Megan's Way Read online

  They faded seamlessly into the crowd, passing mothers and daughters that other women may not have noticed, but Holly desperately yearned for such a relationship. She watched the women’s carefree glances, the confidence of knowing their daughters were right there beside them. Some women smiled at Holly—private smiles that spoke volumes about the shared secret pleasures of motherhood. Holly knew it was wrong to pretend as she did, but it made her happy. She was proud of Olivia, and she liked to feel like Olivia’s mother, if even for a moment. At times like these, she was ashamed of her feelings. As effortlessly as happiness had enveloped her, her fraudulence tore it away.

  “Holly!” Olivia said for the second time.

  “What?” Holly said, pulled abruptly from her reverie. Olivia cocked her head in question.

  “I’m sorry,” Holly said quickly, “I was just thinking about something.”

  Olivia shrugged and continued talking.

  Holly remained silent. The sun beat down on her shoulders, bringing warmth and what should have been relaxation. Instead, her heart began to race and her hands tingled. A familiar anxiety coursed through her—the feeling that all eyes were upon her, as if every stranger saw into the recesses of her haunted mind, and they knew what she had done.

  Just look at her, Holly thought. How could anyone not see it? How could I have done such a thing to Megan, to Olivia. Then, swallowing the desire to cry out and run, she asked herself, How could I have done this to myself?

  Olivia tugged on Holly’s arm, pulling her mind out of its panicked state. Holly breathed deeply and willed herself to believe that it was only her own fingers doing the pointing. The strangers were just that—strangers. They could not know the depth of the deceit that lay within her soul.

  Olivia chatted on the ride home as if their earlier discord had never happened. She talked about her new scarf, and how it looked just like one that Megan owned. She wore her sun hat and inspected her new shirts and earrings. “Holly loved this on me. Do you like it, Mom?” she asked.

  Megan glanced beside her and was astonished at how old Olivia looked with her hair swept back off of her face and held in place by the peach-colored hat. She fought hard to keep the tears that threatened at bay. She focused on the road and cleared her throat, willing herself to remain unemotional. “I love it, Livi. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  “Thanks!” Olivia took off the hat. “Hey,” she said, “who is Lawrence?”

  Megan’s eyes flew open wide, and for a moment, she sat in stunned silence.

  Before she could form an answer, Olivia said, “Mom! Who is Lawrence?”

  Megan feigned ignorance, “Who?”

  “Some guy named Lawrence. Holly said he helped you start your career or something before I was born.”

  “He was a very kind man.” Megan hoped that would be enough to satisfy Olivia.

  “Oh, I thought he was your boyfriend or something,” Olivia said. “Holly said something about you missing the boat with that guy or something.”

  Megan remained silent.

  “Hey! I’ve always wondered, Mom, why don’t you have a boyfriend?” Olivia asked.

  Megan laughed, “A boyfriend?” she said. “Who has time for that?” she winked at Olivia.

  Olivia shrugged, “Yeah, I guess, but you know I wouldn’t mind if you had one.”

  “Yeah,” Megan said, thinking about how she hadn’t felt as though she’d missed out on much by not having a boyfriend, or boyfriends, for that matter. She’d been happy with her life with Olivia. “I wouldn’t mind if you did, either,” she quipped back at her.

  They were almost home when Megan was enveloped by another rush of nausea. “Olivia, I need to use the bathroom. We’ll stop at the farmer’s market.”

  “Mom, I really want to get home. Can’t you wait?”

  “No, I can’t!” Megan snapped. “It’ll just take a minute.”

  “But, Mom, we’re almost home,” Olivia’s annoyance was clear.

  Bile rose in Megan’s throat and she began to gag. She swerved to the shoulder of the neighborhood road and threw open her door.

  “Mom! Are you okay?” Olivia was right behind her, caught between embarrassment and worry. She held her mother’s hair back as Megan threw up on the hot pavement. “Mom?”

  Megan’s stomached emptied itself of the salad she’d had for lunch and the toast and jam that had been breakfast. She swallowed the acidic remains. “Kleenex, please, honey.”

