letter, and found it was even more tearstained others had been. As he read it, he found his own tears joining Liv's and, probably, his father's as well. For the moment, he didn't even care that all the diodes on the glove were in the red again.
*** Three months ago, Kenney finally moved out of his parents' house. Keith and I helped him, and about that time, my back started hurting. Naturally, I blamed it on muscle strain and believed it would go away in a few days. It did not.
Gradually, the pain got worse, sometimes nauseatingly so, and grew to include my lower left abdomen. I stubbornly refused treatment, claiming it was just a torn muscle or a pinched nerve and nothing more than time, rest, and some painkillers were needed to help me recover.
'Physician, heal thyself,' the saying goes. Would that I could.
The pain grew worse, and my legs went numb, first pins and needles, then nothing. I began to limp and to hunch over like an old dowager. Then, about a week ago, I awoke to a wet bed, soiled sheets, a screaming baby, and a howling pain in my back. I was paralyzed from the waist down and had lost control of my functions. ***
Steve noticed that the beautiful handwriting had become wobbly, and he knew it had cost Liv dearly to set her troubles down on paper.
*** I was able to roll over and reach the phone to dial 911, but it hurt too much to roll back. The pain took the air from my lungs, and I couldn't even 'describe the emergency' to the operator. I just managed to say 'ambulance, Keith at work' before I fainted.
I awoke to the humiliation of having two old friends from school discover first hand that I slept in the nude.
An MRI revealed that I had a tumor, roughly the size and shape of a Nerf football growing between my spine and my left kidney. It had grown slowly, making room for itself as it went. Emergency surgery to remove the tumor quickly became a left oophorectomy, supracervical hysterectomy, left nephrectomy, and a bowel resection as the beast inside me had crushed my left ovary, and the left side of my uterus, accounting for the abdominal pain, and slowly pinched off the blood supply to my left kidney and a portion of my colon.
A biopsy and subsequent tests have shown that the tumor was cancerous and has metastasized to my liver, lungs, and bowels already. I am not expected to live another year.
I am so sorry to dump this on you, Mark, but I am so deeply afraid, more frightened than I have ever been in my life, and no one here can be strong for me right now. Every time I begin to voice my fears, they begin to cry, but if I can get this all down and send it off to you, I will not see you cry for me. I can remember your strength and draw on it, and maybe it will help me.
I will fight this, Mark, with all that I have and all that I am. I have already started an aggressive experimental chemotherapy protocol which left me so violently ill, my husband the cop went off in search of some long- haired, pot-smoking, acid-dropping, time-warped hippie wannabes to sell him some marijuana to help ease the nausea. It did only a little good, and made me speak and act so strangely I flatly refused to ever try it again, but I will continue the treatment, Mark, and I promise you I will be writing you again this time next summer to tell you to look for another package for that grandson of yours.
Now, I have one more absolutely unfair request to make of you. Please don't tell anyone about this. I do not intend to leave this world any time soon, but if I do succumb, I want Steve, Jesse, Amanda, and the rest of my California friends to believe the end was sudden and painless. It might be a shock for them, but it's better than knowing I was suffering and they couldn't be there for me.
I love you Mark, and I am trusting you to keep my confidence. You will be my rock when my husband can't be. I know this is terribly unfair to you, but I don't know where else to turn. Just as my life was truly happy for once, the world fell out from under me again, and if I cannot find one person who will hear my troubles and listen to my fears without burdening me with his sympathetic tears, I shall go mad and give it all up for lost.
Please keep my secrets.
All my love, Liv ***
Steve had mixed emotions about the letter. He was proud of Liv for her fighting spirit, mad as hell that she would unload such news on his dad and then ask him to keep it a secret, and resentful that she had never mentioned it to him. He also found himself wondering if she and Keith had agreed to overlook the question of Emily's paternity because Liv could never have another child.
Steve kept turning pages. Each of the letters was full of news and stories, and most contained only a brief mention of Liv's condition. Sometimes the handwriting was clear and confident, other times it was wobbly, but no matter how shaky the script, the stories were always wonderful, sometimes sentimental, sometimes full of dry wit, and occasionally outrageous.
Then there was a very long letter dated March, 2005, written in a different hand, an old-fashioned, schoolteacher's cursive. Steve wondered how his father had felt when he'd seen it. Did he at first think Liv had died? It must have been a heart wrenching moment. It troubled Steve, and he knew Liv was fine now.
*** Dear Mark,
This letter comes to you courtesy of Edna, a compassionate and trustworthy volunteer at the hospital, the mother of a friend, widowed just over a year now, who is looking forward to seeing 'that distinguished white-haired doctor friend' of mine again. Edna is blushing furiously now, Mark, but she has yet to refuse to set down what I dictate.
I may not be able to write to you myself, but it is not so bad, my friend, as I am not yet too ill for mischief. Perhaps I shall push my luck a bit further and see if I can make Edna confess just a little more.
She pretends she can never recall your name, but I know better. She was devastated to learn that you lived in LA, and after the quake was frantically pestering me for news of you and yours. Thank you for calling so soon after to let me know you were all ok. I don't think Edna could have stood another moment of waiting and wondering any more than I could.
I have just made Edna show me what she has written, Mark, and every word I dictated is here. I think she indulges me because she believes I am dying. Either that, or she is hoping it will be a convenient excuse to express her admiration for you. Won't she be chagrinned when I walk out of here whole and well and looking forward to a good many more years of teasing her about her girlish crushes! ***
Steve paused for thought. For some reason he seemed to remember a busy couple of years shortly after Steven was born when his father had a conference to go to every other month. Mark had always led an active life, but for a time there, it had seemed especially hectic, and sometimes the strain showed. Steve remembered worrying about his dad before the quake and for a while after, and now he knew why.
He also remembered Mark coming home from one particular 'conference' energized and seeming so pleased with himself he practically floated several inches above the ground. Perhaps he had established more than a passing acquaintance with Edna.
Steve decided he would have to ask about that.
*** So, Steve is a captain. Good for him; it was a long time in coming. He has all my sympathies, as I cannot begin to imagine the decisions he must have faced and the strain he would have been under in the circumstances you described to me the first few days after the earthquake. For once, I would not trade my troubles for another's. I can decide well enough what to do for myself, but to know my decision might mean life or death for another? Well, that's why I am an orthopedist, so I do not have to make such decisions. I have been praying for him and for all of you.
I have authorized Meyer to divert all the funds he can financially justify to an account that will be called the LA Promise Foundation. There is also a special, personal loan set aside for Jesse. Please, MAKE him apply for the assistance. The money is there for him already, and the foundation is just a cover so he won't feel personally obligated to me. It is my pleasure to help. I know what it means to lose a home, and it breaks my heart to know he has suffered the same misfortune, made all the more terrible because he had just acquired it. I personally can't do much to help any of you, but I can offer up my prayers and my cash and I will do so gladly. ***
Steve had to stop and wipe his eyes. Liv had been too weak to write her own letters, and yet she had been thinking of them, praying for them, and in Jesse's case, providing for them. He had always considered her an amazing woman, but now he realized no one word, nor any collection of them, could begin to say what she was. She was something wonderful that had no name.
Suddenly, he felt sheepish, romanticizing his old flame in the very bed he had shared with his wife of thirty years. Liv was not some mythical creature. She was a brave, strong, kind, compassionate, generous, caring, selfless woman who should perhaps be made a saint some day, but she was still just a woman. He would always care deeply for her and always admire her, but she simply could not ever come close to filling the space Maribeth had carved out for herself in his life.
Steve turned the page, and noticed that it started with "Dear Dr. Sloan." Unless the illness had affected her mind, this couldn't be Liv's letter. Except for when they first met and one brief period of time when she and Mark were not on good terms, she had always called his dad by name. He turned back to the previous page, and found that the handwriting matched Edna's. He continued reading.
*** Dear Dr. Sloan:
Olivia has nodded off. When she wakes up, I will remind her to tell you all about Emily. Until then, I will tell you all the things Olivia doesn't want you to know. If she ever finds out I did this, she'll be so mad at me she might even refuse to let me write for her again. I can live with that, because she needs her friends now. I can tell you care for her, and I think you have a right to know how she is really doing.
Olivia is dying. I'm sorry there is no easier way to say this. If I had Livvie's way with words, I could make it sound like an adventure or something, but it's not. The fact is, she is dying slowly and painfully, and that's all I can say about it.
She has not been able to keep anything down for over a week. Even water comes back up on her, and what little does stay down runs right through. She has ulcers in her mouth and throat from the vomit and sores on her bottom from the diarrhea. Over the past few days, she has refused to eat because of the pain. Dr. Griffin, has put her on IV nutrition, but it is hard on her system. Her organs are breaking down now because of it, and her eyes are sunken from dehydration.
One of the hippies from the 'Tranquility' (their commune) claims to be a real doctor. Dr. Moon Love, if you can believe it. All of her papers check out, but I think she's a quack. The first thing she tried to do was get Olivia to quit the chemo. 'Western medicine is corrupt,' says Dr. Love, and 'Harsh, artificial chemicals can not heal such a wonderful natural marvel as the human body.'
Bullshit.
It's a good thing Livvie still has some of the sense God gave her. She refused to quit the chemo because pulling out of the study would.oh, I don't remember what she said, but there wouldn't be enough people left for the results to count. Still, Keith and Olivia are paying good money for Dr. Love to come three days a week to poke Livvie with needles, hook her up to a monitor, and tell her to, 'Visualize the tumors shrinking. Imagine them withering away as the blood supply is cut off. Focus. Focus.'
Focus, my eye!
I've been volunteering in the cancer ward for twenty years, since my own daughter died of leukemia. Dr. Love is a fraud hoping to turn a quick buck on the suffering of a desperate, dying young woman.
I know your life is busy, Dr. Sloan, and I know there is still a lot to do to clean up and treat the injured after the earthquake, but if you ever want to see Olivia alive again, you should come visit her soon. She doesn't have much time left.
Livvie is waking up now; I have to go back to her letter.
Edna ***
Steve chewed his lip thoughtfully. Edna was certainly blunt, and she was right that she didn't have 'Olivia's way with words,' but, thank God, she was also wrong about Olivia. He remembered the conference that had suddenly 'popped up' about three weeks after the earthquake, too. His dad had taken off, leaving him orders to look after Amanda and the boys and to make sure Jesse applied for assistance from the LA Promise Foundation.
At the time, Steve had been furious that his dad would abandon them all at such a difficult time. He had argued that since Jesse had lost everything, he should have been the one to go off on a semi-vacation at hospital expense, if only to get away from the stress of being forced to depend on friends for food and shelter. So angry had he been at his dad's seemingly callous behavior that for days after Mark's return, he had avoided him whenever he could and had been cold and curt when he couldn't. Now that he had the facts, and knew his dad had been making the difficult choice to leave his family in crisis to sit beside what might be a friend's deathbed, he felt differently and knew he would apologize.
Steve turned to the next page of the letter. It was a very long one, and he wondered if Liv, sensing she was near death, hadn't rambled on, trying to get all her thoughts out before she was too weak to do so.
*** Goodness, Mark. I seem to have dozed off. Edna, being the good soul she is has sat here waiting patiently for me to rouse and continue with my letter. I hope she kept you entertained in the meanwhile. She has reminded me that I was just talking about Emmy, and I will return to that shortly, but I must discuss something else with you first. It has been weighing on my mind for several days now, and I need an objective opinion on it, so, let me tell you the story first, then I will ask my questions.
The other day, a priest came to visit me. He is the hospital chaplain and I suppose he was hoping to offer me comfort or counsel, should I need it. Well, I was feeling sorry for myself at the time. I find that tends to happen when you have just spent the last two hours puking your guts out.
Anyway, I asked him the most pathetic lament of all. "Whyyy meeee?" I am sure if you concentrate, you can even hear the whine.
He should not have tried to answer, for he caught my full wrath, which even in my weakened state is considerable. I am not proud of this. I just wanted you to know, because it has some bearing on what happened next.
In answer to my question, the priest said, "It's hard to say. Perhaps there is some lesson you need to learn. Maybe the Lord is testing you."
He would have said more, but I interrupted him.
Bursting into tears I shrieked, "What lesson could a good and loving God possibly want to teach that would require this much pain, suffering, and fear. Even the prison system is not so cruel to those who fail to learn virtue."
"I also said he may be."
"Testing me," I wailed. "Yes, I heard that. The Lord did not test Job. He left that to the Devil, and even Satan was not allowed to kill him. Satan also tested Christ in the wilderness. The God I have loved and worshipped all my life does not cruelly test and try His children. How dare you say He is doing this to me?"
Mark, I was screaming and ranting so, the doctors threatened to sedate me. I finished by telling the priest that I had neither the piety of Christ nor the patience of Job and I certainly had no patience for any more of his ill- considered folly. I then threw my water pitcher at him and thanked him to leave me alone. My anger and my energy spent, I collapse back into the pillows and slept away the rest of the day, even nodding off during Emily's visit.
I do not want you to try to answer 'Why me?' for I know no answer will satisfy me. The best I can come up with on my own is, 'Because.' I do want to know this: Is the behavior I described normal for one who is critically ill?
All my life I have tried to be patient and pleasant, gentle and forgiving. I have never wished to harm anyone or to hurt anyone's feelings. I know that I hurt Steve when I married Keith, and if I could have done so without causing him pain, I would have. All I can say in my defense is he is probably happier now than he ever could have been with me, and both our lives have been the better for it. I have almost never been mean-spirited or quick to anger, and my happiest times have always come from helping someone or bringing people joy.
I once told you I live as if every moment were my last, and I want to spend my last moment doing something good for someone else, but lately, I seem to care very little for how other people feel. I am often sharp tongued and snappish, and I couldn't give a hairy rat's behind if I offended or frightened or angered or upset that priest. Nor do I intend to apologize to him.
One would think at this point, when my health is so precarious and one sudden fever or a night spent sleeping in a draft could mean the end of me, that I would be even more concerned about how I treat others. The thought of leaving the world with bad feelings still between me and another person used to terrify me, Mark, but now, maybe I have become selfish, but I really don't care.
Edna tells me all this is normal and quite forgivable from someone in my position, but I can't trust her to tell me the truth. It is not that I think her deceitful and dishonest, but I think that, just as she wrote every word I dictated, no matter how much embarrassment it caused her, she will tell me what will make me feel better because she thinks I am dying.
So, Mark, if you could, please tell me, am I normal, or do I need psychiatric help--again?
Sigh! Now that that is off my chest--which by the way was the first thing to go when I started to lose weight from the chemo--let me tell you about Emmy!
She will be three in September, and she will be starting five-year-old kindergarten. It took a lot of fighting, but I convinced Keith, Jud, and May to pursue it, because she is just too bored at daycare. She has gone from being indifferent or impatient with the other two- and three-year- olds, to being overbearing and condescending, and it is quite unattractive in a toddler. I think she should be placed with older children to force her to develop her social skills. Five-year-olds can stand up to her in a way toddlers cannot. I can hear their taunts now when she tries to show off, and though it breaks my heart to imagine it, I think it will do her some good to learn first hand that nobody likes a smart aleck. The older children are bigger than her as well, and she will have to learn to get along with them to get what she wants. She won't be able to just take it any more.
Her language, math, and musical skills would place her in the fifth or sixth grade easily, which is more than a little frightening to Keith and me. Because of my education, I am used to coming across as one of the smartest people in the room, and Keith is no dunce either, but at the rate she is learning, Emmy will outstrip us both before she becomes a teenager. She is learning at the rate of three mental years for every chronological year. It seems foolish to want your child to be a little less intelligent, and cruel to want the other children to put her in her place, but what will Keith and I do ten years from now when we have an obnoxious adolescent who is right in her assumption that she knows more than us?
Steve is such a wonderful man, Mark. He is kind and compassionate, patient, caring, and thoughtful, chivalrous and well mannered and sociable. I am sure some of that is just his personality, but you and your wife had to teach him something. What did you do? As always, any advice is welcome.
Well, my friend, even my voice is failing me now and Edna has to lean in close to hear my words. I am a little concerned she may lean over so far she will fall out of her seat and right into the bed beside me, and so, I shall bring this letter to a close. Take care of yourself and your family. I will see you when you visit again.
