Gateway

Wow. My monthly ‘stories for shut-ins’ has nearly reached the one year mark. Thanks for being there, readers. Here’s one for March. Be well and safe.

Wow. My monthly ‘stories for shut-ins’ has nearly reached the one year mark. Thanks for being there, readers. Here’s one for March. Be well and safe.

GATEWAY

by Gerald DiPego

Heather Wentley, age 54, is sitting in the living room of her small condo, looking at bookshelves that reach nearly to the ceiling. Several hundred stories there, more than a thousand characters, some whom she knows very well, others still to be discovered if only she had the time. She can almost hear the mingled voices from the shelves murmuring like a swift river. She is alone in her home and mostly alone in her life, except when she’s teaching her high school classes, English, and Literature, of course.

Her husband left her years ago and remarried. Her daughter lives only twenty-two blocks away, but they mostly speak on the phone, mostly when Heather calls, checking in. If she didn’t check in with Meg once a week, would they speak at all? She supposes, yes. At some point Meg would look up from her work, from her husband, from her friends and wonder about Mom. Wouldn’t she? They were very close until Meg entered her mid-teens, the I-hate-my-mother phase. Well, it wasn’t hate, of course, but it wasn’t a phase, either. It was during the time that Heather’s husband was leaving her. She let him string it out, to go to another woman and come back, twice, instead of pulling him off of her heart quickly, like a BandAid. Meg had been furious at her, and then, finally, less openly angry but more detached, like a visitor in the home, until she went to college. The breach never healed.

    Heather’s closest friend, Nica, moved away three years ago. She called Nica first to tell her the news. They wept on the phone, and Nica said she was coming to be with her, but Heather said, “No, please, later. I have to…I need to…I don’t know, just sit with it, take it in. Then of course I’ll need to see you, Nica, and be with you, but I know you’re very busy.” Nica swore at her, and then they laughed and wept again.

    There is a fellow teacher that Heather dines out with once a week. This is Ellen, who tells Heather everything about her life and never asks a question. Heather has called Ellen to tell her she can’t make their dinner this evening, and then, before the voicemail ran out, she told her the reason and swore her to complete secrecy. She knew Ellen would call her when she looked at her messages, probably after school.

    Now she sits with her phone in her hand, looking at her books and into her books. What novels would you read or re-read if you had time for only three…maybe five? She has already tapped in Meg’s phone number. Her finger rests on the call circle. She starts to practice what to say, but then cancels that and just makes the call.

    “Hi, Mom, what’s up? “I’m sorry to break in on your work, Meg, but I need you to come over.” “Why?” “I’ll tell you when you when you get here, honey. What time do you think you can come?” “Tell me now. I’m swamped, as usual.” “I have to tell you when you’re here. Please.” “Are you all right?” “I’ll tell you when you’re here.” “Now you’re scaring me, Mom.” “Don’t be scared. Something to discuss. I…need your opinion.” “And you can’t just tell me?” “Sorry, no. When can you come?”

    In twelve minutes, Meg arrives. They don’t hug. Heather puts a hand on Meg’s shoulder and smiles at her daughter, who is worried and waiting. Heather begins telling her as they walk to the sofa. “I hadn’t had a medical check-up in two years, and now they have these long questionnaires. You have to get there fifteen minutes early just to….” “Are you sick? Just tell me, Mom.” They’re sitting on the sofa now. “I am telling you, Megs.” They were ‘Megs and Ma’ for years. Heather holds on to that time by still using the nickname. “So I checked the box that said ‘former smoker,’ and because of that they looked at my lungs.” “And?” “And…there’s cancer in there.” “Jesus, Mom.” Meg’s eyes now, suddenly, have a skein of tears. She takes her mother’s hand. “What…what do they say about it? What do they suggest?” “It’s metastasized,” Heather tells her. Now both of them have tearing eyes, and Meg’s lips shake, and she tightens them for a second and then says, “So what happens, Mom? What’s next?”