  Olivia rummaged through the front seat of the car, tossing her mother’s books and paints to the side until she found a clean rag. “Here, use this,” her voice shook. “I can’t find the Kleenex.”

  Olivia grew angry as she watched her mother. “You’re sick again, aren’t you?” she accused.

  Megan looked at her through tear-streaked eyes and shook her head, No.

  “Yes, you are! Why else would you be throwing up so much? I heard you this morning!” Olivia stomped to the car, her back to Megan. “I’m not a baby. You can tell me, you know.”

  “Olivia, I am not sick again.” She looked at the pavement, her lie tasted as bad as the vomit. “I just ate something bad, that’s all.” She settled her shaking body into the front seat, avoiding Olivia’s stare.

  The car ride home was silent. Olivia’s face was ridden with anger and mistrust, and Megan wallowed in her own miserable thoughts. The doctor’s words played in her mind like a bad rerun, “We can try chemo again, but it’s already metastasized to your bones. It will delay things a bit, give you a few more months, maybe.” Months? I need years, not months! Olivia needs me here. Olivia can’t go through this again. It’s not fair! God damn you!

  Olivia disappeared into her room and ignored Megan’s calls to the dinner table, leaving Megan alone with her sorrow and confusion. Megan pushed her food around on the plate. Salmon, she sighed to herself. She had made Olivia’s favorite meal with hopes of smoothing things over. She hated to waste food and forced herself to take a bite. She winced in disgust. Her medications made everything she ate taste like metal. She spat the salmon into her napkin. Her heart hung heavily in her chest. She hadn’t realized that loneliness could cause such weight.

  Megan endured a constant mental battle to make a decision about her treatments, and the angst with Olivia brought the battle full-on like a loud drum beating in her head. Her doctor had made it crystal clear that treatments needed to begin immediately in order to buy her any extra time, and yet, she remained undecided. Should she suffer through the harsh treatments that would slowly and certainly deteriorate her body and spirit, and ultimately end in her death? or should she simply let her body go; allow her body to leave the earth in the manner god had chosen for her, without delay, forgoing the interfering medications that would make her sick and unable to care for herself?

  She could not bring herself to imagine the devastation that her death would cause Olivia. Instead, she guided her thoughts to dissecting her daughter’s feelings toward her decision. Would Olivia ever be able to get past the fact that it would have been her choice to terminate treatments? Would Olivia hate her forever? Would she understand that it would break Megan’s heart to watch her daughter’s hopeful eyes, only to know the hope was useless? Would the pain and anguish of false hopes that the treatments would give Olivia just extend her inevitable torture? How could she choose to leave her daughter?

  Megan was depleted, ravaged by the irresolution, yet she remained unable to escape her tangled thoughts. Her mind swam in circles, inevitably drifting to Holly. An overwhelming sense of loss and jealousy consumed her, and guilt pierced her heart. She loved Holly. She could think of no one else that she’d rather have raise Olivia than Holly and Jack. Jack. Megan couldn’t even go down that road. She had enough anguish on her plate.

  As evening turned to night, Megan felt smothered by her illness, as if it hovered around her, waiting to steal her last breath. Its vigilance was inescapable. She tried to distract herself. She attempted to paint, but her mind was a bla
ck hole. Her typical creativity lay dormant, stale. Reading was out of the question; each word attacked her in its own way. Living, I won’t be living anymore. When, There will be no when to plan for. Mother, What kind of a mother leaves her daughter?

  She sat on the couch until fatigue settled in. Then she made her way upstairs to Olivia’s bedroom and listened at the door—silence. She peered into the dark room. Olivia was tucked into her blankets, still wearing her clothes from the afternoon.

  Her sleeping face looked soft as cotton and smooth as water. Megan’s eyes washed over her daughter’s, which, even closed, she knew were green around the edges with brown flakes in the center. Fields of lily, the ophthalmologist had said. The most beautiful ones he had ever seen. She took in her upturned nose and her delicate pink lips, which had spread across her face through puberty, as if they were painted on, bringing with them a confidence that only a teen could posses and a seductive quality that Olivia herself had yet to become aware of.