Love, Liv ***
Steve found himself laughing through tears. Even in what must have been her darkest hours, Olivia was able to discuss her situation with gentle humor. Suddenly, he remembered how thirty years ago, she could lighten a heavy mood so quickly it boggled the mind. When he was frustrated or frightened, often with nothing more than a word or a look, she could have him smiling again. He was so glad she had been able to do that for herself, too, for he had never in his life met anyone else with that remarkable talent.
He could not begin to fathom the anguish she must have felt knowing that one bad night and she could end up leaving her husband and daughter behind, and he wondered if she appreciated the painful irony of worrying about Emily's obnoxious adolescent difficulties when the child was only three and Liv herself was on the edge of death. It must have been unspeakably painful to worry about a future she probably didn't expect to be a part of!
Steve idly wondered if Keith would have contacted him about Emily if Liv had died. Certainly, he would have needed help dealing with such a precocious child, and though Steve didn't imagine himself smart enough to do any better with her than Keith had, he knew his father's connections would be helpful in finding facilities and specialists capable of dealing with a young genius. It was true that Keith would have had the help and support of Jud and May, plus all the financial resources he could need, but Steve wasn't sure if they had access to the sort of experts Mark knew, and he had a hunch finding the right people had been critical in educating Emily. Also, Steve was sure his father would have let Keith know that he and Emmy would always be welcome in LA, and he knew there would have to be more opportunities to challenge the brilliant child here than in a small town in Pennsylvania. Of course, a couple hours to the west of Punxsutawney, Pittsburgh was quite a metropolitan city, with it's own outstanding university and medical facilities, and Penn State, one of the largest universities in the nation, as Steve recalled from his visit there with Liv thirty years ago, was just a couple hours to the east.
Steve shook his head. It was aching from considering the 'what if's'. Though he was convinced that Emmy was his child, he still didn't have any proof, and so, he didn't have any right to assume he would have had a part in Emmy's upbringing. He guessed he was doing Keith a disservice, too, for he had raised the child alone while Liv had been ill, and while Liv did seem to have concerns, she didn't seem to think Keith had botched the job. Maybe it was just as well he had known nothing about the situation, Steve thought. The last thing Liv and Keith would have needed at the time was his meddling.
Steve kept turning pages. Some of the letters were long, some short, and one was nothing more than a simple note card. "I am still here," it read, in a wobbly hand, "Thank you for your visit. Sorry I slept so much. Love, Liv."
Those three scrabbly lines were more heartrending and more eloquent than anything Steve could ever remember reading, and suddenly, he had to shut the notebook and get out of his room. He went to his dresser and dug out a black LAPD sweatshirt, matching sweatpants, socks, and boxers. Realizing he needed a shower and a shave, he took the clothes with him into the attached bathroom, and ten minutes later, he was out of the bathroom, dressed, and sitting on the bed, lacing up his running shoes.
Steve paused to take a deep breath before he left the bedroom, and realized he felt good for the first time in weeks. Then he noticed the glove on his hand as it rested on the doorknob. All the lights were green. He smiled and thought it was a good thing the device was waterproof, for he had completely forgotten about it in the shower.
As he stepped out into the hall, he immediately noticed a heavenly smell. He followed his nose to the kitchen to find his dad seated on a stool by the stove stirring a big pot of marinara sauce. He saw a pan of meatballs keeping warm on the back burner, and a pot of green beans was simmering beside him. Liv was preparing mozzarella garlic bread to go into the oven.
Steve sidled up to his dad and, reaching around him, stole one of the meatballs from the top of the pile in the pan. Mark smacked the back of his hand with the spoon he'd been using to stir the sauce, and left a red spatter.
"Wait until dinner!" Mark snapped.
Steve looked at his dad askance, shrugged, and cleaned some of the sauce from his hand with the meatball. Then he popped it in his mouth.
"Mmmmm, delicious."
He grinned wickedly, and Mark shook the spoon at him.
"Here, Dad," he said, reaching for the spoon. "Let me rinse that off for you. Now that you've assaulted me with it, you don't want it going right back into the pot."
"Assault, nothing," Mark grumbled as he handed over the spoon, "I was acting in defense of my meatballs. So, how are you feeling?"
Sighing deeply as he rinsed the spoon, he didn't even look at his dad or Liv. "Better," he said, "at least for now." Handing the spoon back to his dad, he looked once again at the feast Mark and Liv were preparing and said, "That really was delicious. Uh, will I.be able to have more?"
Mark and Liv shared a knowing glance. As long as Steve had his appetite back, all was right with the world.
"Well." Liv hesitated, she knew she was being almost cruel, but Steve had always been fun to tease, and besides, he needed to take care what and how much he ate, and her seeming uncertainty would drive that point home. It would force him to be judicious and moderate in his portions just to avoid an 'I told you so.'
".the marinara sauce is acidic, and excess acid is part of the reason your ulcers got so bad, and the meatballs and the cheese on the garlic bread are kind of hard to digest."
She saw Steve's face fall. He was expecting to be told no, and that's exactly where she wanted him, thinking that she was indulging him against her better judgment.
"I suppose, if you don't over do, just a couple of meatballs and only a slice of garlic bread with your spaghetti, and drink lots of water, it should be all right."
Steve brightened instantly. "Great! Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Yes," Mark told him. "We need a salad. A big one. Everything you'll need is in the fridge. Jesse, Katie Lynn, Lauren, Amanda, and Ron are all coming over, and Maribeth, Steven, and Keith will be home for dinner tonight."
Steve found himself counting on his fingers. Three and three and two and three was."Salad for eleven, right. Where's the big bowl?"
Mark sighed and pointed to a cupboard. "It's right where it's always been for the last twenty five years."
The three of them worked in companionable silence for a while, then Liv started humming softly. Steve listened for a bit before he spoke.
"You know, Liv, I seem to remember you having a beautiful voice," he said, "Why don't you sing us a song?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"Come on, honey," Mark interrupted, "it'll be fun."
Spreading garlic butter on a split-open loaf of Italian bread, Liv gave Mark a measuring glance and said, "Duet?"
Mark shrugged, "We could try it, though I'm not sure I'm all that familiar with the music of the younger generation."
"Ha-ha," Liv sounded less than amused, "Do you know any show tunes?"
"Oh, a few," he conceded modestly as he spooned up some of the spaghetti sauce to check it's consistency then went back to stirring slowly.
Steve laughed as Liv muttered, "You've probably already forgotten more than I'll ever know."
"Yes," Mark admitted, "unfortunately the memory tends to fade as one ages. You'll find that out some day yourself."
"Oh, please, Mark, you haven't aged, just mellowed," Liv said, rolling her eyes skyward as if praying silently for patience as she started sprinkling cheese over the bread.
Though Steve was enjoying the banter between Liv and his father, the longer he waited, the more he wanted to hear her sing once again.
"Oh, will you two just get on with it?"
"Oh, why don't you just 'get on with' that salad," his father suggested.
They both grinned at him, and Liv asked Mark, "Are you familiar with 'Big River'?"
Mark screwed up his face in thought, then nodded and began spouting information. "Music and lyrics by country songwriter Roger Miller, book by William Hauptman, base on 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' by Mark Twain."
Liv continued when Mark paused for breath. "That's the one. It opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in April of 1985, and won seven Tony Awards. Good. You remember the scene where the slaves and the overseer are singing, I think to cover the escape of some others during a funeral?"
"Yeah. 'Crossing Over,' right?"
Liv nodded. "That's it. Think you can do it?"
Mark grinned broadly, and Steve smiled to see it. His dad loved a challenge. "Try me," Mark said.
Liv nodded and took a deep breath, then belted out the first few bars of the tune, which was reminiscent of the old Negro Spirituals of the late 1800's.
"Crossin' toooo the other siiide.OhhOhhhhOhhOhhhhhhh.OhhOhOhOhhhOhhhOhhhhhhhh."
Looking to Mark and getting a nod, Liv went on, Mark providing a counterpoint to her melody, echoing her words, his voice coming in low and soft below hers, and rising to join her when she sang joyfully. The song had a compelling, driving rhythm to it, almost like a slow cadence, mimicking people in motion, and Steve found his hands, quite of their own volition, chopping vegetables to the pace it set.
"We are pilgrims.on a journey..through the dark.ness of the night."
Liv held the note on 'dark', and Mark stayed with her. Making eye contact they moved on and in this way, kept time with one another.
"We are bound for.other places.crossin' to.the other side."
To this point, the song had been low and mournful, trudging on at slow but inexorable pace, Olivia holding on to the notes as if loath to let them go from her lips, Mark repeating the lyrics, moaning and sighing softly to underscore the tune. Now, with no change in rhythm or pace, the song began to fly. The notes were brighter and higher in pitch, and Olivia sang louder, her tone soaring from sorrowful to gloriously hopeful in just a few words.
"I will worry.about tomorrow.when tomorrow.comes in sight."
Suddenly, everything collapsed again to the original groaning melody, this time, though, still tinged with rosy hope.
".but until then, Lord.I'm just a stranger.crossing to.the other side."
Suddenly, Liv's voice took flight again, rising heavenward as the music took it away, supported all the while by Mark's fine baritone.
"Jesus will.be there to meet me.he will reach.his hand in mine."
And the original tune was back just as quickly, this time marching eagerly onward instead of slogging through muck and mire.
".and I will no more.be a stranger.when I reach.the other side."
Then, as if realizing there was quite a bit of life left to go before that happy day, the song settled back down to the original words. This time, there was a lot of silence around the phrases, giving the song a thoughtful quality. Mark and Liv sang in unison, she crooning softly at the low end of her vocal range, he stretching to meet her at the high end of his.
"Crossin' to.the other side. OhhhhOhhhOhhhOhhhhhhh. OhhOhOhOhhhhOhhhhOhhhh."
In the quiet moment that followed the song, Liv suddenly laughed and said, "Now, that's what I'm talking about. Mark, you and I ought to go on the road together."
"Sweetie, that was nice," Mark agreed, "but I'm afraid I'm a bit too old for a traveling concert series."
Steve, who had been letting the music just wash over him, was suddenly struck by the significance of the words. He knew Liv well enough to realize music held a special meaning for her and he wondered if she had felt comforted by the song when she was ill. Feeling himself choke up, he squeezed out the words, 'excuse me,' and bolted for the deck.
Surprised that a simple song could touch big, tough Steve Sloan so deeply, Liv looked from the space Steve had left behind to Mark and back a couple of times, then said, "I guess he needs a minute. I'll go after him soon."
Mark just nodded, knowing his son hadn't been affected by the music alone, but deciding to let Liv find that out for herself.
Steve stood on the deck for a moment, breathing deeply of the salt air, trying to calm himself. He looked at the diodes on the glove, all of them glowing red, and concentrated. Slowly, they all dropped to amber.
Idly wandering down the steps and across the yard, Steve found himself out on the beach throwing rocks into the ocean. Why, even when she was so sick, had Liv never contacted him? They'd only been together six months, but as close as they had been, he couldn't imagine why she had chosen to exclude him from her struggle. Surely, she hadn't thought he'd make trouble about Emily, had she?
Olivia finished preparing the garlic bread and slipped it in the oven. Setting the timer, she looked at Mark and asked, "Will you be ok for a few minutes?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine," he told her. "I'll take the garlic bread out for you when the timer goes off, too."
She nodded. "Ok, then, I'm going to check on Steve."
Steve had stopped throwing rocks into the ocean, feeling guilty for making them start their long journey shoreward over again. Ok, even if Liv was afraid he'd make a stink about Emmy, she must have wanted to see him. She'd almost married him, and he'd have married her in a heartbeat if she hadn't chosen Keith instead when he gave her the chance. Yet, even when she knew she was on the line between living and dying, she had not sent for him. Why? She had helped him through so much in the short time they had shared. He felt he deserved the opportunity to support her for a change, and he was feeling angry and hurt that she had denied him that chance.
Suddenly, he felt a gentle hand on his arm and a soft voice said his name.
"Steve?"
He turned to face her, and all his thoughts save one came tumbling out at once.
"You knew you were dying, didn't you? Were you afraid? Did you sing that song? Did it comfort you? Why didn't you send for me? Didn't you want me there?"
He just couldn't ask he about Emily now.
Liv chuckled at him, and said, "Oh, Steve, you've been reading my letters, haven't you?"
He nodded, and swallowed hard, but didn't trust himself to speak.
She had insisted to Mark and Maribeth that she didn't want to discuss the contents of the letters with anyone, but now, well, this was Steve, and he was hurting, and she could help. Taking a deep breath, she answered his questions one by one.
"I knew there was a good chance I could die, Steve, but I refused to let myself believe it would ever really happen. I was afraid, sometimes, too, but not so much of where I would be going as of what would happen to those I would leave behind. I didn't sing that song, I'm afraid, because much of the time, I was too weak and tired to do much of anything, but I listened to it a lot, and it did help. There were times when I needed you there, Steve, because, well, just because. As for why I didn't send for you, do you remember what happened the February after you and Maribeth got married?"
Steve thought a moment, then, "She found the box of your things."
Liv nodded, "Your dad told me about that, not long after it happened. It was only a few months before I got sick, and well, I just didn't think it would be a good idea to drag you clear across the country to the bedside of your old flame when your wife was." she cringed at the word she was about to use, ".insecure.about her marriage."
Steve turned from her, then, stricken, but she stepped round to have him face her again. She was surprised to see his eyes brimming with unshed tears.
"Steve?"
"Oh, God, Liv." He choked on his words, took a deep breath, and continued, "Don't you ever think of yourself?"
She laughed at him again, the soft, gentle sound making him realize absurdity of his question. With anyone else in the world, he would be asking exactly the opposite. He smiled, and his tears overflowed. She put her hands up to either side of his face and wiped the droplets away with her thumbs.
"Now," she said, "you already know what you've been reading has a happy ending, so, why don't you come back to the house and help us finish dinner?"
Taking a deep breath, he dropped an arm around her shoulders and she slipped one around his waist. They walked up the beach together, laughing and joking, and by the time they had reached the house, they were both short of breath, red-faced, and glowing with good humor.
"Hey, you two," Keith called to them cheerfully as they stumbled in from the deck. He looked up from where he had sat the spaghetti sauce, now full of meatballs, on the table for Mark, and his smile faded to confusion as he saw his wife in another man's arms. Then he grinned again as he reminded himself it was just Steve.
Shortly after he and O had arrived, she and Steve had gone out onto the patio for a while. He had been jealous of the private moment they had shared and had quizzed her about it. She had answered all his questions quite innocently, telling how Steve had comforted her while she cried and assured her that they would get Emily back safely. Then, just as he was about blast her about how she should be turning to her husband when she needed consoling, she had smiled brilliantly and said, "It's like finally having a big brother again."
Since then, he found he couldn't begrudge them the time they spent together. They were good for each other, and after all she had lost in her lifetime, O deserved any close, loving human connection she could forge. She had chosen him over Steve once before, and having heard her describe him as a 'big brother' Keith had no doubt she would do so again if she had it to do over.
"What do you think you're doing, out playing on the beach while Mark and I slave in a hot kitchen to put on dinner?"
Olivia snorted indignantly, and disentangling herself from Steve, she began to set out plates. "I'll have you know I made the meatballs and the garlic bread," she told him.
"And I did the salad," Steve added as he carried it to the table.
"Just what have *you* been doing all day, mister?" Olivia asked as she slipped behind her husband and wrapped her arms around his waist.
There was a brief pause as Keith seemed to consider whether he really ought to answer the question, and finally he said, "I, uh, I've been working with Al, Ron, and Cheryl and the kids on security plans for the trial."
From where he stood in the kitchen looking into the dining room, Steve could see Liv's shoulders stiffen. Then she dropped her head forward to rest on her husband's back. Keith must have sensed her sudden tension, because he turned then, and wrapped her in his arms.
Unsure what to say next, Steve asked for clarification. "The kids?"
He heard Olivia giggle and she stepped away from Keith, gave him a quick kiss, and moved into the kitchen. "Collectively, Charles Donovan, 'Fredo Cioffi, and Hannah, at least when they're not round to be offended by it."
Steve grinned at that. He wasn't sure if he approved of the nickname, as it did seem a bit demeaning to the three young people. Even before he got sick, though, the young officers did seem to do quite a few things together, often in the company of his goddaughter Hannah, and 'the kids' would certainly be a quicker way of referring to the three of them than calling each of them by name. Then his grin turned to a frown as he suddenly realized that Olivia had not gone to the Brentwood house since the night of the sting and if she knew what the appellation meant, then it had been in use a good while without his knowledge.