    Heather takes a long breath that shakes in her chest, and Meg’s tears, two single tears, are now moving down her face. “Mom?” “Well, Honey, now I decide if I want the chemo…or….” “Or what, Mom?” “Or if I don’t.” “What happens if you don’t?!” Heather has trouble saying the next sentence, and her daughter is slightly trembling now, her hand gripping her mother’s hand as if to hold her, to keep her. Heather says, “Three to five months.” “Months! Three to five months?!” Heather nods and her daughter takes her other hand and squeezes it so that it hurts. Meg is openly weeping now and shaking her head. “Well, Christ, Mom! Let’s get you into that chemo! Now! And we should get a second opinion, and soon, and….” “I did that, honey, and listen, the chemo…will be rough, and….” “You can’t be afraid of the chemo, Mom! The chemo is life!” “The chemo…gives me about a year,” Heather tells her. “That’s their guess.” “Well, Jesus! It’s just a guess, Mom! And it’s a chance! It could make it go away…or stop growing. That happens. You know that happens – like Uncle Dan. Remember? So, you have to take it, Mom. It’s your chance! Let’s call your doctor, call him now. Right now!”

    “It’s a woman, Dr. Nashine. She’s…very good, and….” “Call her now, Mom, or I’ll call her. Give me her number. I want to talk to her and…. Let me take over. Let me do this. Let’s call her. There are new drugs developed all the time! You know that! Let me get you started!”

    She stares at her daughter, who is back with her now. It’s all back now, the early years, the depth without the darkness and the pain, and Heather smiles through her tears to see this and welcome it. “Honey…Megs…all right. Thank you, but….” “But what?” “I just…before I jump into all this, I need some time.” “Mom! Time? We have to start this now!” “All right, but…just…a few days for me, a few peaceful days.” “But I’ll get it going, though, Mom. I’ll get it set up.” “All right, Meg, but…let there be a little time first, my time to just…be, or to go somewhere and…I don’t know.”

    “Where would you go? And why?” “It sounds crazy,” Heather says. “I’ve been thinking about things I always wanted to do and never did. We were going to do it as a family before that fell apart, and then you and I were going to go….” “Go where?” “To the Arch, remember? In St. Louis, that massive arch, the “Gateway to the West.” “Jesus, Mom.” “Yes, silly maybe, but I want to stand there and look at it.” “Go all the way to St. Louis?” “It’s only about an hour and a half by plane, and I’ll stand there and…. It’s something I want to do. I always wanted to do it, and I feel okay, you know. I really do, so…don’t fight me about this, all right?” Meg stares at her, being still for a moment, and Heather sees the battle in her daughter’s eyes. Will she keep pushing or not? “Do you want me to come with you, Mom?” Heather smiles, “You never gave a damn about the Arch. No. I don’t want to drag you there. I’d be standing there feeling guilty. This is for me. So…two days and I’ll be back here.” “And I’ll have it all set up, Mom, and it’s going to work! You’re going to beat this! Right?” Heather stares and then gives her daughter what she wants, gives her the nod.

    They did hug then, a grand one before Meg left, long and tight, a mother pressed against the woman who had come from inside of her and was still, and would always be, a part of her, and then Heather had thought about the word ‘always,’ and then she stopped thinking about it, about anything, warding off thoughts like a swarm of bees and getting her jacket and beginning a long, mid-morning walk to the park.

    She’s half-way there now, and this is where she stops. A family passes her, moving around her like water around a rock, but she’s not watching them. She steps to the side and stands there, the engine of her mind moving on, moving ahead, clutching at…. Why not go now, today? Use today. Go home and check the internet for flights to St. Louis. She bats away the misgivings that come: Now? Today? Bats them away and thinks it through and looks at the time. It’s only 10:30. She could BE there in a matter of hours, standing there beneath the Arch. It’s a place to stand, a special place because she wished it, waited for it, and, standing there, time would stop a while, just a while. She’s been feeling…pushed, pushed ahead, through all the medical testing, and now with the chemo that’s looming. She needs to stop in a special place that is just for her and breathe.