  Olivia’s fine golden hair reached across the pillow in straight lines. Megan reached up and fingered the ends of her own chestnut brown hair. Once full of body and effortless bounce, it hung frizzy and limp against her sheer cotton nightgown. It’s so thin. Megan remembered how she had always wanted hair like the other girls—the other women— straighter, thinner, and more manageable; the kind you could throw up in a pony tail and pull down without thought; the kind that cascaded over your shoulders and flowed with the wind. Now she’d give anything to once again have her thick mop of unruly curls. She laughed to herself as she remembered her mother’s daily rant, Brush your hair! It looks like “where’s that hair going with that girl!”

  Megan’s limbs ached from exhaustion. She lowered herself carefully behind Olivia, whose body settled naturally against her own. Megan draped her arm around Olivia and listened to her breathe, memorizing the simple sound of air being released from her daughter’s lungs. She felt Olivia’s heartbeat through her back, strong against her own fragile chest. She closed her eyes and willed her heart to dance to the same rhythm as Olivia’s, reveling in the feeling of oneness, the closeness she’d always shared with her—the closeness she now had to let slowly slip away.

  Moonlight crept in through the sheer curtains, and Megan carefully extracted herself from the warmth of Olivia’s body. She padded to her bedroom, slowing only for a moment to ponder getting into her own unmade bed. Her body, however, had another destination in mind and carried her into the bathroom.

  Megan caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. She wondered how her body could have betrayed her in this way. She ran her fingers along her right shoulder and traced her sharp, visible collar bone. She did not want to believe the signs her body was giving her. If she ignored them, she hoped that maybe they would go away and the whole mess could be chalked up to a miracle, or a mistake.

  Megan’s stomach heaved, pushing her hopes out of her body along with the contents of her stomach. She clung to the cold toilet and waited for the next retch to tear through her. Anger and helplessness stewed within her and flushed her cheeks. Every muscle in her body tensed. A chill ran down her spine. She clenched her eyes shut. I cannot do this to Olivia! We cannot go through this again! She shook her head to clear her mind, but the heart-wrenching decision to forgo her treatments remained.

  Megan pulled herself to her feet with determination. She lifted her gaze to the medication on the shelf above the toilet, staring with both desire and angst. Seven pill bottles like the seven dwarfs: sleepy, nasty, nauseous, baldy, weepy, starving, and full. That’s how they made her feel. She closed her eyes and reached for the bottles. Her hand shook as, one by one, each plastic container released a pill until all seven settled restlessly into her palm. She closed her fingers around them, recognizing each pill by their odd shapes and sizes, their sandpaper scratch or too-smooth texture. Megan hated the way they made her hand feel heavy and wrong. Her eyes closed again, her body swayed, the slightest of movements. She took in a quick and deep breath and brought the pills toward her mouth, hesitating for just a second beneath her nose. The pungent odor of the medicine, a mixture of metal and dung, hung in the air. Her stomach lurched again. Her throat impulsively closed. With a quick jerk of her hand she threw the pills into the toilet. Breath rushed out of her like a balloon emptying its belly, and she took several gulps of the cool night air streaming through her window. Tears sprang from her eyes as she flushed the toilet.

  She watched the seven dwarfs swirl in the water and wash slowly down the drain, wondering for a split second if she’d done the right thing. She turned back to the mirror. Seeing horror in her eyes and a withering face that she did not recognize, she knew she had made the right decision. She accepted the tears that came from deep within her soul and wept into her frail hands. Her body became heavy, tired. She leaned back against the pale green walls and let her deflated body slowly sink down to the tile floor.

  The early hours of dawn found Megan back in Olivia’s bedroom, rocking in the same chair in which she had rocked Olivia as a newborn. She looked around the bright yellow room and remembered the squabble she and Olivia had had over the color. Megan had thought that light purple might be more soothing, but eleven-year-old Olivia had insisted on “the color of the sun.” The breeze from the bay window blew the dragonflies that she and Olivia had spent three weeks creating out of wire, fabric, and paint. They moved in circular motions, as if they were flying rather than hanging by yarn.

  Olivia’s blanket shifted slightly with each breath, each breath strengthening Megan’s resolve to maintain her choice—the choice that she believed would hasten her death, thereby diminishing the suffering and agony Olivia would endure during a prolonged and fruitless battle.