He hated feeling left out, and though it had only been a week since he'd been hospitalized, he felt he had missed so much. Donovan, young Cioffi, and Hannah were now, 'the kids.' Keith was working on the task force, planning security with Ron and Cheryl. No one, as far as he could tell, had any idea what had become of Emily and Moretti after the second sting. Suddenly, he remembered that one of the men Em had left trussed up for them had wanted a deal in exchange for information, and he'd never heard what came from that.
Looking over his shoulder at Olivia, Steve moved closer to Keith and asked, "So, tell me what you've planned."
"Steve," Olivia called out in warning.
"Oh, come on, Liv," Steve cringed to hear himself whine, and, breathing deeply, tried to continue in a less desperate tone. "I just want to know how his day went, surely it couldn't hurt for him to tell me. And I promise," he added sincerely, "I won't mope and complain and bug you or anyone else to let me go back to work early if you'll just let him fill me in from time to time."
He heard her sigh, and knew he had won her consent.
"Ok," she said, "but if Maribeth comes in and catches you at it, I was in the kitchen making salad dressing the whole time."
"Deal," Steve eagerly agreed with a grin, and taking a seat, he motioned Keith to join him.
It was strange for Keith to sit and tell Steve about the various security plans they had made for the trial. It was like visiting with a prisoner who was desperate for news from the outside, or perhaps a child who'd been confined for days with the chickenpox. Every now and then, Steve would look furtively around as if he would be caught in the act of something he shouldn't be doing and would be sent back to his room.or his cell.
Keith could see evidence of Steve's heightened awareness in the diodes on the glove, too, all of them glowing amber, but eventually he settled down. When Steve finally relaxed, he started asking relevant questions and making good points, and through their conversation, Keith was able to iron out some of the bugs in the plans he and the task force had made. Finally, Keith became aware of Steve Sloan as the keen, sharp-witted professional cop he had first met, and grudgingly gotten to know years ago and who just a week ago had nearly caught up with Emily, despite her astronomical IQ and talent for disguise.
"You know," Steve said, "there's not a lot of cover along the Hollywood Freeway between Sunset Boulevard and the Ventura Freeway. I know it's the long way around, but you might want to consider taking them up the Golden State Freeway all the way to Burbank and then heading west on Burbank or Victory Boulevard."
Keith nodded, "I'm not all that familiar with the roads you're naming, but I'll mention it tomorrow."
"If you wanted to run the shell game on them and make them guess where Moretti and Emily are, you could run an empty motorcade and split it at the junction of the Hollywood and Pasadena Freeways, then divide each part again at Sunset Boulevard and the Golden State Freeway."
As they talked, Keith noticed that one by one, the diodes on the glove all went back to green.
Steve started to grin, "Then take Moretti out in a private car with an unmarked police escort. Go all the way out to Pasadena and come back on the Ventura Freeway, and bring Emily straight out the Santa Monica Freeway and home to you and Liv in Brentwood."
Keith had to close his eyes to visualize his mental map. His hands went up in the air and started tracing the routes Steve had described. As the plan came into focus, his face split with a grin, and he said, "I like it. Do you have a map we could mark it out on so I can show it to Ron and Cheryl tomorrow?"
"Yeah," Steve said, "let's go into the."
Before Steve finished his sentence, Maribeth came home, announcing her arrival as she came through the door. "Hello-o-o! Oh, Dad, whatever you've made for dinner, it smells wonderful!"
Before Keith's eyes, Steve changed from the Deputy Chief of Police planning a witness transfer to the nervous prisoner he had been when the two men had started talking. He lurched out of his chair and greeted his wife as she entered the dining room.
"Well, hello, handsome," Maribeth said as she walked into Steve's hug and gave him an affectionate kiss. "How are you tonight?"
Her voice grated on Keith's nerves. She sounded as if she were talking to a child.or a pet. To his dismay, Steve accepted the treatment and began to gabble at her, almost desperately.
"Not too bad," he said with an anxious grin. "I slept until about four, then I read for a while, had a shower and shave. Then I helped with dinner and, uh, went for a walk on the beach. We're just waiting for everyone to arrive now."
"Oh, well, I passed Jesse and Katie Lynne on the way here. They were at the fuel station and should be here in a few minutes. Lauren was with them. Amanda left just before me, and went out to Brentwood to get Ron, and Steven was supposed to be leaving the hospital just behind me. So, you shouldn't have much longer to wait."
"Good," Steve smiled ingratiatingly, "Olivia said I could have some spaghetti tonight."
Keith continued to watch, appalled, as Maribeth raised one eyebrow and Steve's smile fell.
"That is, uh, if it's, um, ok with you, I mean," Steve managed to stammer before he lost his nerve and dropped his gaze to the floor.
Keith knew what was happening, now. Steve hadn't seemed the henpecked husband when he and Liv had first arrived, and Maribeth hadn't seemed the overbearing type, but she was his doctor as well as his wife. Since he had become ill, they were no longer equal partners in their relationship. She was as much his caretaker as his wife. The same thing had happened between himself and Olivia years ago.
It was at Maribeth's recommendation that Steve had been kept sedated for several days. Chief Archer had put him on medical leave at her insistence, and she or Steven had prescribed most of what he had been through over the past week. True, most everything had been necessary for his recovery, but somewhere along the line, she had become overprotective, and now Steve was frightened that the few privileges and pleasures left to him would be curtailed if she thought he was overdoing it.
Suddenly, Keith wondered if the depression everyone was so concerned about wasn't a result of Maribeth's over involvement in Steve's recovery. She knew everything he did and everything he was supposed to be doing, and he could do nothing she didn't find out about. He probably felt he was being watched all the time.
Keith would talk to O about his concerns. Steve was a strong, independent, proud man, and he had been forced into a position where he had to ask his wife's permission to join the family for dinner. While they were discussing the motorcade routes from the courthouse to the police station, he had been vibrant and vital, but now, he was almost.subservient. Maybe he really just needed something to do outside of the house and away from his family's scrutiny. Maybe he needed to get back to being a cop.
Keith watched Steve furtively throughout dinner. He was unnaturally quiet and inanimate the whole time. He waited patiently for Maribeth to fill his plate for him without even asking what he wanted. She cut his meatballs in half and ran his knife through the spaghetti for him, and placed just two slices of garlic bread on his plate and a pile of green beans. Then she filled his glass with water. Steve ate and drank what she gave him without complaint and without asking for more.
When someone made eye contact, Steve would force a smile, and when they spoke directly to him, he would respond quietly. He never asked a question, cracked a joke, or offered an unsolicited opinion on anything. When his plate was empty, he sat quietly, his hands folded in his lap. He was like a stranger at his own table, trying not to be noticed, and all the while, the diodes on the glove glowed red.
When Mark suggested that they move into the living room for coffee and dessert, Steve looked to his wife almost desperately, and sighed with relief when he received a wink and a nod that was clearly her permission to join them. Maribeth sat beside her husband on the loveseat in the living room while the others settled themselves on various seats throughout the room. When Mark and O came in with trays of dessert and coffee, Maribeth rose and helped serve. She cut the rich chocolate cherry cheesecake Olivia had made while O passed the plates around and Mark poured coffee. Eventually, she handed Steve a transparently thin slice of the cheesecake, and instead of giving him a coffee, she went out to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water for him. For his part, Steve meekly accepted what she gave him.
Keith couldn't fathom why he, a virtual stranger to Steve until last week, would be the only one to notice the odd change of personality that overcame him when Maribeth was around. The only thing he could think of was that the rest of them spent more time around Steve and were used to caring for him when he was ill, and he had only dealt with the man on a professional level. Then again, having blindly gone through what he called 'the china doll syndrome' himself years ago, he was particularly attuned to the Maribeth's dire need to help, protect, and heal her husband. O had rebelled, and it had nearly destroyed their marriage. Steve was succumbing, and it was slowly destroying him.
Wanting to see what Steve would do, Keith reached over and tapped him on the elbow. When Steve turned to look at him, Keith said, "I was thinking of going for a run on the beach in about an hour, after dinner has settled, just a mile or so. Want to join me?"
To Keith's immense disappointment, Steve looked to Maribeth and asked, "What do you say?"
She appeared to think it over, but Keith could see her answer in her eyes. "Today was a big day for you what with the trip to the hospital and the gastroscopy and all. Maybe in a couple of days."
As though Keith hadn't been sitting right there, listening, Steve turned to him and said, "I'm sorry, I don't really feel up to it this evening."
Not long after that, Ron and Amanda said their goodbyes. Jesse, Katie Lynn, and Lauren followed soon afterward. As he was coming into the living room to gather up the last of the cups and saucers, Keith looked over to the love seat where Steve and Maribeth were having a quiet but animated discussion. Maribeth gave Steve a stern look, and Steve's shoulders slumped. Head hanging, Steve nodded, rose from the loveseat, and headed back toward his bedroom.
When Maribeth brought over a couple of dishes to place on his tray, Keith asked, "Is he ok?"
"Oh, yeah," Maribeth said carelessly. "He just decided he needed a rest, is all."
Keith doubted it had been Steve's decision, but not knowing if or how he should address his concerns, he left it alone.
Keith sat and watched the evening news with Mark and Olivia while Maribeth read a medical journal and Steven surfed the net. There was a brief mention of Moretti and Emily and the upcoming trial, but nothing that hadn't been known for weeks. After the news, Keith went to the spare room to change into his sweats to go for a run, and on his way back the hall, he stopped to invite Steve along.
"I, uh, I'd better not," Steve stammered nervously. "Maybe tomorrow."
Keith was surprised to find that Steve had already changed back into his pajamas, but he merely said, "Suit yourself," and went off to warm up for his run.
Steve shut the door and crawled back into bed. Truth be told, he would have been delighted to go for a run with Keith. It was the first time in a week anyone had invited him to do anything. Oh, he hadn't been left to himself all the time he was in the hospital. In fact, more often than not, he'd had company, at least when he wasn't sedated, but tonight, for the first time since he'd collapsed, someone seemed to realize he wasn't an invalid. If Maribeth hadn't been so insistent about his need for absolute rest, he'd have accepted the invitation in a heartbeat.
Instead of joining his family for a nice social evening after dinner, he had gone off to bed after dinner for some more 'much needed' rest. He'd tossed and turned for a few minutes after Keith left until realizing he'd have no better luck sleeping now than he had just after dinner, he got up and went over to sit by the window and read more of Liv's letters.
As he paged through the binder, he had a sudden realization. If she and his father had been corresponding all along, she had all the details of the past thirty years of his life while hers was still a complete mystery to him. Feeling strangely exposed and at a distinct disadvantage, he found his place and began reading with renewed interest.
The letter after the card that had roused him from his gloomy sulking was dated June 2005. It was unmistakably Liv's handwriting, a little wobbly, yes, but hers nonetheless. Three months had passed, and Steve could only imagine how ill she must have been to skip writing her letters for that long.
*** Dear Mark,
It has been one year since my cancer was diagnosed, 361 days since I first wrote you with the news. At that time, I was not expected to see another summer, yet here I am. I have lost a quarter of my initial body weight, and at just 87 pounds, I am wire thin. Regrettably, the hips and chest I was so proud of when I FINALLY developed them at 22 are gone. I am as bald as a windswept mountaintop, and as barren as Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, but I am here.
Better still, the tumors in my liver are shrinking, and my last chest x-ray and colonoscopy were clear. If I can just hold on, I may yet beat this monster inside me. I knew from the beginning this would be a battle of attrition, and the question has always been which of us will outlast the other. I still feel confident that I will win because I have so many people who love and care for me who are cheering me on and cheering me up every day.
Besides the love and prayers of my friends and family and the chemo I have been enduring, I have also had help from an unconventional source. Edna has confessed to me that she wrote you some time ago when I was at my worst and suggested that you might not have many more opportunities to visit. Shame on her! Truly, though, I do not think her assessment of my condition at the time was far off. I was tired of fighting and feeling so very weak. Fortunately, it was about that time I heard about Dr. Love.
Dr. Love is a member of the Tranquility Community, the local modern hippie commune. She is fully trained in Western medicine and has studied both ancient Eastern and Native American healing arts for years. She has been an answer to my prayers!
I know you teach a survey class of traditional healing methods to the new students each year, and when this is all over, I will have her send you a copy of my case notes if you like. It is phenomenal what she has helped me achieve.
Three days a week, Moon and I work with acupuncture, prayer and meditation, and positive healing imagery and biofeedback. In the three months she has been treating me, I have gained nine pounds. I have more energy than I have had in a long while, I hurt less, and I am able to keep food down more often even on the days I take chemo. She has asked me repeatedly to stop the chemo, but I haven't dared try that, yet. I still need the safety net of familiar, albeit sometimes toxic, Western medicine beneath me if I am to be brave enough to try alternative methods.
To satisfy my own need for empirical data, I have volunteered myself as a sort of lab rat for some informal research Moon is doing on biofeedback. Once a month I have an arteriogram on a day when I am not working with Moon, then, a week later, after the radio-opaque dye is out of my system, I have another arteriogram while I am practicing positive healing imagery (PHI). I focus my mind on the tumors in my liver--there are three distinct masses--and I envision them shriveling as the blood supply is cut off.
Mark, as outrageous as it sounds, the PHI is working! The arteriogram shows a visible reduction in blood flow to the tumors when I am meditating. In April, I started using PHI in reverse while I take the chemo as well, imagining the tumors writhing in agony (it must be my sadistic side) as the potent medicine flows into them. The cancer is shrinking fifty percent faster now than it was just three months ago! Moon says one of the reasons the PHI is working so well for me is that I have practiced yoga and self- hypnosis for years. According to her, my mind is 'highly trained to have a positive influence on the body, and by channeling that training to fight the cancer we may be able to eliminate it completely.'
My confidence is high, now, Mark, and I can almost remember what it feels like to feel good again. I have started setting little goals for myself, and the first one is coming up in just three weeks. Independence Day is coming, and the whole gang is planning to spend the day hiking, fishing, and swimming at Parker Dam State Park before they head into town for the fireworks. My doctor, a very capable fellow named Jonas Griffin, has told me if I get my weight up to ninety pounds and am not running a fever, he will let me join them.
At two years and nine months, Emmy is up to her usual mischief and still too smart for her own good, but Keith is coping--barely! She recently managed to get into his computer and mess about with the accounting program. It took Meyer a full day to figure out what she had done, and in the end, he left it the way it was, saying, "There's no way she can understand what she did, but it is a bold innovative strategy." He's going to leave it a month or two and see if Keith profits by it.
I would tell you more, but I am growing tired. Keith sends his love and thanks you again for your regular visits. He likes you a great deal, Mark, and trusts you implicitly. I get the feeling that the only time he can leave me and relax is when he knows you are here. With everyone else, he seems to get a much-needed break, but he still worries. I thank you, too, for giving my husband and daughter a chance to have a normal life every once in a while.
I will write again soon. Love, Liv
P.S. I apologized to the priest. I still think he's an idiot, but that doesn't give me the right to be mean.
P.P.S. Look for a package for Steven. It's a wonderfully squishy stuffed bunny rabbit. I have one to keep me company. Emmy picked mine out, and decided she wanted to send one to 'Mama and Daddy's friend Steef!' Somehow, squishy bunnies just don't seem Steve's cup of tea, so we convinced her that Steven would enjoy it more. ***
Steve laughed, wondering if little Emily had made Keith a rich man in his own right when she was playing with his computer. He suspected he would find out. As he glanced back through the letter, one line struck him as particularly poignant. He knew just what Liv meant when she wrote, 'I can almost remember what it feels like to feel good again.' Over the past day or so, he had been getting glimpses of that feeling, and he hoped soon it would be back to stay.
He hadn't realized how long he'd been reading until Maribeth came in.
"Babe, it's almost ten o'clock. Don't you think you should be getting to bed?"
Sighing, he closed the notebook. "On my way," he said. There was no point in arguing. He'd have weeks to read the rest.
