Her mother’s beads broke and scattered across the floor backstage. Four strands of rose-colored iridescent beads, a tiny crystal between each and with a gold filigree clasp. She remembers gazing at them, touching them, rolling them in her small fingers as she sat on her mother’s lap. That was so many years ago.
When Christina was 21, her mother had warned, “Don’t marry that man,” but she did.
On her wedding day, only a few months after her mother had died from an aggressive cancer, she had begged her father, “Don’t let that woman sit next to you where Mom was supposed to be,” but he did.
On her honeymoon, under a clear blue sky on an island beach, she lay on her tie-dyed scarf, the sun beating down, a cool breeze off the surf, high tide rolling in. She had called to her husband who walked along the waves, “Don’t be long,” but he was. She waited—alone until the sun was going down, wind chilling her to the bone. The once cloudless sky now resembled the transparent scarf wrapped around her shoulders: fading blue, streaked with grey and yellow, which made her cry.
Since then, he has been “disappearing,” leaving her to wonder and worry.
Where does he go? How long will it be until he returns? Does he ever realize he is missed, or even that he is expected back at all? Doesn’t he remember he was going to finish fixing that door, that he was supposed to meet me for lunch, that he will miss dinner with the family—again?
Whenever she tried to sort out the how and why of it, her thoughts raced to a vanishing point. She told herself it didn’t matter after all.
What worried her most was her husband's patients arriving when he might not be there to receive them. One day, she cancelled the few remaining appointments. After several doctors’ visits, she and her husband learned there was good reason for his behavior which prompted his early retirement. Still, discovery of the reason for the years of disappearances and seemingly random, inconsiderate antics didn’t change things much. Even with medication and therapy, there would be no quick fix, no perfect ending. It was she who had to adjust. It was she who struggled to transform denial into acceptance, impatience into tolerance, and resentment into understanding—hateful contraries.
These are the thoughts arising in Christina as she collects the scattered beads. She had brought them in with the other pieces of her mother’s jewelry for the high school girls to wear in their roles as aristocratic Victorian ladies. After the play, one careless girl in a hurry tugged at those strands of memories, sending them into the shadows behind the curtains.
I’ll take the for repair, to be strung back together, all four strands—like new. What is wrong with that girl anyway?
Christina liked finding purpose for the things she had salvaged from her childhood home in a forlorn, upstate New York town. Besides the jewelry, she has a yellow Bakelite clock in the shape of a teapot in her kitchen above the stove. Six ruby red wine glasses, a set of dishes trimmed with dogwood flowers, and hand-painted Italian bowls, all arranged in a glass-front cabinet, as her mother had kept them. Most cherished are old letters and cards found in her mother’s desk after the funeral—touchable memories to take into her hands and hold to her heart, a comfort when she can’t mange to be accepting, tolerant or understanding.
Driving home this night, she comes back again and again to brokenness: Things are coming apart. That very morning, as she dressed for the long day ahead, she brushed against and dislodged the small plate hanging on the wall—the one her mother had given her before entering the hospital for the last time. On the sky-blue and white memento, in silvery script was: Baby Christina Marie ~ Born November 10, 1974 ~ 7 pounds 3 ounces. She left it shattered on the floor.
Almost home now, she loosens her fingers on the wheel as she drives down the tree-lined street. She recalls the sense of freedom she once had felt driving east on the Massachusetts turnpike to her uncharted life—to all that lay ahead of her, singing out, “Boston, you’re my home.” Later, she found she had to get away from her new home when, once too often, her husband did not show up for dinner; or she again had to make excuses to angry patients; or he had forgotten to call for heating oil, and she came home to a frigid house. Then there were those maddening, one-sided conversations, constant distractions and interruptions, unrelated questions and non-sequiturs until she had to laugh—or go insane.
Who am I living with anyway, Salvador Dali?
She usually laughed, but when she could not, it was time to flee. She would pack up the car and head west with her two small children to visit her father, which also meant seeing the woman he married—now her step mother, who without a shred of consideration for the motherless bride’s request, saw fit to take her “rightful place” next to Christina’s father in the church pew.
During one of those spontaneous trips, that woman called Christina selfish and disrespectful when Christina had said, “I’d like the kids to eat before Dad gets home. They are usually in bed by eight, and it’s been a long day, with the drive and all.”
“Well, your father won’t be here till eight-thirty, so they’ll have to wait. It won’t kill them to not get their way—for once.”
