The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

only one who had dressed up for the meeting, she smiled and sat up straighter in her chair.

A few of the women had left their heads bare, revealing newborn-like tufts of hair covering their bald crowns. Several had scarves, intricately wound around their heads, jewelry and make-up on. Clair felt overcome with love for these women, whom she had come to know intimately. She knew about their hopes, and fears, their anger, heartbreaks and self-doubts. Their pain, physical and emotional, was her pain. The ones whose husbands no longer touched them, who sat curled up, hiding their flat chests, made her want to reach out and hold them, tell them that they were more than their husband’s, or anyone’s desire. Some had turned to religion, alcohol, or drugs to see them through. Retail therapy had caused more than one to max out several credit cards. Jenny had given up on life, the lymphedema in her arms disabling, sinking her into a deep depression. She came to group, sitting quietly, arms at her sides, covered in the tight ace wraps to palliate the swelling. Margaret was in that terrifying period of frequent follow-up tests and scans, when active treatment ended and she was waiting to see if it would come back, hoping and praying for remission. Deborah, like Clair, was stage IV, metastatic, and remission was not an option for her. She had a new grandbaby and was determined to see her grow to her first birthday.

Their stories changed each week as their self-identities reconfigured. Bits and pieces of biographies morphed into brighter, more capable, happier selves. Or if unable to assimilate their realities into new visions of themselves, they dissembled, as Jenny had done, preferring the rapid slide into merciful oblivion through psychoactive drugs, fragments of her former self drifting away like tufts from a dandelion seed pod. As they sat in a circle, sharing their newly emerging selves, each like a chrysalis, Clair recognized in them a little of herself.

Naomi had started the sharing circle with a parable about how monkeys were trapped in China, by cutting a hole in a coconut, and putting rice into the hole. It was just large enough for the monkey to push his fist in, grab a handful of rice, but he would then be unable to pull out his fist. The only way to free himself was to let go of the rice.

‘What is your rice?’ she asked. ‘And what is stopping you from letting go?’

After group, Jet had met her at the hospital coffee shop. Upbeat, feeling like she might actually be able to manage all of this: cancer, treatment, being in a chronic state of treatment. That was what it was for women like her, with metastasis. They learned to live with their cancer, gathering the best moments of each day and holding them front and center in every waking moment. When panic hit like a taser, shattering any sense of safety, causing heart to race, veins and arteries turn to ice, affirmations, prayer, alcohol, or drugs were grasped.

‘Everyone’s dying,’ Ellerby had told her that first time they had talked. ‘The train is coming for each of us. The difference with people like you is that you can see its light shining through the dark tunnel. Most of us can deny our ultimate death, live as though we have for ever. We waste what we have. You see the train; you can time its arrival. You have a chance to live a purposeful life.’

She had thought that a strange thing for a doctor to say, but it made sense. She thought she had more time then. She had fretted about how best to spend it. Now, that time was gone.

This last visit, the news had been bad. Curiously, she thought back now, she hadn’t been expecting that. She had deceived herself into believing that she would be able to continue on indefinitely. The clinic staff were always so positive. Offering this clinical trial, a new drug, hope for a future that wasn’t hers. She knew they did this out of some sort of misdirected kindness, not deceit, but it would have been kinder to not let her have false hope.

‘Clair, I’m so sorry,’ Ellerby had said, his gracious expression conveying such compassion she felt she needed to comfort him.

‘You’re not responding to the treatment, the tumors are proliferating, in your liver, and lungs now. I’ve consulted with our treatment team, and we have nothing else to offer you. I think it’s time to gather your loved ones around you and say your goodbyes. I can make a hospice referral for you, if you like.’

Jet had been with her, asking all the right questions. How long? What if they went up to Portland? Seattle? Alternative treatments?

‘Thank you, Dr Ellerby,’ Clair had said, reaching her hand out to grasp his. You have been very kind.’

Up until that moment, Clair hadn’t been uncertain what she was going to do. His mention of hospice, dying, lying in some bed somewhere, helpless. Having her basic needs met and by whom, Adam? Ben and Jodie giving up their work, their mission to come take care of her? A stranger? Paid caregiver? That wasn’t going to happen, she decided, certain now. Standing, she hugged Jet.

‘You have been a good friend, even though I resisted you in the beginning. If I never see you again, know that you have helped me, and I am grateful.’

‘Clair, wait, what do you mean? What are you going to do?’ Jet asked.

‘I’m not going to wait for death. I’m going to make death find me.’ Clair said, walking out the door, into the shimmering golden light of noon.

The plane was circling the airport now, waiting for clearance to land. It had been a short flight to Seattle. A switch from Alaska to Iberia, the overnight to Porto. From there, she would begin walking. She was thinking about having to shop somewhere. She couldn’t walk to Finisterre in these few clothes, without even