Keith was sitting in the tub, on a special shower seat he used when he traveled. It lightweight and easy to pack and could be adjusted to fit any size tub. It was another of his wife's improvements on an existing invention. She had signed the rights to it over to the Paralyzed Veterans of America with the stipulation that they split the profits from it with one of her charities. While he bathed, she wiped down and sterilized the interior of his prosthetics for him. It had been a ritual of theirs since they were married which Olivia had once likened to the Biblical practice of foot washing, and often, when their lives were especially busy it had been a convenient time for them to reconnect and communicate about serious matters.
Tonight was no different.
"Olivia, you didn't see him." Keith insisted. "While we were talking shop he was relaxed, focused, but really relaxed. Then the moment Maribeth walked in, he just changed. All the lights on the glove went from green to red, and he was really worried what she might think of him talking to me. He was almost desperate to please her."
"I don't know, Keith. Steve isn't the type to let anyone push him around."
"No, O," he insisted, "I know what I saw, sweetheart. He was acting just like you did the first few weeks you were out of the hospital after the cancer was gone. She was mothering him, and he was taking it."
"Really?"
"Oh, yes." Keith described Steve's asking permission to join the family for dinner, his behavior at the dinner table and later, his response when Keith invited him to go for a run on the beach.
"Oh, my God, Keith!" O was shocked. "That's just what he did, isn't it? I can't believe I didn't notice."
"I think you missed it because, well, you're sort of a mother to the world. You nurture and care for everyone around you, so it didn't seem odd to you."
"I suppose, but still, you'd think I would have noticed, especially if the change in his behavior was a dramatic as you say it was. So what do you plan to do about it?"
"Me? I was telling you because I thought you might talk to her and get her to ease up a little."
Olivia looked at her husband doubtfully and asked, "Did you leave your brain in your other jacket? I am her husband's ex-lover. Maribeth has been very kind to let us stay here, and I am sure she means it when she says she isn't jealous anymore, but I am also certain she would go through the roof if I tried to tell her to back off and let him have some room."
"Oh, come on, Olivia. If anyone can get through to her, it would be you."
"Not this time, Keith. How do you think I would react if one of your old flames told me I needed to give you some space?"
"Not very well, I suppose."
"No," O replied, "not very well at all."
"Well," he said, "I'll have a talk with her tomorrow, then. I guess it's a good thing I don't have any old flames, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, it's a very good thing. You don't know how sexy it makes you to know I am the only one, ever."
"Maybe you could show me," he suggested.
She set aside the prosthetic she had been cleaning, stripped off her robe, and stepped into the shower with him.
'Crossing Over' copyright 1985 by Roger Miller. For more information on 'Big River' see the following websites:
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/1494/bigriver.html and http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wingfold/musical.html
Olivia's medical miracles are entirely a figment of my imagination. If I had any research in which to base them I would post it here.
I know it has been a long time since I posted. I seem to be bogged down in this story, and I am sorry. I will continue to post this a chapter at a time until I finish it, but I will never again post a work in progress.
It has been just a week since Steve collapsed at Emily's feet.
(Chapter 19. Malibu beach house, Brentwood. March 24.)
Mark stood in the doorway of the master bedroom and watched his son pretend to sleep. He was very worried about Steve, for though his physical condition had improved somewhat, his emotional state had very suddenly deteriorated.
At first, when Olivia had started Steve working with the biofeedback equipment, he had thought Steve was coming out of his depression. Everyone had been astounded by how quickly Steve had learned to maneuver the submarine by controlling his response to stress. Instead of just hiding his negative feelings, he seemed to be letting them go, if not letting them out. By the end of the first day, he could go hours without mishap on the game. Liv took him off the monitor ahead of schedule, and within hours, he had learned to control the glove.
The glove was a thin, flexible, breathable membrane that fit like a second skin over Steve's right hand and forearm. It had red, amber, and green diodes on the back of the hand that lit up to indicate Steve's stress levels. Delicate, precisely placed sensors measured Steve's pulse, blood pressure, temperature, oxygen levels, and most importantly, his galvanic skin response. While most of the measurements were good general indicators of Steve's overall stress level and his emotional well being, they could be affected by factors such as room temperature and physical activity. Only the GSR could not be fooled. When Steve was feeling stress, he could concentrate on controlling his breathing and sit very still, and the other monitors would drop quickly into the green, but when he was stressed, the electrical conductivity of his skin would remain high and the GSR monitor would stay in the red until Steve had truly calmed down.
To show them all how accurate the glove was, and probably to show off a little as well, Mark thought, Olivia had engaged Steve in several hands of poker, promising to soundly trounce him as she had years ago when he was in the hospital recovering from injuries he had received on the job. As Maribeth, Mark, Jesse, Amanda, Steven, and CJ all watched first with amusement, and later with concern, Liv had Steve keep the glove hidden from her view while allowing the others to see it. Whenever Steve was bluffing, claiming a good hand when it was really bad or complaining about the deal when he really had a good hand, the GSR diodes would glow red, indicating stress and tension even if the rest only showed slight elevations. For her part, Olivia had read Steve perfectly, calling every bluff and folding early every time he had half a chance of winning. Steve's increasing frustration with losing showed as all the diodes on the glove crept into the amber and eventually into the red. To Mark's relief, Steve finally called an end to the game. If Steve hadn't finally quit, Mark would have told Liv what was happening, and Steve would probably have been angry with them both.
Just this morning, Mark had again seen the accuracy of the GSR monitor when Steve went in for his gastroscopy. This time, because he had not yet been medicated and he wasn't already weakened by illness, Jesse had fully sedated him. As they waited for the anesthetic to take hold, all the monitors dropped from amber to green except for the GSR. Only when Steve was fully unconscious, did it finally go green. As Steve came to after the procedure, most of the indicators remained green, but again, the GSR climbed to amber slowly and shot into the red when Jesse came back into the room. It only returned to the green when Jesse told him the gastroscopy was clear. The tear in his esophagus had healed satisfactorily and he could begin eating real food again.
A few minutes later, when Steven and Maribeth entered the office and began explaining the next course of treatment, the diodes again went from green to amber. Steve still had five weeks of medical leave, and he would be taking powerful antibiotics and antacids for at least that long. During that time, he would still be required to get at least twelve hours bed rest a day until further notice, and he was forbidden from engaging in any police work aside from attending the Gaudino trial which was scheduled to start in four days.
"Come on, Maribeth, I could just work half days, go in at seven and work until one."
"No, Steve, that's exactly the problem," she insisted. "Your idea of a half day is six hours. Normal people don't work twelve-hour shifts. You need to slow down. You need to give yourself time to recover, and I am going to make sure your do."
"Maribeth, you know my job."
"I know your job put you in the hospital, *again*, just a week ago, and you are a damned fool if you think I'm going to let you go back to work again this soon."
"Look."
Mark tried heroically to suppress a grin. His daughter-in-law wasn't about to let her husband get a word in edgewise.
"No, you look, mister. You *will* do what we tell you, or you *will* be in the hospital again."
Mark saw all the diodes in the glove go red and wished he could do something about it.
"So," Steve said tightly, "this decision has already been made without me, hasn't it."
Trying valiantly to stop the argument, Steven stepped in. "Yes, Pops, the decision has been made, but not by us." At Steve's quizzical look, the young man continued. "This is your body telling you what it needs, and this time, you need to listen. In the past thirty years, not many advances have been made in the treatment of ulcers. I don't know why, but it's just been a neglected field of research. You are getting the most up-to-date treatment available, but ulcers are still very difficult to treat because the bacteria causing them lives within the mucous lining of the stomach and it's difficult to deliver medication to the infection site. We can only accomplish so much so fast, and if you keep going on like you had been, well.Pops, things could have been a whole lot worse than they were last week."
Steve appeared to consider what his son had said, then he studied his nails as if contemplating getting a manicure. Finally, without looking up, he said, "I need a ride home. I'm still too groggy to drive after the gastroscopy."
Maribeth had driven them home. She and Mark had tried repeatedly to engage Steve in conversation the whole way, but he just grunted monosyllabic responses or ignored them completely. Once she'd gotten Steve settled to sleep off the lingering effects of the anesthetic, she went out to the kitchen where Mark and Liv were having coffee. She gave them Steve's medications, two powerful antibiotics and an acid controller, along with a dosing schedule, and then she and Mark tried to explain for Liv what Steve's reaction to his prescribed treatment had been.
"I know you and Keith needed some quiet time together," Maribeth said, "and I'm not saying I think you should have come to the hospital with us, but I do wish you could have been there. It was just too strange, Liv. First, he was really nervous, then he was kind of pleading to be allowed to work what he called half days."
Liv laughed. "Six or eight hours, I'll bet."
Maribeth nodded, "Seven to one. Then, when I laid down the law, he got all pissy, which I expected. What bothers me though, is his reaction when Steven explained how serious things could have been. He just folded, no arguments, nothing. He said he needed a ride home, and that was it."
"I suppose it's too much to hope that he has finally realized a man his age just has to stop once in a while when his body decides it's had enough," Liv said hopefully.
Mark snorted. "Pig-headed fool. He gets it from his mother's side, you know."
"Oh, I don't know about that, Dad," Maribeth said with a grin, then looking serious again, she said, "but ulcers can be a very serious condition at his age, and I am worried that if we let him slide into depression like he did after his heart attack, his medical condition will deteriorate along with his mental state."
Nodding, Olivia said, "I agree. I know about depression from firsthand experience, and one of the first things you do is stop looking after yourself." She looked to Mark, "If you still think it will do any good, now might be the time to let him read those letters. I told you before," she continued, turning back to Maribeth, "I don't mind if you read them. I can understand why you might want to, and for that matter, if you and Steve feel you need to share something with Steven, that's ok, too, but please, don't ask me to talk about anything in there, I.I'm not sure I can do that."
Maribeth reached out and covered Liv's hand with her own. It was so small she had to remind herself that she was talking to a grown woman in order to keep the 'mom' tone out of her voice. "I understand, Olivia, and I know it must be difficult, but we will respect your wishes. Thank you for still caring about my husband enough to open yourself up like this for him."
Liv smiled fondly, then. "How could I not? I was broken, and he fixed me. He gave me the life I have now when he stepped aside thirty years ago."
Maribeth had left for the hospital a few minutes later, leaving it to Mark to decide when and how to best broach the subject of Liv's letters with Steve.
And now, Mark found himself, at four in the afternoon, standing in the doorway of the master bedroom, clutching two large notebooks full of old letters, and watching his son pretend to sleep. Steve had been resting far longer than he needed to sleep off the aftereffects of any anesthetic he'd been given, and the simple fact that he was choosing to remain in bed longer than necessary was cause enough for concern. The lump on the bed was covered head to foot with a fluffy comforter, save for one arm flung out across the mattress. On that arm, four little dots glowed happily green, and one shone an angry red. The very air in the room breathed sadness and frustration.
"Son?"
"What?" the lump grunted sullenly.
Mark sighed. He wasn't going to play this game today. It was too soon. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, Steve."
Even from the doorway, Mark could feel the lump tense. He couldn't allow this to become a battle of wills, not yet. "Now."
The lump shifted and turned, and finally, Mark saw his son emerge from the folds of the bedclothes. For all his seventy odd years, Steve could still be pig-headed stubborn and childish when the mood struck him.
"What?" This time the response was not only sullen, but also tinged with anger, and Mark had no doubt, had he been anyone else in the world, that anger would have contained a threat as well.
Steve looked positively miserable, and Mark's heart went out to him, but knowing Steve's propensity to interpret sympathy for pity, and knowing how Steve hated to feel pitied, Mark kept his compassion to himself. Making his tone as stern as he could manage, he said, "I'm worried about you, son. We all are."
Steve looked his father over for a minute. Why did he have those two binders with him? Steve thought he'd seen them in the downstairs closet once when he'd helped his dad get something out or put something away. He knew his dad was just waiting for him to ask, and he was determined not to give him the satisfaction. He sighed deeply and said, "Look, Dad, I will take all the pills you and Maribeth and anyone else want to give me, until I rattle like a maraca, if that's what it takes to satisfy you. I will get plenty of rest, and I will stay away from work, but don't expect me to be happy about it."
Mark moved over to the bed and sat beside his obstinate son.
"That's exactly what we're worried about, Steve." Steve tried to protest, but Mark just kept talking. "Do you remember how you felt and acted after your heart attack? Do you remember what it was like when you got so depressed?"
As Mark waited patiently, Steve considered his answer. When he'd finally got to feeling better, Steve had secretly done some research on his condition, and was surprised to find that severe depression could even cause permanent memory loss. As near as he could figure, there were about three weeks of his life still unaccounted for in his mind, but he would never admit that to anyone.
Shrugging, he said simply, "Yeah.I guess so."
Mark stared at his son a long moment, then, trying to work out what he'd just been told. Even he hadn't realized Steve had been so depressed that he would suffer amnesia, yet that's what he seemed to be admitting without really saying it. Testing his theory, Mark said, "Well, I suppose you remember enough to know you never want to go there again."
Steve tried, and failed miserably, to keep the surprise from his face. Except for a few years in his misspent youth, he and his dad had always been close, but it never failed to amaze him how well his father could read him. Sometimes, he thought his dad might even have a touch of ESP where he was concerned.
For a long while, he sat silently, tracing patterns on the bedspread with his index finger. He always felt he could tell his dad anything, but this? He wasn't sure. He felt his chest tighten and a lump formed in his throat. He saw the damned diodes on the glove, all of them glowing amber and red now, and he slipped his arm beneath the blankets. How much did his father know? How much could he stand to hear?
"Son?"
Taking a deep breath, Steve admitted as much as he dared. "I remember wishing I had died of the heart attack, Dad. Then the next thing I recall is wanting to take a walk on the beach. I still wasn't feeling good, then, but I knew I was better than I had been in a long time. I'm not too clear on what all happened in between."
Clearing the frog that had formed in his throat, Mark patted his son's leg and said, "Sometimes, son, it's good to forget the details."
None of them had ever been able to decide whether Steve's alcohol-sleeping pill binge had been an actual suicide attempt or just clumsy self- medication exacerbated by very poor judgment due to depression, so they had tacitly decided not to discuss the matter. Upon waking up in the hospital yet again, Steve had been so overwrought he'd required sedation and had spent the next three weeks in the psych ward, much of the time wearing a straight jacket to prevent him from injuring himself.
Mark had no idea how long he'd been sitting there, reliving those horrible, endless days of worry when Steve's voice called him out of his reverie.
"Dad?"
"Hmmm? Oh, well, Steve, the way you've been acting lately, sometimes cranky, sometimes cooperative, sleeping way too much.That's how it all started after your heart attack, and well, like I said, we're all worried about you."
Steve had been cooperating as much as he could lately, but now he balked. "I am not going to see a shrink, Dad."
Mark grinned. He had known that protest would come, would have been frantic with worry if it hadn't. "I'm not suggesting that you do, son, not yet anyway." He bit his tongue to keep from laughing at his son's confusion.
Steve was truly perplexed. What, other than psychiatric treatment, could his father have been working up to? He knew he'd never find out if he didn't ask. "Ok, I'll bite, what are you suggesting? And what are the notebooks for?"
"Glad you asked," Mark said, barely suppressing the humor in his voice. "But I'm not going to tell you." He knew he had Steve's interest now, and that alone was an improvement from when he'd walked in. "I think what's in here might help you.cope with your situation a little better, and all interested parties have given me permission to try this, but if you want to know what's in here, you'll have to find out for yourself."
As both nightstands were cluttered with books, magazines, a water carafe and glass, and other miscellany, Mark moved over to the vanity and put the notebooks down. Then he fished a paper dose cup out of the pocket of his cardigan.
"Now, it's time for your meds. No sedatives, but don't be surprised if the antibiotics make you nauseous or give you diarrhea."
He poured Steve a glass of water from the carafe and watched as his son washed the pills down. Then he took a bottle of liquid antacid out of his other pocket and measured a dose of the stuff into the paper cup for his son. Steve tossed it back, made a face, and gestured for another glass of water.
When he had washed away the taste, Steve grimaced again and said, "That stuff's almost as bad as the nutrition shakes."
Mark laughed slightly. "At least there's not nearly so much of it," he said, heading for the door.
"Thank God for small favors, huh?" Steve mustered a half-grin. Loath as he was to admit it, that was the chalky liquid's one redeeming quality. "So," he said, eyeing the notebooks on the vanity, "what do you have in those binders, Dad?"
Giving his son his best, disconcerting, up-to-something grin, Mark said, "See for yourself," and pulled the door shut behind him.