    She’s walking home now and planning. Find the flight and book it. Find a hotel in the area. Oh, and the school. She hasn’t been teaching because of the testing and the meetings with doctors, and she so misses it, and her chest tightens when she faces the thought that has come and gone for days, the possibility that she might not teach again, ever. How she would long for it, and the students, some of them whom she has taught for the last three years and are seniors now…. She thinks about saying goodbye, or just saying…that she has to take care of some medical procedures so will not be back with them for a while, just that, only to one class, the seniors whom she knows from the past years. A few of them matter more to her, matter like friends. Yes, just that one class at one o’clock, step in just as the hour is beginning, before the substitute starts the lesson, just before that, she would say her brief piece and be looking, especially, at the four or five who feel close to her, so they’ll know, they’ll see how she cares for them. It won’t be in her words. She is not very good at saying such things, but they’ll see it, in her eyes, she hopes, and then she’ll step out, leave the school and drive to the airport.

    She’s walking down the so-familiar school hallway now that smells of…what? Smells of itself, of the kids, of the cleaning solution, and the food and the…22 years of her own life. There are still students entering her classroom, though it’s nearly time to begin, and she follows them in and moves toward the substitute who is at the board, a man who has been at the school on and off for the last two years. He is surprised to see her, too surprised, somehow, his eyes going wide and so deep, as if….

    “I…Heather, I…I’m so…. It’s good to see you. And…I’m so…. Let me say I’m so very sorry for what you’re going through.”

    She stares at him, while students are taking their seats, but quietly, and she follows the thought…he knows, and she comes to her conclusion. “Ellen,” she says. “Ellen Howard was…not supposed to tell….”

    “Oh, God, I’m sorry. She was upset and….”

    “And now the whole school knows,” Heather says. It’s not a question, but the man nods his head. She takes a deep and shaking breath and turns to the students, who are all staring at her. She sees the ones she cares dearly for. Sees Shana biting her lip, her eyes tearing. Sees Leon, who looks stunned, and Doreen and the others…. She smiles at them all, a deep but nervous smile.

    “Sorry to interrupt, but I…I’m going to be absent a while because of a health issue, so I wanted to say...I have really…really enjoyed teaching you, and Mr. Zane will carry on until….”

    The bell to begin class interrupts her, though it’s not a bell anymore but I kind of chime, and Heather waits and picks up her speech again. “Mr. Zane will carry on until I come back, so, bye for now and…be well. Have fun.” It’s all she can manage and she has to turn then and walk to the door. It wasn’t what she wanted. It wasn’t “Goodbye Mr. Chips,” but it was all she had. She hears someone approaching her just before she opens the door to leave, and she turns, and it’s Shana, with her unabashed tears, and the girl spreads her arms and hugs Heather, and Heather hugs her, too, though it’s against the rules. She feels a soft jolt as Shana’s body moves in her grip, a single, voiceless sob. They stare, and then Shana hurries back to her desk, and Heather opens the door, upset by the emotion, upset because they know. Everyone knows. She’s moving down the hall when she hears the door open behind her and sees that it’s the boy, Leon, who is walking toward her, so she stops. He doesn’t come close, just stares, and then….

    “Mrs. Wentley, I stole that book. I gotta tell you. I kept it and said I lost it, and I’m sorry.” She had taken it from the library for him, “The Catcher in the Rye,” and he had read it and told her it was his favorite book of all and always would be, and told her he had lost it. “I wanted,” he says to her slowly, “to have that very book. The one you handed me, and…not get it at a book store to keep, but to keep that one, but I’ll give it back to you now if you….”

    “Leon….”

    “I’ll leave it with the school or come to wherever….”

    “Leon…keep the book. Please. Keep the book.” They stand and stare then, and she doesn’t want to weep or say something foolish, so she smiles and nods and turns and keeps walking, and as she walks, she thinks of what she could have said, should have said, and is reminded of all the times this has happened to her, the words coming too late, but this time she stops and turns, surprising herself, and he’s still there, still watching her. She takes a few steps toward him and he walks forward to meet her.

    “Listen, Leon…I want you to read that book again ten years from now. Promise me, and then read it again ten years later. A book like that will teach you a lot about yourself. Will you do that?” His dark eyes are moist as he nods. She touches his shoulder and then turns and walks on down the hall. She hears him enter the classroom and close the door as she is approaching Ellen’s room, and she hesitates, angry at the woman, angry at the telling of her secret and angry for all the years, for all of Ellen’s talking without listening. She could open the door. She could ask her to come out into the hall. But she doesn’t. She walks on out of the school and approaches her car, where her luggage is stashed, and she slides behind the wheel, and, as she punches in the GPS for the airport, she notices that her hand is shaking, and she stares at that a moment.