  “Mom?” Olivia said quietly from her bed. “Mm-hmm.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Megan opened her eyes and whispered. “I just needed to be with you. I’m sorry.”

  Olivia sat up in bed. “Why? What’s up? What did I do?”

  “Nothing, honey,” Megan said. “I just missed you.” “O-kay,” Olivia said, laden with sarcasm.

  Megan reached down and brushed Olivia’s hair from her face. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

  “You didn’t.” energy crept into Olivia’s voice, “What are we doing today?”

  Megan had anticipated, even dreaded, the question. They spent most weekends together, shopping, gardening, or watching movies. There was a time that Megan had worried about Olivia’s lack of desire to hang out with other girls her age. Teenage girls were supposed to do fun things with their friends, not their mothers, but ever since Megan’s first bout with ovarian cancer, Olivia was reluctant to leave her side. Megan knew that if she was going to save Olivia from prolonged heartache, she had to put some distance between them.

  “I don’t really know, honey,” Megan said, softly. She looked at the pillows, the floor, anywhere but into Olivia’s eyes. “I thought you might want to call one of your friends, go to a movie maybe.”

  Olivia stood abruptly. “No, thanks. What are we doing today?”

  Megan shifted her legs under her body and got off the rocker, keeping her back to Olivia. “Well, I have some painting that I need to do, so you should find something else to keep you busy.”

  “Can I come with you?” Olivia asked, energetically. “Not today, honey. Today, I have to do it by myself.” “But you always bring me!” Olivia pouted.

  “I know,” Megan said, as she peered out the window at the dunes in the distance, “but this time I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  Olivia stood and adjusted her boxer shorts and t-shirt. “Well,” she stretched her arms and carried her voice with them, “can we go shopping later for my new binder?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.” Megan felt a pang in her heart. She’d lived her life taking extra care to spend time with Olivia, intentionally keeping her weekends free from other commitments. That was their time. Megan reveled in being a single parent. Raising Oliv
ia had completed her in a way that she felt no man ever could. The thought of Olivia living her life without Megan in it was devastating.

  Through her heartache she managed, “When I get back we’ll see what time it is.”

  “Whatever.” Olivia’s deflated voice was almost a whisper as she sulked toward the bathroom.

  As the afternoon sun reached its peak, Megan cleaned her paint brushes, pleased with the peach color she had spent hours trying to produce. She stood back from the mural and crossed her arms, thinking not about its beauty, but about the sickness inside of her—the sickness that was taking her away from Olivia. “God damn it,” she mumbled to herself. She looked around at the scattered paints, the flecks of color across her tarps, and was struck by how meaningless it all seemed. What the hell am I doing? She went through the motions of cleaning her brushes and collecting her supplies—guilt wrapped around her mind like a vice. She should be with Olivia. To hell with the cancer. To hell with giving her space! She stacked her paint cans, folded her tarp, and threw her cloths and brushes, along with other miscellaneous supplies, into her car and headed home.

  As she drove, her mind was fixated on Olivia. She needed to be with her, near her, but she also knew that she might hurt Olivia more by doing so. Her head spun with confusion. She pulled off of the road quickly as a wave of dizziness passed through her. She stepped onto the road, and leaned her shaking body against the car. She wiped her forehead, sighed, and looked to the sky.

  “What have I done?” she asked the clouds, which lingered above in halted silence.

  She climbed back into the front seat and felt a familiar prickly sensation crawl up her legs. “Shit!” She braced herself for what she knew was coming, Olivia was in distress, and at any second Megan would lose awareness of herself and link to Olivia’s senses as if they were her own. Suddenly, flames of agony ripped through her middle. Her breath came in short spurts. Sweat streamed down her brow. She wrapped her arms around her middle and folded into herself just as the edges of her sight began to fade. Images of Olivia rolling on the couch clutching her stomach, thrashing about in pain, hit with such force that Megan fell sideways across the front seat, writhing as if her intestines were tied in knots. The pain from her illness was mild compared to the torture that accompanied her visions. Megan’s entire body went rigid, and just as quickly, fell limp.