"Well," Liv asked expectantly, as Mark came into the living room.
"I definitely got his interest," Mark smiled.
"But will it do him any good?"
Mark nodded. "I think it will. I think if he starts to read them, it will distract him from his own situation long enough for him to accept it. Then, I think he'll be ok."
"What did he say when you told him what you had?"
"Sweetie, I didn't tell him," Mark said mischievously, "but I got him curious, and sooner or later, he won't be able to stand the mystery any more, and he'll have to find out for himself."
Olivia giggled with delight and smiled at Mark. "Oh, you are wicked, aren't you?"
Mark nodded regally and added, "And very good at it, too. I put them down on the vanity so he has to get out of bed to get to them."
Steve sighed and shifted position. He'd been trying to read one of his magazines for the past half hour, but he kept catching himself staring at those damned notebooks. Steve loved his father, but sometimes, the man was positively infuriating. He felt like a cat, being taunted by a twitching bit of ribbon, but he'd be damned if he'd pounce.
He rolled onto his side, turning his back to the binders on the vanity, and spread the magazine open on the mattress next to him. They were plain, black vinyl binders, somewhat dusty, and he'd noticed they were labeled only with dates, 2003 to 2018, and 2019 to.and the last date was blank. Whatever was collected in there, apparently, the collection was incomplete. Steve realized his shoulder was aching and his arm was shaking from the strain of supporting his upper body, and he hadn't even started to read the article in front of him yet.
He rolled over onto his stomach, pushed the pillows out of the way, and propped himself up on his elbows with the magazine open in front of him. He started with the captions of the photos first to find out what the article was about. As he reached up to turn the page, he caught sight of the diodes on the glove, all of them glowing amber, and groaned. In his mind's eye, he saw his father's smug grin again, as he left the room without giving away a thing, and suddenly all the diodes turned red.
Sighing, Steve hung his head and knew he was beaten. He closed the magazine and tossed it onto the bedside table. Then he stood up, stretched and cracked his back, straightened the bedcovers and the pillows, and stalked over to the vanity, feeling all the while as if someone was going to bring him a bowl of milk and a toy mouse.
The binders were thick, four or five inches each, and crammed full of papers. They were heavy, too, as Steve lifted them from the vanity and carried them over to the chair by the window. Whatever they held, if he was going to cave in to his father's taunting, he wanted to do it in a good light.
Steve settled into the armchair, put his feet up on the ottoman, checked the spines of the notebooks, and dropped the one with the most recent dates to the floor beside him with a soft thump. The other he held in his lap for several minutes, wondering what it could contain. What possible reading material could hold so much meaning for him that it could make him forget his current wretched state? His dad believed that it would pull him out of his foul mood, and that in itself, was enough to convince Steve that it was powerful, near magical stuff, but what could it be?
Taking a deep breath, he opened the cover of the volume in his lap. The faint perfume of lavender and a musty old house mingled with the sharp tinge of decaying paper. Neat, clear handwriting, long, fluid lines of text spilled across the page. The paper was a delicate blue, yellowing at the edges and sprinkled with a border of flowers and butterflies at the bottom. If the floral scent hadn't been enough, Steve would have recognized Liv's orderly, delicate script anywhere.
He turned the pages of the notebook. Pages and pages there were, all of her tidy writing, on various types of stationery. Vivid pink note cards, greeting cards, several sheets of paper with elephants fluttering about on butterfly wings and the Bible verse, 'If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.' Steve smiled at that; it was pure Liv, whimsical, funny, yet with a serious message. There were some cream colored sheets with a picture of peanut-shaped people in what appeared to be a set of bleachers and the caption, 'Comments from the peanut gallery,' lots of floral patterns, and an elephant in a bathtub with a rubber ducky. Liv was certainly a woman of eclectic tastes.
Steve turned back to the first letter. It was dated July of 2003, nearly thirty years ago. Curious, he picked up the other volume and checked the last letter, February 18, 2033. So, this was his dad's plan to pull him out of his foul mood. He was to catch up on the last thirty years he'd missed of Olivia's life. Suddenly, Steve began to feel.he wasn't sure what.embarrassed? Ashamed? He was invading someone's privacy. This was something akin to reading another person's journal. Liv seemed to have set down the past thirty years of her life in letters to his dad. Letters he'd never seen. Surely, she had not expected him to ever read them, or had she?
His dad had said he had permission to share the contents of the notebooks, so maybe Liv did expect him to read the letters. She might not have planned it this way, but Steve knew his dad wouldn't give him all these letters without checking with Liv first. He thought a moment. What of Maribeth? Did she know? Steve decided she did, and approved. After all, his dad had said, 'all interested parties,' and the only ones who could be interested were Liv and Maribeth, maybe Keith, but he didn't seem to be either the sentimental or the jealous type.
Putting the more recent of the two notebooks back on the floor, he took a deep breath and opened the older one to the first letter.
*** Dear Mark,
It has been almost a year and a half since I last saw you, and I am missing you and all my friends in California. It is strange that I am home at last, and still feeling homesick. I hope you don't mind my writing and asking for news, but I miss you all so much.
Well, I am sending this to you at the hospital because I have no idea what has become of Steve, how he's doing, or how he feels about me, and I have no wish to upset him or cause him further pain. I hope you can forgive me for hurting him as I did, but to marry him when I knew Keith was there would only have hurt him worse in the end. I trust you will fill me in and keep me informed, but until you tell me otherwise, I will just keep writing you care of CG.
Since I am asking you for news, I suppose I should share mine first. I guess the biggest, and best, bit of news I could share is that Keith and I have a daughter. ***
Steve felt something twist in his chest, his stomach washed acid, and his breath came fast. This might be the answer to that terrible question he could not ask. Without giving it any thought, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. Looking at his wrist, he saw that all the diodes on the glove were fully red, and he knew there was only one hope of changing them back to green. Swallowing hard against the nausea that could have been nerves or his medication, he looked back to the letter.
*** Her name is Emily Morgan Stephanie Theodora Stephens. My in-laws say it's pretentious, but Keith and I wanted to honor the people who brought us together and still give her a name she could use without bringing up all the bad things tied to the past.
She is a precious and precocious thing, and will be a year old in September. Keith jokes that it is a good thing she looks just like her mother, else she would be bald still. She has my curly red hair and my two- tone eyes, but no freckles yet, though I imagine they will come when she starts going out in the sun, and she is HUGE! She is as big now as her dad was at a year and I was at two. ***
Steve grinned. Emily had to be six feet tall. Then he frowned. There was no specific mention of her birth date. Surely, there had been some questions when the child was born just seven months after the wedding. He continued reading.
*** She is as hale and hearty a child as you would ever want to see, and, Mark, she is smart as a whip. She is already speaking, not just baby talk, but real words. She asks to 'play computer' and 'see gramma', and every afternoon when Keith pulls up, she shrieks, 'daddy home,' and starts to giggle.
Well, that is my news for now. I hope to hear from you soon. If I don't, I will take it to mean you would prefer I quit writing you.
Please do write back.
Love, Liv ***
Steve alternately smiled and frowned again. His dad had obviously written back, often, and he was glad of that, but he was puzzled that there had been no mention of Emily's September birth date. He couldn't believe no one had noticed that she was just too early to have been Keith's baby.
He turned the page to a pale pink sheet edged with a lacy embossed pattern. Perhaps the next letter would answer his questions. It was dated August of 2003, just a few days before he married Maribeth.
*** Dear Mark,
Oh, I was so very glad to hear from you! I was beginning to worry that you had written me out of your life for good, but I do understand how the wedding plans delayed your reply, so there was no need for you to apologize. I also understand why you want me to continue writing to you at the hospital. I have found married life to be alternately a joy and a trial, and I wouldn't want our correspondence to make it more difficult for either of the newly weds.
I am delighted for Steve and Maribeth. She is getting a wonderful, honorable, compassionate man, and having met Dr. Inscoe at a few conferences, I can tell you, though I am sure you have noticed, that Steve is getting an intelligent, strong-willed woman fully capable of keeping him in check when needed. You will have a strong ally in her; you can count on it.
Be on the lookout for a package from me. Inside you will find a wrapped wedding gift and an unsigned card. It is a pair of heavy silver candlesticks Keith and I found in a rather large antiques shop along US15 near the Virginia-Maryland border while we were on our summer vacation-- Gettysburg; Washington, D.C.; and the hills of Northern Virginia. The building looks like a castle, and we stopped just because it seemed so interesting.
The trip was wonderful, and Emmy took her first steps on the wall round the reflecting pool in front of the Washington Monument. Then, being stubborn and independent like her father, rather than walking from me to him as she was supposed to, she headed toward the water and landed with a plop in the reflecting pool. Keith hauled her out squalling and with a sodden diaper, and a nearby officer gave us a ticket citing us with something or other, I have no idea what.
We took her to the Museum of Natural History, one of my favorite places in all the world, outside of home. It was just down the mall, and Keith rested on the bench beneath the charging elephant while I took Emmy into the ladies room to wash her and dry her and change her into some clean clothes from the diaper bag. (There is no telling what lives in that reflecting pool. Years ago, I saw a vagrant whizzing into it, and on a later visit, witnessed a frat boy losing his lunch there after a long binge.) Half an hour after her splash about, Emmy was giggling and babbling and toddling ahead of us, determined to throw herself beneath the hooves of the 'hursees' on the Carousel.
Well, just call me 'Babylon,' for lately that's all I seem to do about my child and my trip.
Take care, Liv ***
Steve was surprised to find that Liv and Maribeth had met before and neither of them had mentioned it to him, but he shrugged it off. As long as they were getting along now, that was good enough for him. He remembered the candlesticks. They had quickly become one of Maribeth's favorite decorations and graced the table at every special family meal ever since. She had gone to great lengths to discover who had sent them, and when no giver owned up, she had asked every guest at the wedding to thank the person for her if they knew who it was. Steve smiled, too at the story of Emily going for a dip in the reflecting pool and wondered if Liv ever looked back on it as an early sign of the trials her daughter was about to put her through.
Steve read quickly through the next several letters, then. They were full of news and stories of Emily's growing up, Keith, Kenney, and Beechie's exploits in the woods during buck season, and the beginnings of a romance between Kenney and Sue Redmond. One letter mentioned Liv's regret that Maribeth had found his box of souvenirs from his time with her, and typically, she had been, "So sorry that I am causing him further pain after all this time." The pages flowed with Liv's characteristic tone of wonder and amusement at life in general, and he could hear her voice in his head as she told him all her stories. Then he came across a letter that seemed to have seen a lot of abuse. The edges were worn, the pages, splattered with tears. The folds had become soft and translucent, leading Steve to believe that his father had read it many times over the years before he finally put it in the binder. It was dated June 2004.
*** Dear Mark,
A grandson! I know you are thrilled and he will be spoiled, and I'll bet Steve is just beside himself with pride and joy. That is wonderful news. And with a name like Steven Mark Sloan to grow into, I am sure he will be a remarkable man. With the help of his family and friends, he cannot fail to distinguish himself.
Watch for a baby gift from Keith and me, a fat silver piggybank Keith picked out at a local silversmith's shop. It seems our 'rustic community' has become a haven for all sorts of artists and artisans--as well as a few long-haired, pot-smoking, acid-dropping, time-warped hippie wannabes, but that is another matter altogether. The few coins in the bank--a liberty dime, a wheat penny, a bicentennial quarter, and a shiny new penny--are just for luck. Superstition says it is bad luck to give a gift of an empty wallet, and I suppose that holds true for an empty bank as well.
Again, congratulations. I am so pleased for you all.
As for me, well, I will tell you about that later. Emmy on the other hand is proving herself a truly remarkable child. At just twenty-one months, she is speaking fluently in full sentences and reading first and second grade books. Keith now jokes that she may have gotten her looks from me, but her brains must come from his side of the family. When friends point out that he's no smarter than I am, he agrees, but says her intelligence must be from him, because she's far too pretty to have taken any of his looks.
We are blessed with an uncommonly beautiful and intelligent daughter, but sometimes, I worry. Already, I think she spends too much time playing on her own. At the day care, she is among children a year or more older than her. She is so big, they notice no difference in size, but she seems to lack patience for their company. While other children tinker with the blocks for a while then are off doing something else, she spends hours in concentrated activity creating elaborate set ups. If another child has something she needs, she is not at all shy about simply taking it from him. It is not so much that she is ill mannered, either, though she is that, but she is so focused on her 'projects' that the people around her tend to fade into the background.
I was for a while concerned that she might be autistic, but extensive tests have ruled out all the likely disorders. In fact, Keith and I have been told repeatedly that she is exceptionally gifted and that we should encourage her to develop her talents. Frankly, right now I would prefer to develop her manners and her personal skills more than her mind. She has few friends, and those children who do play with her often seem uneasy around her.
Any advice you have would be most appreciated.
Now, Mark, I don't wish to spoil your joy, so would you please put this letter away for a couple days. What I have to say next is not good news. ***
Steve felt his chest tighten. He was glad she was so happy for him and Maribeth, and he remembered the piggy bank. Steven had treasured it, and it was now stuck away in storage somewhere, probably with the coins still inside. He and Maribeth had wondered when they received it if it had been from the same person who had given them the candlesticks. He found himself sharing Liv's concern for her daughter, as well, and he had no idea what the rest of the letter might contain, but he was sure his father had done just as he was about to, and forged ahead despite Liv's warning.
*** I do hope you have done as I asked, and waited to read this part of the letter, Mark, for what I am about to unload on you will surely spoil your mood. I am sorry to share this with you, but your shoulders are broad, and you are a good, dear friend. I need to share my fears with someone, and I find I cannot speak to my husband or friends without bursting into tears. ***
Wondering what Olivia had been afraid of, Steve turned to the next page of the letter, and found it was even more tearstained others had been. As he read it, he found his own tears joining Liv's and, probably, his father's as well. For the moment, he didn't even care that all the diodes on the glove were in the red again.
*** Three months ago, Kenney finally moved out of his parents' house. Keith and I helped him, and about that time, my back started hurting. Naturally, I blamed it on muscle strain and believed it would go away in a few days. It did not.
Gradually, the pain got worse, sometimes nauseatingly so, and grew to include my lower left abdomen. I stubbornly refused treatment, claiming it was just a torn muscle or a pinched nerve and nothing more than time, rest, and some painkillers were needed to help me recover.
'Physician, heal thyself,' the saying goes. Would that I could.
The pain grew worse, and my legs went numb, first pins and needles, then nothing. I began to limp and to hunch over like an old dowager. Then, about a week ago, I awoke to a wet bed, soiled sheets, a screaming baby, and a howling pain in my back. I was paralyzed from the waist down and had lost control of my functions. ***
Steve noticed that the beautiful handwriting had become wobbly, and he knew it had cost Liv dearly to set her troubles down on paper.
*** I was able to roll over and reach the phone to dial 911, but it hurt too much to roll back. The pain took the air from my lungs, and I couldn't even 'describe the emergency' to the operator. I just managed to say 'ambulance, Keith at work' before I fainted.
I awoke to the humiliation of having two old friends from school discover first hand that I slept in the nude.
An MRI revealed that I had a tumor, roughly the size and shape of a Nerf football growing between my spine and my left kidney. It had grown slowly, making room for itself as it went. Emergency surgery to remove the tumor quickly became a left oophorectomy, supracervical hysterectomy, left nephrectomy, and a bowel resection as the beast inside me had crushed my left ovary, and the left side of my uterus, accounting for the abdominal pain, and slowly pinched off the blood supply to my left kidney and a portion of my colon.
A biopsy and subsequent tests have shown that the tumor was cancerous and has metastasized to my liver, lungs, and bowels already. I am not expected to live another year.
I am so sorry to dump this on you, Mark, but I am so deeply afraid, more frightened than I have ever been in my life, and no one here can be strong for me right now. Every time I begin to voice my fears, they begin to cry, but if I can get this all down and send it off to you, I will not see you cry for me. I can remember your strength and draw on it, and maybe it will help me.
I will fight this, Mark, with all that I have and all that I am. I have already started an aggressive experimental chemotherapy protocol which left me so violently ill, my husband the cop went off in search of some long- haired, pot-smoking, acid-dropping, time-warped hippie wannabes to sell him some marijuana to help ease the nausea. It did only a little good, and made me speak and act so strangely I flatly refused to ever try it again, but I will continue the treatment, Mark, and I promise you I will be writing you again this time next summer to tell you to look for another package for that grandson of yours.
