The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

Chapter 14





I got a second opinion about my condition on the Friday after Halloween. Again, Mama, Mrs. Roosevelt, and I had to sit through a

speech about non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This time nobody cried, though.

Mama said I should talk to James as soon as I got back home, but I ignored her advice. I still wanted to hold on to the fantasy

that maybe I could get through my treatment and never have to tell him. Hadn’t Alex Soo said that some rare patients got through

chemo like they were taking an aspirin? Well, maybe he hadn’t said exactly that, but I decided to believe he had. I made up my

mind to put my trust in the part of James’s nature that never noticed when I got new clothes or when I gained pounds or lost

them. Okay, so far only gained pounds, but the opposite was likely to be true, too. I decided to count on the same cluelessness

that used to make me want to shake James by the throat to be my friend now.

I slept late that next morning. Life being funny the way it is, the hot flashes that had been keeping me awake at night for months

stopped the day after Alex Soo told me I might be dying. When I walked into the kitchen, the first surprise was the smell of

coffee. I had learned decades ago that James didn’t understand the science of coffee making. Whenever he brewed up a batch, he

ended up with sludge or piss water, nothing in between. So he was forbidden to touch the coffee machine.

But that morning a glass carafe full of coffee rested on a cork trivet in the center of the kitchen table. My mug, a brown and

white mess of clay coils fashioned by the tiny fingers of the grandkids and presented to me the previous Christmas, was there on

the table, too. And at his usual spot at the table, behind a coffee mug that matched mine, sat James, who was supposed to be

working that day.

He sat at attention with his back completely straight and his hands clasped together in front of him atop a wicker placemat. He

stared at me for a moment and then said, “What’s wrong?”

I started to say, “Nothing,” but he held up a hand to stop me. He asked again, slower this time, “Odette, what’s wrong?”

I never lie to James—well, not often, at least. I poured a cup of pale brown coffee for myself and I sat down next to him. I

exhaled and began, “You know those hot spells I was having? Turns out it was more than the change.”

Then I told him everything that both of the doctors had told me. James listened to me without saying a word. The only time he

interrupted me was when he scooted his chair back from the table and patted his thighs with his palms, a gesture that had been a

signal for me to climb into his lap in the early days of our marriage.

I laughed. “It’s been a long time since I sat in your lap, honey.” Running my hand over my round stomach, I said, “This might

be the end of that chair.”

But James didn’t laugh at my little joke. He patted his thighs again and I went over to him and sat. As I talked, he squeezed me

tighter and tighter against his body. By the time I reached the end, explaining what I knew of my treatment, our faces were

pressed together and I could feel tears rolling down my cheeks.

I cried for the first time since hearing Dr. Soo tell me I had cancer. I wasn’t crying for the life I might be leaving. Months of

talking to Mama had taught me that death didn’t have to mean leaving at all. I cried for James, whose heart I might break, for my

beautiful, scarred husband who continued to hold me even though his legs must surely have already gone numb under my weight. My

tears fell for this strong man who surprised me by managing not to weep, even though I knew from our decades together that he must

be screaming inside. I cried for James, who never expected, or needed, me to be that fearless girl from the tree, just me.

He wiped my face with a paper napkin and asked, “So, when do we start treatment?”

“Tuesday,” I said. I had made plans to start on Tuesday because that was usually James’s late day at work. I wanted as much

time as possible to get myself together afterwards, in case my first day was rough.

He caught on immediately that I had planned to use his work schedule as a way to maneuver around him. He said, “Decided to do it

on my late day, huh? Sneaky. And a little cowardly, I’ve got to say.” But he didn’t look too angry. And he didn’t let go of

me.

He asked, “What time do we go to the hospital?”

“James, you don’t have to come. There’s a service at University Hospital that’ll drive me home if I don’t feel good.”

He acted like he hadn’t heard me. “What time on Tuesday?”

I told him, and it was settled. He would take Tuesday off from work and go with me to the hospital for my first treatment.

James said, “If you don’t tell Clarice and Barbara Jean soon, you won’t have to worry about any cancer. They’ll kill you

themselves when they find out. You wanna call ’em now, or do you wanna call the kids and Rudy first?”