    During the flight she had been ready to say, “Oh, I’m taking a trip just to see that Arch, you know, the Gateway to the West,” and then she imagined the rest of the conversation, which would not contain her cancer and possible death, but she only traded smiles with her seatmate and the flight attendant, and all the prepared words stayed within her in case she would meet someone at the hotel.

    In her hotel room, she unpacks her suitcase, preferring to have her things in drawers, preferring the neatness and also the feeling that she is actually away. She calls Meg, mostly to let her know she is feeling fine, and Meg begins telling her of coming appointments and more tests, and she says, “I’d rather leave that all to you, Megs, okay? And I thank you.” She hopes her daughter might pick up on the old nicknames: Megs and Ma, but she still doesn’t, only asking Heather to please not tire herself.

    After Meg, she listens to a new voicemail from Ellen, who has obviously been talking to Heather’s substitute about the school visit today: “I’m so sorry, Heather. You know I’m sorry. I was just so stunned and…I know I wasn’t supposed to tell, but, god, when I heard your voicemail I just broke down. You know me – I’m so easily shaken, and you certainly shook me. You can’t believe how shaken I was, to hear this news on my phone and…I’m not the kind of person who can just…. It shook me badly, Heather, but I made sure…I TOLD people not to say anything. I’m sure I did, so….” The voicemail runs out, and Heather’s finger hovers over the call back area, but instead she kills her phone, afraid she is still too angry and might go overboard with Ellen and hurt her feelings. She considers calling her parents, then, and imagines them taking in the news. There were so many times when Heather had to clamber so hard to be seen by them, felt by them, that she finally gave up and lived her own quiet existence among them. They’ll feel put upon, she thinks. Oh, they’ll be struck by it and saddened by it, but somewhere underneath all that, they’ll feel put upon. She delays calling them.

    She doesn’t want any thoughts of conflict now. She wants rest and peace and decides that she will walk around in the area of the hotel, take her time, have a meal, a drink? She will save the Arch for tomorrow, when the sun is bright and she has the full day to study it from every angle, and take the tram and go inside the museum and.… Because, after all, it’s her chosen sight, her chosen place to be before…before it all begins, and before (she couldn’t avoid thinking it) before it all ends, and so she will take her time with the Arch and…take it in like a book, one of her favorites, feel it fill her, slowly, this Gateway, gateway to what? To everything, to whatever comes.

    The next day is a perfect sunny day, and Heather now sits on a bench in the Gateway Arch National Park, staring again at the structure as she has stared at it all day from every vantage, and she has already taken the tram and been through the museum and later tonight she will take in the sight of it from a riverboat. She still holds the brochures she has read and the photos she has purchased because they’re better than the images she now has on her phone.

    She does love the arch – as a structure, as an art piece, as a bold rendering in metal flung into the sky, a gleaming statement, one hell of an accomplishment. She praises it for all of that, but a four-word line in one of the brochures has put her off, and all her thoughts keep bumping into those words. These thoughts are interrupted by a woman who asks if she’ll take a photo of her and her husband with the Arch as a background. She agrees, and the woman hands her a phone as she and her husband thank her and take their position. Heather stands, moves, and finally goes down on one knee to capture the couple and the top of the arch, her move a kind of genuflection to the structure and the moment.

When they gather over the photo, the couple is very pleased, and the three of them then stand and study the arch because it is thrilling and must be seen and seen again.

    “Isn’t it wonderful,” the woman says, and the man says, “Mmm” as he nods, and Heather says “It’s everything I wanted it to be.” They all nod, and Heather wonders if she should mention the brochure and the words that have tripped her, but why spoil the moment, and then the woman says, “And to think of all the covered wagons moving on from here, all those journeys.” “Tough times,” the husband says, and Heather says to herself – what the hell, and then begins. “There are some words, though, in this brochure that…make me stumble. Where it talks about the people moving out from here and “Winning the West.” The couple has moved their stares from the Arch to Heather, wondering. “If something is ‘won,’” Heather says, “that means that it’s also “lost.” Who was it won FROM? Well, it’s obvious it means the Native Americans. It means they lost it and we won it, and that troubles me. That’s a black mark on our history, like…all the black marks where native peoples were…pushed aside or worse. Wouldn’t it have been great if instead of the Winning of the West it could have been the Sharing of the West?”