Now, I have one more absolutely unfair request to make of you. Please don't tell anyone about this. I do not intend to leave this world any time soon, but if I do succumb, I want Steve, Jesse, Amanda, and the rest of my California friends to believe the end was sudden and painless. It might be a shock for them, but it's better than knowing I was suffering and they couldn't be there for me.
I love you Mark, and I am trusting you to keep my confidence. You will be my rock when my husband can't be. I know this is terribly unfair to you, but I don't know where else to turn. Just as my life was truly happy for once, the world fell out from under me again, and if I cannot find one person who will hear my troubles and listen to my fears without burdening me with his sympathetic tears, I shall go mad and give it all up for lost.
Please keep my secrets.
All my love, Liv ***
Steve had mixed emotions about the letter. He was proud of Liv for her fighting spirit, mad as hell that she would unload such news on his dad and then ask him to keep it a secret, and resentful that she had never mentioned it to him. He also found himself wondering if she and Keith had agreed to overlook the question of Emily's paternity because Liv could never have another child.
Steve kept turning pages. Each of the letters was full of news and stories, and most contained only a brief mention of Liv's condition. Sometimes the handwriting was clear and confident, other times it was wobbly, but no matter how shaky the script, the stories were always wonderful, sometimes sentimental, sometimes full of dry wit, and occasionally outrageous.
Then there was a very long letter dated March, 2005, written in a different hand, an old-fashioned, schoolteacher's cursive. Steve wondered how his father had felt when he'd seen it. Did he at first think Liv had died? It must have been a heart wrenching moment. It troubled Steve, and he knew Liv was fine now.
*** Dear Mark,
This letter comes to you courtesy of Edna, a compassionate and trustworthy volunteer at the hospital, the mother of a friend, widowed just over a year now, who is looking forward to seeing 'that distinguished white-haired doctor friend' of mine again. Edna is blushing furiously now, Mark, but she has yet to refuse to set down what I dictate.
I may not be able to write to you myself, but it is not so bad, my friend, as I am not yet too ill for mischief. Perhaps I shall push my luck a bit further and see if I can make Edna confess just a little more.
She pretends she can never recall your name, but I know better. She was devastated to learn that you lived in LA, and after the quake was frantically pestering me for news of you and yours. Thank you for calling so soon after to let me know you were all ok. I don't think Edna could have stood another moment of waiting and wondering any more than I could.
I have just made Edna show me what she has written, Mark, and every word I dictated is here. I think she indulges me because she believes I am dying. Either that, or she is hoping it will be a convenient excuse to express her admiration for you. Won't she be chagrinned when I walk out of here whole and well and looking forward to a good many more years of teasing her about her girlish crushes! ***
Steve paused for thought. For some reason he seemed to remember a busy couple of years shortly after Steven was born when his father had a conference to go to every other month. Mark had always led an active life, but for a time there, it had seemed especially hectic, and sometimes the strain showed. Steve remembered worrying about his dad before the quake and for a while after, and now he knew why.
He also remembered Mark coming home from one particular 'conference' energized and seeming so pleased with himself he practically floated several inches above the ground. Perhaps he had established more than a passing acquaintance with Edna.
Steve decided he would have to ask about that.
*** So, Steve is a captain. Good for him; it was a long time in coming. He has all my sympathies, as I cannot begin to imagine the decisions he must have faced and the strain he would have been under in the circumstances you described to me the first few days after the earthquake. For once, I would not trade my troubles for another's. I can decide well enough what to do for myself, but to know my decision might mean life or death for another? Well, that's why I am an orthopedist, so I do not have to make such decisions. I have been praying for him and for all of you.
I have authorized Meyer to divert all the funds he can financially justify to an account that will be called the LA Promise Foundation. There is also a special, personal loan set aside for Jesse. Please, MAKE him apply for the assistance. The money is there for him already, and the foundation is just a cover so he won't feel personally obligated to me. It is my pleasure to help. I know what it means to lose a home, and it breaks my heart to know he has suffered the same misfortune, made all the more terrible because he had just acquired it. I personally can't do much to help any of you, but I can offer up my prayers and my cash and I will do so gladly. ***
Steve had to stop and wipe his eyes. Liv had been too weak to write her own letters, and yet she had been thinking of them, praying for them, and in Jesse's case, providing for them. He had always considered her an amazing woman, but now he realized no one word, nor any collection of them, could begin to say what she was. She was something wonderful that had no name.
Suddenly, he felt sheepish, romanticizing his old flame in the very bed he had shared with his wife of thirty years. Liv was not some mythical creature. She was a brave, strong, kind, compassionate, generous, caring, selfless woman who should perhaps be made a saint some day, but she was still just a woman. He would always care deeply for her and always admire her, but she simply could not ever come close to filling the space Maribeth had carved out for herself in his life.
Steve turned the page, and noticed that it started with "Dear Dr. Sloan." Unless the illness had affected her mind, this couldn't be Liv's letter. Except for when they first met and one brief period of time when she and Mark were not on good terms, she had always called his dad by name. He turned back to the previous page, and found that the handwriting matched Edna's. He continued reading.
*** Dear Dr. Sloan:
Olivia has nodded off. When she wakes up, I will remind her to tell you all about Emily. Until then, I will tell you all the things Olivia doesn't want you to know. If she ever finds out I did this, she'll be so mad at me she might even refuse to let me write for her again. I can live with that, because she needs her friends now. I can tell you care for her, and I think you have a right to know how she is really doing.
Olivia is dying. I'm sorry there is no easier way to say this. If I had Livvie's way with words, I could make it sound like an adventure or something, but it's not. The fact is, she is dying slowly and painfully, and that's all I can say about it.
She has not been able to keep anything down for over a week. Even water comes back up on her, and what little does stay down runs right through. She has ulcers in her mouth and throat from the vomit and sores on her bottom from the diarrhea. Over the past few days, she has refused to eat because of the pain. Dr. Griffin, has put her on IV nutrition, but it is hard on her system. Her organs are breaking down now because of it, and her eyes are sunken from dehydration.
One of the hippies from the 'Tranquility' (their commune) claims to be a real doctor. Dr. Moon Love, if you can believe it. All of her papers check out, but I think she's a quack. The first thing she tried to do was get Olivia to quit the chemo. 'Western medicine is corrupt,' says Dr. Love, and 'Harsh, artificial chemicals can not heal such a wonderful natural marvel as the human body.'
Bullshit.
It's a good thing Livvie still has some of the sense God gave her. She refused to quit the chemo because pulling out of the study would.oh, I don't remember what she said, but there wouldn't be enough people left for the results to count. Still, Keith and Olivia are paying good money for Dr. Love to come three days a week to poke Livvie with needles, hook her up to a monitor, and tell her to, 'Visualize the tumors shrinking. Imagine them withering away as the blood supply is cut off. Focus. Focus.'
Focus, my eye!
I've been volunteering in the cancer ward for twenty years, since my own daughter died of leukemia. Dr. Love is a fraud hoping to turn a quick buck on the suffering of a desperate, dying young woman.
I know your life is busy, Dr. Sloan, and I know there is still a lot to do to clean up and treat the injured after the earthquake, but if you ever want to see Olivia alive again, you should come visit her soon. She doesn't have much time left.
Livvie is waking up now; I have to go back to her letter.
Edna ***
Steve chewed his lip thoughtfully. Edna was certainly blunt, and she was right that she didn't have 'Olivia's way with words,' but, thank God, she was also wrong about Olivia. He remembered the conference that had suddenly 'popped up' about three weeks after the earthquake, too. His dad had taken off, leaving him orders to look after Amanda and the boys and to make sure Jesse applied for assistance from the LA Promise Foundation.
At the time, Steve had been furious that his dad would abandon them all at such a difficult time. He had argued that since Jesse had lost everything, he should have been the one to go off on a semi-vacation at hospital expense, if only to get away from the stress of being forced to depend on friends for food and shelter. So angry had he been at his dad's seemingly callous behavior that for days after Mark's return, he had avoided him whenever he could and had been cold and curt when he couldn't. Now that he had the facts, and knew his dad had been making the difficult choice to leave his family in crisis to sit beside what might be a friend's deathbed, he felt differently and knew he would apologize.
Steve turned to the next page of the letter. It was a very long one, and he wondered if Liv, sensing she was near death, hadn't rambled on, trying to get all her thoughts out before she was too weak to do so.
*** Goodness, Mark. I seem to have dozed off. Edna, being the good soul she is has sat here waiting patiently for me to rouse and continue with my letter. I hope she kept you entertained in the meanwhile. She has reminded me that I was just talking about Emmy, and I will return to that shortly, but I must discuss something else with you first. It has been weighing on my mind for several days now, and I need an objective opinion on it, so, let me tell you the story first, then I will ask my questions.
The other day, a priest came to visit me. He is the hospital chaplain and I suppose he was hoping to offer me comfort or counsel, should I need it. Well, I was feeling sorry for myself at the time. I find that tends to happen when you have just spent the last two hours puking your guts out.
Anyway, I asked him the most pathetic lament of all. "Whyyy meeee?" I am sure if you concentrate, you can even hear the whine.
He should not have tried to answer, for he caught my full wrath, which even in my weakened state is considerable. I am not proud of this. I just wanted you to know, because it has some bearing on what happened next.
In answer to my question, the priest said, "It's hard to say. Perhaps there is some lesson you need to learn. Maybe the Lord is testing you."
He would have said more, but I interrupted him.
Bursting into tears I shrieked, "What lesson could a good and loving God possibly want to teach that would require this much pain, suffering, and fear. Even the prison system is not so cruel to those who fail to learn virtue."
"I also said he may be."
"Testing me," I wailed. "Yes, I heard that. The Lord did not test Job. He left that to the Devil, and even Satan was not allowed to kill him. Satan also tested Christ in the wilderness. The God I have loved and worshipped all my life does not cruelly test and try His children. How dare you say He is doing this to me?"
Mark, I was screaming and ranting so, the doctors threatened to sedate me. I finished by telling the priest that I had neither the piety of Christ nor the patience of Job and I certainly had no patience for any more of his ill- considered folly. I then threw my water pitcher at him and thanked him to leave me alone. My anger and my energy spent, I collapse back into the pillows and slept away the rest of the day, even nodding off during Emily's visit.
I do not want you to try to answer 'Why me?' for I know no answer will satisfy me. The best I can come up with on my own is, 'Because.' I do want to know this: Is the behavior I described normal for one who is critically ill?
All my life I have tried to be patient and pleasant, gentle and forgiving. I have never wished to harm anyone or to hurt anyone's feelings. I know that I hurt Steve when I married Keith, and if I could have done so without causing him pain, I would have. All I can say in my defense is he is probably happier now than he ever could have been with me, and both our lives have been the better for it. I have almost never been mean-spirited or quick to anger, and my happiest times have always come from helping someone or bringing people joy.
I once told you I live as if every moment were my last, and I want to spend my last moment doing something good for someone else, but lately, I seem to care very little for how other people feel. I am often sharp tongued and snappish, and I couldn't give a hairy rat's behind if I offended or frightened or angered or upset that priest. Nor do I intend to apologize to him.
One would think at this point, when my health is so precarious and one sudden fever or a night spent sleeping in a draft could mean the end of me, that I would be even more concerned about how I treat others. The thought of leaving the world with bad feelings still between me and another person used to terrify me, Mark, but now, maybe I have become selfish, but I really don't care.
Edna tells me all this is normal and quite forgivable from someone in my position, but I can't trust her to tell me the truth. It is not that I think her deceitful and dishonest, but I think that, just as she wrote every word I dictated, no matter how much embarrassment it caused her, she will tell me what will make me feel better because she thinks I am dying.
So, Mark, if you could, please tell me, am I normal, or do I need psychiatric help--again?
Sigh! Now that that is off my chest--which by the way was the first thing to go when I started to lose weight from the chemo--let me tell you about Emmy!
She will be three in September, and she will be starting five-year-old kindergarten. It took a lot of fighting, but I convinced Keith, Jud, and May to pursue it, because she is just too bored at daycare. She has gone from being indifferent or impatient with the other two- and three-year- olds, to being overbearing and condescending, and it is quite unattractive in a toddler. I think she should be placed with older children to force her to develop her social skills. Five-year-olds can stand up to her in a way toddlers cannot. I can hear their taunts now when she tries to show off, and though it breaks my heart to imagine it, I think it will do her some good to learn first hand that nobody likes a smart aleck. The older children are bigger than her as well, and she will have to learn to get along with them to get what she wants. She won't be able to just take it any more.
Her language, math, and musical skills would place her in the fifth or sixth grade easily, which is more than a little frightening to Keith and me. Because of my education, I am used to coming across as one of the smartest people in the room, and Keith is no dunce either, but at the rate she is learning, Emmy will outstrip us both before she becomes a teenager. She is learning at the rate of three mental years for every chronological year. It seems foolish to want your child to be a little less intelligent, and cruel to want the other children to put her in her place, but what will Keith and I do ten years from now when we have an obnoxious adolescent who is right in her assumption that she knows more than us?
Steve is such a wonderful man, Mark. He is kind and compassionate, patient, caring, and thoughtful, chivalrous and well mannered and sociable. I am sure some of that is just his personality, but you and your wife had to teach him something. What did you do? As always, any advice is welcome.
Well, my friend, even my voice is failing me now and Edna has to lean in close to hear my words. I am a little concerned she may lean over so far she will fall out of her seat and right into the bed beside me, and so, I shall bring this letter to a close. Take care of yourself and your family. I will see you when you visit again.
Love, Liv ***
Steve found himself laughing through tears. Even in what must have been her darkest hours, Olivia was able to discuss her situation with gentle humor. Suddenly, he remembered how thirty years ago, she could lighten a heavy mood so quickly it boggled the mind. When he was frustrated or frightened, often with nothing more than a word or a look, she could have him smiling again. He was so glad she had been able to do that for herself, too, for he had never in his life met anyone else with that remarkable talent.
He could not begin to fathom the anguish she must have felt knowing that one bad night and she could end up leaving her husband and daughter behind, and he wondered if she appreciated the painful irony of worrying about Emily's obnoxious adolescent difficulties when the child was only three and Liv herself was on the edge of death. It must have been unspeakably painful to worry about a future she probably didn't expect to be a part of!
Steve idly wondered if Keith would have contacted him about Emily if Liv had died. Certainly, he would have needed help dealing with such a precocious child, and though Steve didn't imagine himself smart enough to do any better with her than Keith had, he knew his father's connections would be helpful in finding facilities and specialists capable of dealing with a young genius. It was true that Keith would have had the help and support of Jud and May, plus all the financial resources he could need, but Steve wasn't sure if they had access to the sort of experts Mark knew, and he had a hunch finding the right people had been critical in educating Emily. Also, Steve was sure his father would have let Keith know that he and Emmy would always be welcome in LA, and he knew there would have to be more opportunities to challenge the brilliant child here than in a small town in Pennsylvania. Of course, a couple hours to the west of Punxsutawney, Pittsburgh was quite a metropolitan city, with it's own outstanding university and medical facilities, and Penn State, one of the largest universities in the nation, as Steve recalled from his visit there with Liv thirty years ago, was just a couple hours to the east.
Steve shook his head. It was aching from considering the 'what if's'. Though he was convinced that Emmy was his child, he still didn't have any proof, and so, he didn't have any right to assume he would have had a part in Emmy's upbringing. He guessed he was doing Keith a disservice, too, for he had raised the child alone while Liv had been ill, and while Liv did seem to have concerns, she didn't seem to think Keith had botched the job. Maybe it was just as well he had known nothing about the situation, Steve thought. The last thing Liv and Keith would have needed at the time was his meddling.
Steve kept turning pages. Some of the letters were long, some short, and one was nothing more than a simple note card. "I am still here," it read, in a wobbly hand, "Thank you for your visit. Sorry I slept so much. Love, Liv."
Those three scrabbly lines were more heartrending and more eloquent than anything Steve could ever remember reading, and suddenly, he had to shut the notebook and get out of his room. He went to his dresser and dug out a black LAPD sweatshirt, matching sweatpants, socks, and boxers. Realizing he needed a shower and a shave, he took the clothes with him into the attached bathroom, and ten minutes later, he was out of the bathroom, dressed, and sitting on the bed, lacing up his running shoes.