I said. “I’ve got a better idea. When do you have to go in to work?”

“I told ’em I’d be in around noon, but I’ll call in and stay here with you.”

“No, I won’t need you for the whole day, the morning’ll do.” Then I began to unbutton his shirt.

James might sometimes be slow on the uptake, but he read my intentions right away. “Really?” he said.

“Sure. Who knows how I’m going to feel after Tuesday. We’d better get it while the gettin’ is good.” I kissed James hard on

his mouth. Then I slipped off of his lap and reached out for his hand to pull him up from his chair.

As we walked to our bedroom, our hands clasped together so tight that it hurt, I thought, How on earth could I ever have

underestimated this man?



After I told Clarice about my chemotherapy routine—each cycle would be five days long, followed by a few weeks of rest before the

next cycle started—she drew up a chemo calendar that designated who—James, Barbara Jean, or Clarice—would be in charge of me on

each treatment day. She did several hours of research to determine the best foods for fighting cancer and designed a diet for me.

Then she arranged for weekly deliveries of vitamin- and antioxidant-rich groceries to my house. She hired a personal trainer for

me. A thick-necked former marine sergeant who worked on injured football players at the university, he showed up at my door one

afternoon barking out orders and vowing to whip me into shape. And she penciled me in for a laying on of hands at Calvary Baptist

’s Wednesday night prayer meeting, which was no small feat seeing as Reverend Peterson didn’t even consider the members of my

church to be Christians, and felt that praying over us was a waste of energy.

I appreciated her efforts. But I had to show Clarice that she wasn’t going to boss me through cancer the way she wanted to, even

if I had to be a bit childish and ornery about it. I shifted my appointments around until Clarice’s detailed schedule became

meaningless. I blanketed the healthy foods Clarice chose for me with butter and bacon crumbles. And the personal trainer, well, he

yelled at me one time too many. The last I saw of Sergeant Pete, he was running from my family room with tears in his eyes. Of

course, I outright refused to go to Calvary Baptist for the laying on of hands. I tried explaining to Clarice that I always felt

worse leaving her church than I did when I walked in and I didn’t think that boded well for the healing process. Thoroughly

exasperated, Clarice looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Feeling bad about yourself is the entire point of going to church,

Odette. Don’t you know that?”

I stopped by Barbara Jean’s house and told her about my diagnosis over a cup of tea in her library. She was silent for so long

that I asked, “Are you all right?”

She started to say “How long have you got?” or “How long do they give you?” But she thought better of it after the first two

words came out and she turned it into “How long … have you known?”

We talked for an hour, and I think, by the time I left, she had come around to believing I had at least a small chance of

surviving.

My brother, Rudy, said that he would come to take care of me as soon as he could get away. I told him it wasn’t necessary, that I

was fine and had plenty of people looking after me. And I joked with him, as I did each year, that Southern California had thinned

his blood too much for him to handle Indiana in the fall or winter. But my brother, who is old-fashioned to the point of

annoyance, kept insisting that he would come. He only relented after I handed the phone over to James and let my husband convince

Rudy that a levelheaded man was in charge of me.

Denise cried for just a minute or two, but she soon calmed herself and accepted my word that things weren’t too bad. Then she

took my cue and settled in to talking about the grandchildren. I heard Jimmy’s fingers tapping at the keyboard of his computer as

I told him. Facts had always comforted him, and he was on his way to becoming a lymphoma expert by the time we said goodbye. Eric

hardly said a word to me over the phone, but he was in Plainview for a surprise visit a few days later. Eric was at my side every

second for a week and, even as I snapped at him to quit breathing down my neck, I loved having him at home again.

Everything considered, they all took the news of my illness as well as possible. Even as I grew sicker, proving to everyone, and

ultimately to myself, that I wasn’t going to be that rare patient who sailed through chemotherapy without so much as a tummy

ache, my people propped me up. I think it made everybody feel more optimistic about my chances for recovery to see that I was

determined to charge through my disease just like I charged through everything else in life. My friends and family found few

things more comforting than the sight of me with my fists up and ready for battle.