    They stare at her, and then they both nod, understanding, if not pitching in, and Heather goes on. “It’s not that I don’t celebrate the pioneers and their…guts and their journey, the accomplishments and…oh and I’ve loved the various books about those people and their hopes and struggles…. ‘Oh, Pioneers’ and ‘Cimarron,’ even ‘My Antonia,’ and, oh, ‘The Way West’ by, uhh, Guthrie, and…” Now here Heather notices something familiar, something she’s seen for many years in her classroom. The man and woman’s eyes are very slightly glazing over and she’s losing them, and it makes her smile at herself, the teacher, going on and on, and then here comes the glaze. She smiles openly and says, “It’s been very nice meeting you.” And the couple says the same and thank her and move off. Heather sits on her bench and puts her eyes back on that arch winging across the sky. What does it remind her of? She wonders and then thinks, well, kind of like…a wishbone up there, a beautiful, shining wishbone. Ok, then…what should I wish for, and she stares, still slightly smiling and then growing more serious as she finds it, finally, her wish.

    She calls Meg before she boards the plane and asks her daughter when she can come over, gives her the flight time and Heather’s expected arrival at her home. When she lands, Meg has left a text: “We’re all set up. I’ll see you at 1 pm. We have an appointment at 3.” 

    This time Heather hugs her daughter at the door, holds her hand, and walks her to the sofa. Meg is already laying out the schedule for the next few days, but Heather says, “Wait…wait. Let’s take a breath, Megs. Okay?”

    “Oh, sorry, I just want to bring you up to date. You said you enjoyed the…Arch?

    “Beautiful.” They are seated now, and Heather has made tea and there are cookies on the table, but Meg says she has just finished lunch, and Heather sits back and studies her daughter with eyes that go deep and she wears a small, loving smile and hopes that Meg sees the love. “Megs, I hope you know how much I love you, how…deep and full my love is.” Meg stares and her eyes fill and she says two words that have a liquid quality. “Oh, Mom,” and she knows what Heather is going to say. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you,” Heather asks, and Meg is fully weeping now, and Heather puts a hand on her daughter’s leg, and Meg speaks again. “Oh, Mom. Jesus. I made appointments, I….” I know, honey, and that means you talked to the doctor and so you understand the choices and….” “But there is that chance, that slim, crazy…. Don’t do this, Mom.” “It’s really okay, Megs. It is. It is.” Meg is slowly shaking her head. One of her hands rises quickly to wipe at tears that are falling, and that hand comes to rest on top of her mother’s hand which remains on her lap.

    “It’s really okay,” Heather says again, and she watches how her daughter studies her face, and Heather slowly nods, a kind of final nod that says ‘this is happening. It is.’ This causes Meg to shake her head ‘no,’ but it’s not an argument, that gesture. “Mom…you won’t try. You….”

    “I’m so certain of this,” Heather says, still carrying her soft smile. “It’s what I want, what I wished for. It all became so clear, honey.” Meg bites her lip to hold back her weeping. “I don’t think of this as giving up,” Heather says. “It’s the opposite for me. It’s reaching for just a little more. More time with my daughter, more time spent with Nica, time for a bit more of life, not in a…hungry or desperate way. In a loving way, Megs. And I know you’ll help me. I need your help. We can learn all about hospice and how that works and how we’ll know when it’s time….” Meg, still staring, weeps audibly now, and Heather reaches out, sliding closer on the sofa, embracing her daughter, and she feels her daughter embrace her and hold tight, and how Heather thrills at that, how she loves that feeling above all others.

    “It’s only the ending,” she tells her Meg softly. “It’s like the ending of a very good book, a book that I’ve treasured. The ending isn’t the whole story. It’s just one little piece. There are all those years, all the days that came one by one, all those thriving minutes. That’s the story, and this is the ending I choose for it, honey, my honey, my Megs. Please tell me you understand. Do you?” Meg, tight in their embrace, nods her head, then speaks a liquid “Yeah Ma,” and moves her body, somehow, even deeper into her mother’s arms.