She pulled in her driveway and got out of the car.
Her earbuds picked up the call when she turned her car off.
Joan was on the phone with her eldest son Bert, and they were having the same argument they had been having since her cancer diagnosis two months earlier.
Bert: “Mom, you have to go for treatment. If not, you will definitely die.”
Joan (mom) was sobbing very heavily now. Not the slow moving gentle tears one cries when a romantic movie ends, but the fast-flowing tears of an inconsolable small child.
Her tears were flowing over her mouth and when she spoke they went flying out in front of her.
She got so hysterical, she began to hyperventilate and her words became staccato.
“Bert (deep breath) please (deep breath) stop (deep breath).”
She touched her right earbud and ended the call. Bert had suspected his mother’s depression had turned malignant a few years ago, and it had sapped all of her enthusiasm for life. He was right.
For years her children begged her to get treatment for her depression. That, she also refused, even though it meant the end of her 25-year marriage.
Joan welcomed her cancer diagnosis as she could never bring herself to suicide. The cancer would make the decision for her.
She unlocked and opened her front door and walked in the kitchen.
Her ex-husband Phil was seated at the head of the table and looked like he was waiting for his dinner plate to be put in front of him like back in the salad days. She subconsciously noticed the block of knives was missing from the counter. Deep down she understood why.
Joan: “What the fuck are you doing here and how did you get in?”
Phil: “You never changed the locks.”
She ran towards him with vengeance and murder in her eyes and attempted a long sweeping slap. She really had no reason to be angry with him. He was just the nearest human to vent at.
He simply grabbed her arms and gently pushed her to sit down.
The kids had begged their dad to come as they rightfully believed he was the only one who could get her to go to treatment.
Phil: “Joan, if you don’t get treated, you are going to die.”
Joan: “Yeah, I keep hearing that.”
A small smile came to his mouth. He did miss her sarcastic sense of humor.
Joan: “Where is your new trophy wife, does she know you are here?”
Phil: “Yes, she is the one who convinced me to come. You are the mother of my children. No matter what you have put me through, I still love you in many ways. Sort of like an old war buddy I was in the trenches with. No woman will ever mean as much to me as you do. It is impossible. Now, do I like you? We may need to work on that.
My new trophy wife understands that we are still family, even though we are divorced. Everything I have become as a man since the age of 17 is because of you. You are the only one who shares the parenting of our children, 99% of my life’s focus.
So, yes, although I had to leave you for chasing me around the house with a butcher knife in a drunken rage dozens of times, that doesn’t change my appreciation for what you have meant, and still mean to me. And you know I met my wife well after our divorce.
The kids tell me your depression may have come back and you're also refusing to get treated for that?”
Silence
Phil: “I spoke to your oncologist and psychiatrist. I enrolled you in a clinical trial in Denver.
Oh, and that starts on Monday.”
The kids came earlier and packed your bags. I would have done it, like I used to do for you when we were married, but I didn’t think you would be comfortable with that. Going through your lacey under-things and all.”
Joan: “I’m not going anywhere with you or anyone.”
With that she ran into the bathroom and locked the door. He could hear her lean against the door and then slowly slide down it until her butt rested on the floor.
She was sobbing and hyperventilating again.
Phil approached the door and knelt down, guessing where her head was on the other side.
Phil: “Joan Bug, our kid….”
Joan, interrupting him: “Don’t you fucking call me that! How dare you! You lost the right to ever call me Joan Bug!”
(Tears flowing over her mouth while she hyperventilates and tries to speak as she sits on the bathroom floor)
Phil: “The kids and grandkids need you so much. If you voluntarily choose death over healing, that will scar them.
They deserve to have you live as long as possible. No matter how old they are, you are their mother and must put them first.
Refusing this treatment, which has fantastic cure rates, would be selfish.
Someday we will both get deathly ill. The children will want to take care of us in our last weeks and days. We owe those moments to them. We have to allow them to express that great love back to us when we close our eyes for the last time.
Don’t cheat them of that Joan. Don’t let them live the rest of their lives knowing you left them and our grandkids on purpose.
Fighting for our last breath is the way we are both going to die.
We will expire after all medical interventions have failed with our children and grandchildren comforting us.
If you were thinking straight, you would agree with me.
For decades you trusted me, and knew I had your best interest at heart. You have to trust me now. They only have one mother. Our kids call me everyday crying since your diagnosis. Crying like small children at their mother’s deathbed.
Do you think I want to be here? Back in the house of horrors?"
Joan: “House of horrors?”
Phil: “Kidding Joan. Oh, and I will tell you where the knives are after I leave.”
She couldn’t help but smile and giggle.
Phil: “I heard that smile from out here!”
Phil reaches up to the top of the door molding and grabs the emergency key and opens the bathroom door. Joan topples out onto her back into the hallway. She is half in the bathroom and half out.
Phil goes into her bedroom and grabs her luggage and brings it out to his rental car. When he comes back in, Joan Bug is still lying on the floor, but her crying has taken on that small-child-post-crying rhythm of just an occasional sniffle and body tremor.
She seems suddenly at peace.
For the next eight weeks Phil does not leave her side.
No need to describe the type of bodily hygienic help oncology patients need during treatment.
8 weeks and 1 day from the moment they touched down in Denver, Joan, their relationship, and their family are healed.
At the airport, they are about to head to different gates to board different flights. Their home addresses have not been the same for a very long time.
He hands her a plastic knife from the food court and says.
“Will you chase me around one last time for old times’ sake?”
Joan hugs Phil tight with eyes closed and thanks him through appreciative tears.
Joan: “I love you so much, like an old war buddy I was in the trenches with.”
They both laugh.
Phil: “Love you so much Joan Bug, always have, always will. You did the right thing these past eight weeks.”
Joan: “Thanks for fighting for me and thank your wife for letting me borrow you all this time.”
Phil: “We are a family, divorce or not. I will always fight for that.
Oh, and the kitchen knives are in the dishwasher.”