Steve paused to take a deep breath before he left the bedroom, and realized he felt good for the first time in weeks. Then he noticed the glove on his hand as it rested on the doorknob. All the lights were green. He smiled and thought it was a good thing the device was waterproof, for he had completely forgotten about it in the shower.
As he stepped out into the hall, he immediately noticed a heavenly smell. He followed his nose to the kitchen to find his dad seated on a stool by the stove stirring a big pot of marinara sauce. He saw a pan of meatballs keeping warm on the back burner, and a pot of green beans was simmering beside him. Liv was preparing mozzarella garlic bread to go into the oven.
Steve sidled up to his dad and, reaching around him, stole one of the meatballs from the top of the pile in the pan. Mark smacked the back of his hand with the spoon he'd been using to stir the sauce, and left a red spatter.
"Wait until dinner!" Mark snapped.
Steve looked at his dad askance, shrugged, and cleaned some of the sauce from his hand with the meatball. Then he popped it in his mouth.
"Mmmmm, delicious."
He grinned wickedly, and Mark shook the spoon at him.
"Here, Dad," he said, reaching for the spoon. "Let me rinse that off for you. Now that you've assaulted me with it, you don't want it going right back into the pot."
"Assault, nothing," Mark grumbled as he handed over the spoon, "I was acting in defense of my meatballs. So, how are you feeling?"
Sighing deeply as he rinsed the spoon, he didn't even look at his dad or Liv. "Better," he said, "at least for now." Handing the spoon back to his dad, he looked once again at the feast Mark and Liv were preparing and said, "That really was delicious. Uh, will I.be able to have more?"
Mark and Liv shared a knowing glance. As long as Steve had his appetite back, all was right with the world.
"Well." Liv hesitated, she knew she was being almost cruel, but Steve had always been fun to tease, and besides, he needed to take care what and how much he ate, and her seeming uncertainty would drive that point home. It would force him to be judicious and moderate in his portions just to avoid an 'I told you so.'
".the marinara sauce is acidic, and excess acid is part of the reason your ulcers got so bad, and the meatballs and the cheese on the garlic bread are kind of hard to digest."
She saw Steve's face fall. He was expecting to be told no, and that's exactly where she wanted him, thinking that she was indulging him against her better judgment.
"I suppose, if you don't over do, just a couple of meatballs and only a slice of garlic bread with your spaghetti, and drink lots of water, it should be all right."
Steve brightened instantly. "Great! Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Yes," Mark told him. "We need a salad. A big one. Everything you'll need is in the fridge. Jesse, Katie Lynn, Lauren, Amanda, and Ron are all coming over, and Maribeth, Steven, and Keith will be home for dinner tonight."
Steve found himself counting on his fingers. Three and three and two and three was."Salad for eleven, right. Where's the big bowl?"
Mark sighed and pointed to a cupboard. "It's right where it's always been for the last twenty five years."
The three of them worked in companionable silence for a while, then Liv started humming softly. Steve listened for a bit before he spoke.
"You know, Liv, I seem to remember you having a beautiful voice," he said, "Why don't you sing us a song?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"Come on, honey," Mark interrupted, "it'll be fun."
Spreading garlic butter on a split-open loaf of Italian bread, Liv gave Mark a measuring glance and said, "Duet?"
Mark shrugged, "We could try it, though I'm not sure I'm all that familiar with the music of the younger generation."
"Ha-ha," Liv sounded less than amused, "Do you know any show tunes?"
"Oh, a few," he conceded modestly as he spooned up some of the spaghetti sauce to check it's consistency then went back to stirring slowly.
Steve laughed as Liv muttered, "You've probably already forgotten more than I'll ever know."
"Yes," Mark admitted, "unfortunately the memory tends to fade as one ages. You'll find that out some day yourself."
"Oh, please, Mark, you haven't aged, just mellowed," Liv said, rolling her eyes skyward as if praying silently for patience as she started sprinkling cheese over the bread.
Though Steve was enjoying the banter between Liv and his father, the longer he waited, the more he wanted to hear her sing once again.
"Oh, will you two just get on with it?"
"Oh, why don't you just 'get on with' that salad," his father suggested.
They both grinned at him, and Liv asked Mark, "Are you familiar with 'Big River'?"
Mark screwed up his face in thought, then nodded and began spouting information. "Music and lyrics by country songwriter Roger Miller, book by William Hauptman, base on 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' by Mark Twain."
Liv continued when Mark paused for breath. "That's the one. It opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in April of 1985, and won seven Tony Awards. Good. You remember the scene where the slaves and the overseer are singing, I think to cover the escape of some others during a funeral?"
"Yeah. 'Crossing Over,' right?"
Liv nodded. "That's it. Think you can do it?"
Mark grinned broadly, and Steve smiled to see it. His dad loved a challenge. "Try me," Mark said.
Liv nodded and took a deep breath, then belted out the first few bars of the tune, which was reminiscent of the old Negro Spirituals of the late 1800's.
"Crossin' toooo the other siiide.OhhOhhhhOhhOhhhhhhh.OhhOhOhOhhhOhhhOhhhhhhhh."
Looking to Mark and getting a nod, Liv went on, Mark providing a counterpoint to her melody, echoing her words, his voice coming in low and soft below hers, and rising to join her when she sang joyfully. The song had a compelling, driving rhythm to it, almost like a slow cadence, mimicking people in motion, and Steve found his hands, quite of their own volition, chopping vegetables to the pace it set.
"We are pilgrims.on a journey..through the dark.ness of the night."
Liv held the note on 'dark', and Mark stayed with her. Making eye contact they moved on and in this way, kept time with one another.
"We are bound for.other places.crossin' to.the other side."
To this point, the song had been low and mournful, trudging on at slow but inexorable pace, Olivia holding on to the notes as if loath to let them go from her lips, Mark repeating the lyrics, moaning and sighing softly to underscore the tune. Now, with no change in rhythm or pace, the song began to fly. The notes were brighter and higher in pitch, and Olivia sang louder, her tone soaring from sorrowful to gloriously hopeful in just a few words.
"I will worry.about tomorrow.when tomorrow.comes in sight."
Suddenly, everything collapsed again to the original groaning melody, this time, though, still tinged with rosy hope.
".but until then, Lord.I'm just a stranger.crossing to.the other side."
Suddenly, Liv's voice took flight again, rising heavenward as the music took it away, supported all the while by Mark's fine baritone.
"Jesus will.be there to meet me.he will reach.his hand in mine."
And the original tune was back just as quickly, this time marching eagerly onward instead of slogging through muck and mire.
".and I will no more.be a stranger.when I reach.the other side."
Then, as if realizing there was quite a bit of life left to go before that happy day, the song settled back down to the original words. This time, there was a lot of silence around the phrases, giving the song a thoughtful quality. Mark and Liv sang in unison, she crooning softly at the low end of her vocal range, he stretching to meet her at the high end of his.
"Crossin' to.the other side. OhhhhOhhhOhhhOhhhhhhh. OhhOhOhOhhhhOhhhhOhhhh."
In the quiet moment that followed the song, Liv suddenly laughed and said, "Now, that's what I'm talking about. Mark, you and I ought to go on the road together."
"Sweetie, that was nice," Mark agreed, "but I'm afraid I'm a bit too old for a traveling concert series."
Steve, who had been letting the music just wash over him, was suddenly struck by the significance of the words. He knew Liv well enough to realize music held a special meaning for her and he wondered if she had felt comforted by the song when she was ill. Feeling himself choke up, he squeezed out the words, 'excuse me,' and bolted for the deck.
Surprised that a simple song could touch big, tough Steve Sloan so deeply, Liv looked from the space Steve had left behind to Mark and back a couple of times, then said, "I guess he needs a minute. I'll go after him soon."
Mark just nodded, knowing his son hadn't been affected by the music alone, but deciding to let Liv find that out for herself.
Steve stood on the deck for a moment, breathing deeply of the salt air, trying to calm himself. He looked at the diodes on the glove, all of them glowing red, and concentrated. Slowly, they all dropped to amber.
Idly wandering down the steps and across the yard, Steve found himself out on the beach throwing rocks into the ocean. Why, even when she was so sick, had Liv never contacted him? They'd only been together six months, but as close as they had been, he couldn't imagine why she had chosen to exclude him from her struggle. Surely, she hadn't thought he'd make trouble about Emily, had she?
Olivia finished preparing the garlic bread and slipped it in the oven. Setting the timer, she looked at Mark and asked, "Will you be ok for a few minutes?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine," he told her. "I'll take the garlic bread out for you when the timer goes off, too."
She nodded. "Ok, then, I'm going to check on Steve."
Steve had stopped throwing rocks into the ocean, feeling guilty for making them start their long journey shoreward over again. Ok, even if Liv was afraid he'd make a stink about Emmy, she must have wanted to see him. She'd almost married him, and he'd have married her in a heartbeat if she hadn't chosen Keith instead when he gave her the chance. Yet, even when she knew she was on the line between living and dying, she had not sent for him. Why? She had helped him through so much in the short time they had shared. He felt he deserved the opportunity to support her for a change, and he was feeling angry and hurt that she had denied him that chance.
Suddenly, he felt a gentle hand on his arm and a soft voice said his name.
"Steve?"
He turned to face her, and all his thoughts save one came tumbling out at once.
"You knew you were dying, didn't you? Were you afraid? Did you sing that song? Did it comfort you? Why didn't you send for me? Didn't you want me there?"
He just couldn't ask he about Emily now.
Liv chuckled at him, and said, "Oh, Steve, you've been reading my letters, haven't you?"
He nodded, and swallowed hard, but didn't trust himself to speak.
She had insisted to Mark and Maribeth that she didn't want to discuss the contents of the letters with anyone, but now, well, this was Steve, and he was hurting, and she could help. Taking a deep breath, she answered his questions one by one.
"I knew there was a good chance I could die, Steve, but I refused to let myself believe it would ever really happen. I was afraid, sometimes, too, but not so much of where I would be going as of what would happen to those I would leave behind. I didn't sing that song, I'm afraid, because much of the time, I was too weak and tired to do much of anything, but I listened to it a lot, and it did help. There were times when I needed you there, Steve, because, well, just because. As for why I didn't send for you, do you remember what happened the February after you and Maribeth got married?"
Steve thought a moment, then, "She found the box of your things."
Liv nodded, "Your dad told me about that, not long after it happened. It was only a few months before I got sick, and well, I just didn't think it would be a good idea to drag you clear across the country to the bedside of your old flame when your wife was." she cringed at the word she was about to use, ".insecure.about her marriage."
Steve turned from her, then, stricken, but she stepped round to have him face her again. She was surprised to see his eyes brimming with unshed tears.
"Steve?"
"Oh, God, Liv." He choked on his words, took a deep breath, and continued, "Don't you ever think of yourself?"
She laughed at him again, the soft, gentle sound making him realize absurdity of his question. With anyone else in the world, he would be asking exactly the opposite. He smiled, and his tears overflowed. She put her hands up to either side of his face and wiped the droplets away with her thumbs.
"Now," she said, "you already know what you've been reading has a happy ending, so, why don't you come back to the house and help us finish dinner?"
Taking a deep breath, he dropped an arm around her shoulders and she slipped one around his waist. They walked up the beach together, laughing and joking, and by the time they had reached the house, they were both short of breath, red-faced, and glowing with good humor.
"Hey, you two," Keith called to them cheerfully as they stumbled in from the deck. He looked up from where he had sat the spaghetti sauce, now full of meatballs, on the table for Mark, and his smile faded to confusion as he saw his wife in another man's arms. Then he grinned again as he reminded himself it was just Steve.
Shortly after he and O had arrived, she and Steve had gone out onto the patio for a while. He had been jealous of the private moment they had shared and had quizzed her about it. She had answered all his questions quite innocently, telling how Steve had comforted her while she cried and assured her that they would get Emily back safely. Then, just as he was about blast her about how she should be turning to her husband when she needed consoling, she had smiled brilliantly and said, "It's like finally having a big brother again."
Since then, he found he couldn't begrudge them the time they spent together. They were good for each other, and after all she had lost in her lifetime, O deserved any close, loving human connection she could forge. She had chosen him over Steve once before, and having heard her describe him as a 'big brother' Keith had no doubt she would do so again if she had it to do over.
"What do you think you're doing, out playing on the beach while Mark and I slave in a hot kitchen to put on dinner?"
Olivia snorted indignantly, and disentangling herself from Steve, she began to set out plates. "I'll have you know I made the meatballs and the garlic bread," she told him.
"And I did the salad," Steve added as he carried it to the table.
"Just what have *you* been doing all day, mister?" Olivia asked as she slipped behind her husband and wrapped her arms around his waist.
There was a brief pause as Keith seemed to consider whether he really ought to answer the question, and finally he said, "I, uh, I've been working with Al, Ron, and Cheryl and the kids on security plans for the trial."
From where he stood in the kitchen looking into the dining room, Steve could see Liv's shoulders stiffen. Then she dropped her head forward to rest on her husband's back. Keith must have sensed her sudden tension, because he turned then, and wrapped her in his arms.
Unsure what to say next, Steve asked for clarification. "The kids?"
He heard Olivia giggle and she stepped away from Keith, gave him a quick kiss, and moved into the kitchen. "Collectively, Charles Donovan, 'Fredo Cioffi, and Hannah, at least when they're not round to be offended by it."
Steve grinned at that. He wasn't sure if he approved of the nickname, as it did seem a bit demeaning to the three young people. Even before he got sick, though, the young officers did seem to do quite a few things together, often in the company of his goddaughter Hannah, and 'the kids' would certainly be a quicker way of referring to the three of them than calling each of them by name. Then his grin turned to a frown as he suddenly realized that Olivia had not gone to the Brentwood house since the night of the sting and if she knew what the appellation meant, then it had been in use a good while without his knowledge.
He hated feeling left out, and though it had only been a week since he'd been hospitalized, he felt he had missed so much. Donovan, young Cioffi, and Hannah were now, 'the kids.' Keith was working on the task force, planning security with Ron and Cheryl. No one, as far as he could tell, had any idea what had become of Emily and Moretti after the second sting. Suddenly, he remembered that one of the men Em had left trussed up for them had wanted a deal in exchange for information, and he'd never heard what came from that.
Looking over his shoulder at Olivia, Steve moved closer to Keith and asked, "So, tell me what you've planned."
"Steve," Olivia called out in warning.
"Oh, come on, Liv," Steve cringed to hear himself whine, and, breathing deeply, tried to continue in a less desperate tone. "I just want to know how his day went, surely it couldn't hurt for him to tell me. And I promise," he added sincerely, "I won't mope and complain and bug you or anyone else to let me go back to work early if you'll just let him fill me in from time to time."
He heard her sigh, and knew he had won her consent.
"Ok," she said, "but if Maribeth comes in and catches you at it, I was in the kitchen making salad dressing the whole time."
"Deal," Steve eagerly agreed with a grin, and taking a seat, he motioned Keith to join him.
It was strange for Keith to sit and tell Steve about the various security plans they had made for the trial. It was like visiting with a prisoner who was desperate for news from the outside, or perhaps a child who'd been confined for days with the chickenpox. Every now and then, Steve would look furtively around as if he would be caught in the act of something he shouldn't be doing and would be sent back to his room.or his cell.
Keith could see evidence of Steve's heightened awareness in the diodes on the glove, too, all of them glowing amber, but eventually he settled down. When Steve finally relaxed, he started asking relevant questions and making good points, and through their conversation, Keith was able to iron out some of the bugs in the plans he and the task force had made. Finally, Keith became aware of Steve Sloan as the keen, sharp-witted professional cop he had first met, and grudgingly gotten to know years ago and who just a week ago had nearly caught up with Emily, despite her astronomical IQ and talent for disguise.
"You know," Steve said, "there's not a lot of cover along the Hollywood Freeway between Sunset Boulevard and the Ventura Freeway. I know it's the long way around, but you might want to consider taking them up the Golden State Freeway all the way to Burbank and then heading west on Burbank or Victory Boulevard."
Keith nodded, "I'm not all that familiar with the roads you're naming, but I'll mention it tomorrow."