Christina bit her bottom lip, ignored the comment and continued setting the table, as her mother had always done. She spread a crisp white cloth. She found the familiar white dishes with an ivy border pushed to the back of the kitchen cabinet. She took pleasure in placing them around the table, as if she were still a girl at home on a school evening.
“I don’t think Dad would mind if the children ate early, Charlotte,” she tried to reason, and called the children to come to the table. Before the words were out, she felt the sharp sting of Charlotte’s hand across her cheek.
“You never did have an ounce of respect. Well, you are not the crowned princess around here anymore.”
Christina dropped the plate she was holding, put her hand up to her face and blinked back the hot tears welling up, so the children wouldn’t see. But they had heard Charlotte’s harsh words. They saw the broken plate and their mother leaning over to pick up the pieces.
Charlotte grabbed the plates already on the table and the shards from Christina’s trembling hands and tossed them into the trash. “There, I’ve been meaning to throw those old things away,” she said, as she removed drab brown dishes from the cabinet, held them out to Christina, and pointed to mismatched glasses on the shelf, two with Peter Pan and the Darling children flying away, and three others with watermelon slices.
“Now, finish the job, and we’ll wait for your father to come home.”
Christina mechanically went around the table with the dishes and glasses, taking solace in thinking of her mother’s thin-stemmed, ruby red glasses in her own cabinet at home.
Can people just be replaced like broken china?
In the quiet of night, she returned to the kitchen, took the plates out of the trash, and put them into her suitcase, intending to mend the broken ones when she got home.
She loved her father deeply, despite his betrayal and “o’er hasty marriage” where, “the funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables,” lines from Hamlet she had quoted to her husband on the day of what they have since referred to as, “the unholy union.”
Scenes of that incident, her wedding day and sitting on the beach at sunset linger now. She shudders at the memory of them. Then she remembers how, when her father arrived home that evening, he smiled, hugged her and said he was glad she had “come home,” though it never felt like home again without her mother.
Home. Is it a place or a feeling?
She is glad the day is at an end, and that there is a parking place to be had. Gathering up the bags in the back seat, she hears the rustle of leaves from the chestnut tree at the curb’s edge—a welcome in the balmy night air. She stops with a sigh to look up at the few steps to the porch, feeling worn out and on edge. At least a small weight had lifted with her director duties completed for the school year.
She manages the steps, opens the front door and climbs the staircase to the second floor. Facing her at the landing are two doors. The open one is to the shadowy office where streetlights cast dark reflections. Black branches dance on the ceiling and walls, like a crazy light show in the abandoned room. She pushes open the other door to the living room and drops the plastic bags containing a red paisley smoking jacket, a blue chiffon dress, black suede heels, a silver cigarette case, a blonde wig, a straw handbag, a bunch of yellow paper roses, a wooden jewelry box and a pink satin bag with the broken beads.
She intended to go straight to bed, but the sofa looks inviting. Too tired to walk the few extra feet to the bedroom, she flops down, picks up the remote and clicks to the classic movie channel. Staring at the TV screen, her mind drifts to a recent visit with a friend. As they walked along a windy beach, the tide rolling in over the deserted, narrow shore, Christina told her friend about the dreaded oncologist’s appointment that day, and the diagnosis.
There was a long silence.
“They say, if we could see things from the highest perspective, it would all be good,” her friend said.
It was thoughtless and rude of her to say that. Hadn’t she just heard the bad news?
The friends had long confided in each other, exchanged ideas and experiences, pondering whether life has any meaning at all, and, if so, what it could be. They would look at each other and say, “It is what it is; it will be what it will be.”
Now, it was different; Christina knew what was to be, and so did her friend.
To the background bantering of Hepburn and Tracey, she is remembering how she and her friend had read about and discussed reincarnation and karma, and considered it a more rational alternative to heaven or hell—or nothingness. They neither entirely believed, nor disbelieved, but were attracted to the idea that souls choose the circumstances of their existence before birth—ones that provide the context to live out their karma. They agreed everyone’s life seems to have a theme and pattern, with recurring questions and challenges to guide them, maybe even to a certain destiny, but also there are choices to be made in life, informed by increasing consciousness and self-knowledge.
Still, for her friend to have suggested that anything could be good about her diagnosis was wrong. Thoughts crowd in, as she scans the cluttered room.