"If you wanted to run the shell game on them and make them guess where Moretti and Emily are, you could run an empty motorcade and split it at the junction of the Hollywood and Pasadena Freeways, then divide each part again at Sunset Boulevard and the Golden State Freeway."
As they talked, Keith noticed that one by one, the diodes on the glove all went back to green.
Steve started to grin, "Then take Moretti out in a private car with an unmarked police escort. Go all the way out to Pasadena and come back on the Ventura Freeway, and bring Emily straight out the Santa Monica Freeway and home to you and Liv in Brentwood."
Keith had to close his eyes to visualize his mental map. His hands went up in the air and started tracing the routes Steve had described. As the plan came into focus, his face split with a grin, and he said, "I like it. Do you have a map we could mark it out on so I can show it to Ron and Cheryl tomorrow?"
"Yeah," Steve said, "let's go into the."
Before Steve finished his sentence, Maribeth came home, announcing her arrival as she came through the door. "Hello-o-o! Oh, Dad, whatever you've made for dinner, it smells wonderful!"
Before Keith's eyes, Steve changed from the Deputy Chief of Police planning a witness transfer to the nervous prisoner he had been when the two men had started talking. He lurched out of his chair and greeted his wife as she entered the dining room.
"Well, hello, handsome," Maribeth said as she walked into Steve's hug and gave him an affectionate kiss. "How are you tonight?"
Her voice grated on Keith's nerves. She sounded as if she were talking to a child.or a pet. To his dismay, Steve accepted the treatment and began to gabble at her, almost desperately.
"Not too bad," he said with an anxious grin. "I slept until about four, then I read for a while, had a shower and shave. Then I helped with dinner and, uh, went for a walk on the beach. We're just waiting for everyone to arrive now."
"Oh, well, I passed Jesse and Katie Lynne on the way here. They were at the fuel station and should be here in a few minutes. Lauren was with them. Amanda left just before me, and went out to Brentwood to get Ron, and Steven was supposed to be leaving the hospital just behind me. So, you shouldn't have much longer to wait."
"Good," Steve smiled ingratiatingly, "Olivia said I could have some spaghetti tonight."
Keith continued to watch, appalled, as Maribeth raised one eyebrow and Steve's smile fell.
"That is, uh, if it's, um, ok with you, I mean," Steve managed to stammer before he lost his nerve and dropped his gaze to the floor.
Keith knew what was happening, now. Steve hadn't seemed the henpecked husband when he and Liv had first arrived, and Maribeth hadn't seemed the overbearing type, but she was his doctor as well as his wife. Since he had become ill, they were no longer equal partners in their relationship. She was as much his caretaker as his wife. The same thing had happened between himself and Olivia years ago.
It was at Maribeth's recommendation that Steve had been kept sedated for several days. Chief Archer had put him on medical leave at her insistence, and she or Steven had prescribed most of what he had been through over the past week. True, most everything had been necessary for his recovery, but somewhere along the line, she had become overprotective, and now Steve was frightened that the few privileges and pleasures left to him would be curtailed if she thought he was overdoing it.
Suddenly, Keith wondered if the depression everyone was so concerned about wasn't a result of Maribeth's over involvement in Steve's recovery. She knew everything he did and everything he was supposed to be doing, and he could do nothing she didn't find out about. He probably felt he was being watched all the time.
Keith would talk to O about his concerns. Steve was a strong, independent, proud man, and he had been forced into a position where he had to ask his wife's permission to join the family for dinner. While they were discussing the motorcade routes from the courthouse to the police station, he had been vibrant and vital, but now, he was almost.subservient. Maybe he really just needed something to do outside of the house and away from his family's scrutiny. Maybe he needed to get back to being a cop.
Keith watched Steve furtively throughout dinner. He was unnaturally quiet and inanimate the whole time. He waited patiently for Maribeth to fill his plate for him without even asking what he wanted. She cut his meatballs in half and ran his knife through the spaghetti for him, and placed just two slices of garlic bread on his plate and a pile of green beans. Then she filled his glass with water. Steve ate and drank what she gave him without complaint and without asking for more.
When someone made eye contact, Steve would force a smile, and when they spoke directly to him, he would respond quietly. He never asked a question, cracked a joke, or offered an unsolicited opinion on anything. When his plate was empty, he sat quietly, his hands folded in his lap. He was like a stranger at his own table, trying not to be noticed, and all the while, the diodes on the glove glowed red.
When Mark suggested that they move into the living room for coffee and dessert, Steve looked to his wife almost desperately, and sighed with relief when he received a wink and a nod that was clearly her permission to join them. Maribeth sat beside her husband on the loveseat in the living room while the others settled themselves on various seats throughout the room. When Mark and O came in with trays of dessert and coffee, Maribeth rose and helped serve. She cut the rich chocolate cherry cheesecake Olivia had made while O passed the plates around and Mark poured coffee. Eventually, she handed Steve a transparently thin slice of the cheesecake, and instead of giving him a coffee, she went out to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water for him. For his part, Steve meekly accepted what she gave him.
Keith couldn't fathom why he, a virtual stranger to Steve until last week, would be the only one to notice the odd change of personality that overcame him when Maribeth was around. The only thing he could think of was that the rest of them spent more time around Steve and were used to caring for him when he was ill, and he had only dealt with the man on a professional level. Then again, having blindly gone through what he called 'the china doll syndrome' himself years ago, he was particularly attuned to the Maribeth's dire need to help, protect, and heal her husband. O had rebelled, and it had nearly destroyed their marriage. Steve was succumbing, and it was slowly destroying him.
Wanting to see what Steve would do, Keith reached over and tapped him on the elbow. When Steve turned to look at him, Keith said, "I was thinking of going for a run on the beach in about an hour, after dinner has settled, just a mile or so. Want to join me?"
To Keith's immense disappointment, Steve looked to Maribeth and asked, "What do you say?"
She appeared to think it over, but Keith could see her answer in her eyes. "Today was a big day for you what with the trip to the hospital and the gastroscopy and all. Maybe in a couple of days."
As though Keith hadn't been sitting right there, listening, Steve turned to him and said, "I'm sorry, I don't really feel up to it this evening."
Not long after that, Ron and Amanda said their goodbyes. Jesse, Katie Lynn, and Lauren followed soon afterward. As he was coming into the living room to gather up the last of the cups and saucers, Keith looked over to the love seat where Steve and Maribeth were having a quiet but animated discussion. Maribeth gave Steve a stern look, and Steve's shoulders slumped. Head hanging, Steve nodded, rose from the loveseat, and headed back toward his bedroom.
When Maribeth brought over a couple of dishes to place on his tray, Keith asked, "Is he ok?"
"Oh, yeah," Maribeth said carelessly. "He just decided he needed a rest, is all."
Keith doubted it had been Steve's decision, but not knowing if or how he should address his concerns, he left it alone.
Keith sat and watched the evening news with Mark and Olivia while Maribeth read a medical journal and Steven surfed the net. There was a brief mention of Moretti and Emily and the upcoming trial, but nothing that hadn't been known for weeks. After the news, Keith went to the spare room to change into his sweats to go for a run, and on his way back the hall, he stopped to invite Steve along.
"I, uh, I'd better not," Steve stammered nervously. "Maybe tomorrow."
Keith was surprised to find that Steve had already changed back into his pajamas, but he merely said, "Suit yourself," and went off to warm up for his run.
Steve shut the door and crawled back into bed. Truth be told, he would have been delighted to go for a run with Keith. It was the first time in a week anyone had invited him to do anything. Oh, he hadn't been left to himself all the time he was in the hospital. In fact, more often than not, he'd had company, at least when he wasn't sedated, but tonight, for the first time since he'd collapsed, someone seemed to realize he wasn't an invalid. If Maribeth hadn't been so insistent about his need for absolute rest, he'd have accepted the invitation in a heartbeat.
Instead of joining his family for a nice social evening after dinner, he had gone off to bed after dinner for some more 'much needed' rest. He'd tossed and turned for a few minutes after Keith left until realizing he'd have no better luck sleeping now than he had just after dinner, he got up and went over to sit by the window and read more of Liv's letters.
As he paged through the binder, he had a sudden realization. If she and his father had been corresponding all along, she had all the details of the past thirty years of his life while hers was still a complete mystery to him. Feeling strangely exposed and at a distinct disadvantage, he found his place and began reading with renewed interest.
The letter after the card that had roused him from his gloomy sulking was dated June 2005. It was unmistakably Liv's handwriting, a little wobbly, yes, but hers nonetheless. Three months had passed, and Steve could only imagine how ill she must have been to skip writing her letters for that long.
*** Dear Mark,
It has been one year since my cancer was diagnosed, 361 days since I first wrote you with the news. At that time, I was not expected to see another summer, yet here I am. I have lost a quarter of my initial body weight, and at just 87 pounds, I am wire thin. Regrettably, the hips and chest I was so proud of when I FINALLY developed them at 22 are gone. I am as bald as a windswept mountaintop, and as barren as Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, but I am here.
Better still, the tumors in my liver are shrinking, and my last chest x-ray and colonoscopy were clear. If I can just hold on, I may yet beat this monster inside me. I knew from the beginning this would be a battle of attrition, and the question has always been which of us will outlast the other. I still feel confident that I will win because I have so many people who love and care for me who are cheering me on and cheering me up every day.
Besides the love and prayers of my friends and family and the chemo I have been enduring, I have also had help from an unconventional source. Edna has confessed to me that she wrote you some time ago when I was at my worst and suggested that you might not have many more opportunities to visit. Shame on her! Truly, though, I do not think her assessment of my condition at the time was far off. I was tired of fighting and feeling so very weak. Fortunately, it was about that time I heard about Dr. Love.
Dr. Love is a member of the Tranquility Community, the local modern hippie commune. She is fully trained in Western medicine and has studied both ancient Eastern and Native American healing arts for years. She has been an answer to my prayers!
I know you teach a survey class of traditional healing methods to the new students each year, and when this is all over, I will have her send you a copy of my case notes if you like. It is phenomenal what she has helped me achieve.
Three days a week, Moon and I work with acupuncture, prayer and meditation, and positive healing imagery and biofeedback. In the three months she has been treating me, I have gained nine pounds. I have more energy than I have had in a long while, I hurt less, and I am able to keep food down more often even on the days I take chemo. She has asked me repeatedly to stop the chemo, but I haven't dared try that, yet. I still need the safety net of familiar, albeit sometimes toxic, Western medicine beneath me if I am to be brave enough to try alternative methods.
To satisfy my own need for empirical data, I have volunteered myself as a sort of lab rat for some informal research Moon is doing on biofeedback. Once a month I have an arteriogram on a day when I am not working with Moon, then, a week later, after the radio-opaque dye is out of my system, I have another arteriogram while I am practicing positive healing imagery (PHI). I focus my mind on the tumors in my liver--there are three distinct masses--and I envision them shriveling as the blood supply is cut off.
Mark, as outrageous as it sounds, the PHI is working! The arteriogram shows a visible reduction in blood flow to the tumors when I am meditating. In April, I started using PHI in reverse while I take the chemo as well, imagining the tumors writhing in agony (it must be my sadistic side) as the potent medicine flows into them. The cancer is shrinking fifty percent faster now than it was just three months ago! Moon says one of the reasons the PHI is working so well for me is that I have practiced yoga and self- hypnosis for years. According to her, my mind is 'highly trained to have a positive influence on the body, and by channeling that training to fight the cancer we may be able to eliminate it completely.'
My confidence is high, now, Mark, and I can almost remember what it feels like to feel good again. I have started setting little goals for myself, and the first one is coming up in just three weeks. Independence Day is coming, and the whole gang is planning to spend the day hiking, fishing, and swimming at Parker Dam State Park before they head into town for the fireworks. My doctor, a very capable fellow named Jonas Griffin, has told me if I get my weight up to ninety pounds and am not running a fever, he will let me join them.
At two years and nine months, Emmy is up to her usual mischief and still too smart for her own good, but Keith is coping--barely! She recently managed to get into his computer and mess about with the accounting program. It took Meyer a full day to figure out what she had done, and in the end, he left it the way it was, saying, "There's no way she can understand what she did, but it is a bold innovative strategy." He's going to leave it a month or two and see if Keith profits by it.
I would tell you more, but I am growing tired. Keith sends his love and thanks you again for your regular visits. He likes you a great deal, Mark, and trusts you implicitly. I get the feeling that the only time he can leave me and relax is when he knows you are here. With everyone else, he seems to get a much-needed break, but he still worries. I thank you, too, for giving my husband and daughter a chance to have a normal life every once in a while.
I will write again soon. Love, Liv
P.S. I apologized to the priest. I still think he's an idiot, but that doesn't give me the right to be mean.
P.P.S. Look for a package for Steven. It's a wonderfully squishy stuffed bunny rabbit. I have one to keep me company. Emmy picked mine out, and decided she wanted to send one to 'Mama and Daddy's friend Steef!' Somehow, squishy bunnies just don't seem Steve's cup of tea, so we convinced her that Steven would enjoy it more. ***
Steve laughed, wondering if little Emily had made Keith a rich man in his own right when she was playing with his computer. He suspected he would find out. As he glanced back through the letter, one line struck him as particularly poignant. He knew just what Liv meant when she wrote, 'I can almost remember what it feels like to feel good again.' Over the past day or so, he had been getting glimpses of that feeling, and he hoped soon it would be back to stay.
He hadn't realized how long he'd been reading until Maribeth came in.
"Babe, it's almost ten o'clock. Don't you think you should be getting to bed?"
Sighing, he closed the notebook. "On my way," he said. There was no point in arguing. He'd have weeks to read the rest.
Keith was sitting in the tub, on a special shower seat he used when he traveled. It lightweight and easy to pack and could be adjusted to fit any size tub. It was another of his wife's improvements on an existing invention. She had signed the rights to it over to the Paralyzed Veterans of America with the stipulation that they split the profits from it with one of her charities. While he bathed, she wiped down and sterilized the interior of his prosthetics for him. It had been a ritual of theirs since they were married which Olivia had once likened to the Biblical practice of foot washing, and often, when their lives were especially busy it had been a convenient time for them to reconnect and communicate about serious matters.
Tonight was no different.
"Olivia, you didn't see him." Keith insisted. "While we were talking shop he was relaxed, focused, but really relaxed. Then the moment Maribeth walked in, he just changed. All the lights on the glove went from green to red, and he was really worried what she might think of him talking to me. He was almost desperate to please her."
"I don't know, Keith. Steve isn't the type to let anyone push him around."
"No, O," he insisted, "I know what I saw, sweetheart. He was acting just like you did the first few weeks you were out of the hospital after the cancer was gone. She was mothering him, and he was taking it."
"Really?"
"Oh, yes." Keith described Steve's asking permission to join the family for dinner, his behavior at the dinner table and later, his response when Keith invited him to go for a run on the beach.
"Oh, my God, Keith!" O was shocked. "That's just what he did, isn't it? I can't believe I didn't notice."
"I think you missed it because, well, you're sort of a mother to the world. You nurture and care for everyone around you, so it didn't seem odd to you."
"I suppose, but still, you'd think I would have noticed, especially if the change in his behavior was a dramatic as you say it was. So what do you plan to do about it?"
"Me? I was telling you because I thought you might talk to her and get her to ease up a little."
Olivia looked at her husband doubtfully and asked, "Did you leave your brain in your other jacket? I am her husband's ex-lover. Maribeth has been very kind to let us stay here, and I am sure she means it when she says she isn't jealous anymore, but I am also certain she would go through the roof if I tried to tell her to back off and let him have some room."
"Oh, come on, Olivia. If anyone can get through to her, it would be you."
"Not this time, Keith. How do you think I would react if one of your old flames told me I needed to give you some space?"
"Not very well, I suppose."
"No," O replied, "not very well at all."
"Well," he said, "I'll have a talk with her tomorrow, then. I guess it's a good thing I don't have any old flames, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, it's a very good thing. You don't know how sexy it makes you to know I am the only one, ever."
"Maybe you could show me," he suggested.
She set aside the prosthetic she had been cleaning, stripped off her robe, and stepped into the shower with him.
'Crossing Over' copyright 1985 by Roger Miller. For more information on 'Big River' see the following websites:
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/1494/bigriver.html and http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wingfold/musical.html
Olivia's medical miracles are entirely a figment of my imagination. If I had any research in which to base them I would post it here.