Is this my destiny? Did I choose it? Can I change it, fix it, get well? Is the highest perspective heaven? And why do I have to sink so low to get there? Do I know or believe anything? Her husband shuffles in and stands in front of her. She is surprised to see he is still awake. Usually, he is on the sofa asleep or already in bed. After twenty years of marriage, there is still no predicting what she can count on him for, yet he loves her; she loves him. That much is never in question.
He is not unfaithful. He is not unkind, and he always wanders back home to her. It has just taken those years of adjusting and lowering expectations to realize that she can depend on him only for the things he is able to do, and not always for those she wishes for or needs.
Is that my karma, or his?
Her mind fogs over with the mystery of it all, grateful for those things he can manage.
“How’d it go?”
“Oh, the kids did a great job. We packed the house, and everyone loved it, but…I’m glad it’s over.” The broken beads still have her upset, but she doesn’t have the energy to tell him about it.
“Want something to drink? There’s some leftover pizza.”
“No, I’m fine. Hey, are you coming with me tomorrow?”
“ Ehh…what time?”
“My appointment is at two. I’ll be home around one.“
“I’ll go with you,” he says, padding back to the kitchen, then comes back with a glass of cranberry juice and a cold piece of pizza.
“I…I don’t think I can eat…”
“I’m going to bed,” he interrupts leaving the room.
“Okay, I’ll be there in a few minutes,” she calls back, wondering whether he will be around the next day when it is time to go to her first chemo treatment or if he will be AWOL again.
She leans back against the soft cushions, trying to focus on the last scenes of the film, unable to keep her eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time. When she opens them again, she sees, “THE END” in white letters on a grainy black background. She manages to rouse herself, but begins to dread another sleepless night. She sits staring at the bags on the floor, thinking again about high perspectives, low places, broken beads and dishes, karma and cancer treatments.
She wonders if she has the strength to undress, as she picks up the crumpled nightgown at the foot of the bed next to the shattered blue and white pieces on the floor. She turns away, eases into bed and edges back, against her husband until her legs touch his.
Tomorrow is another day, but not an ordinary one.
Images of her children’s faces appear. It was the hardest thing telling her family—their sadness and apprehension of grief—another long silence. Her daughter was in tears, and her son said, “I want you to get well.” Her husband got up and walked away with his head down.The oncologist told her she would not get well, and would be in some kind of treatment for the remainder of time she had left. Since then, family talk has been only of practical matters: treatments, appointments, and the details of “getting things in order.” She has shielded her son and daughter from most of it, taking on the burden of their pain, as well as her own.
Still, she has hope; she has the will to live, if not the strength to think about whatever she will have to endure with the treatments. She isn’t sure how miracles fit into her life’s theme, free will or destiny, but she believes in prayer and in miracles.
“Of everyone I’ve ever known,” her friend had also said that day, “you are the bravest, strongest, most positive person.”
Funny, I don’t feel strong, positive or even like a person. She thought of herself, rather, as a shadow of the self she tried to build and sustain in this lifetime, with parts of herself missing, wavering, like the quivering branches on the ceiling of the abandoned room at the top of the stairs—a shadow of something real, but not real, caught between hope and despair—another uncharted place.
“You love life and live life,” her friend had said that day, as if Christina needed a reminder, especially now. She also was left to ponder the other thing her friend had said, “It’s not over till it’s over.”
She closes her eyes, whispers a prayer, listens to her husband’s quiet breathing, as thoughts, feelings and images swirl together, fading into the dark future, into sleep.
In the hospital waiting room, she gazes out the window at the vast, clear blue and cloudless sky, holding the pink satin bag full of beads.
“Christina,” a nurse calls and comes over to stand in front of her—blocking out the blue. “We’re ready for you; come on back.”
She looks at her husband—lost child—not even pretending to be strong for her. She wonders if he will come back when he is called to sit with her for the treatment, or if he will have wandered off. He lifts his hand and manages a smile, which she carries with her down the long hall and into the sterile room.
The nurse gets her settled on a bed turned up to a sitting position and prepares a bright red IV drip. Christina is grateful to be opposite a window with a view of blue sky.
In the closed palm of her hand, she holds a single rose-colored bead. She loves the feel of its round smoothness. It has nothing to do with the rest of the beads now. It is beautiful and perfect all on its own.
She closes her eyes, imagines herself bathed in the glow of its color, looking down from a very high place—a place where she sees everything exactly as it is.
