Barefoot: A Novel

him or she heard him but didn’t listen because when he checked she was staring into the front of the big, black truck like she thought it might run them over. The engine gunned and the truck swerved into the spot next to the Jeep for just long enough that Josh could see who was driving; then the truck reversed and pul ed out, leaving behind the proverbial cloud of brown dust and a spray of sand that peppered Josh’s legs like buckshot.

Shit, Josh thought, and he said it over and again as he climbed into the Jeep next to Melanie. Shit, shit, shit. It might have been a coincidence, Josh thought. It wasn’t like parking in Monomoy was an original idea. But who was he kidding? Rob Patalka, Didi’s brother, was fol owing him, stalking him, or driving around the island at Didi’s insistence trying to hunt him down. Didi certainly wasn’t paying Rob, so what incentive did Rob have to do her bidding? Was it out of loyalty? Brotherly love? Josh didn’t want to think about it. Al he knew was that the thril and rush of almost getting caught had turned, like sour milk, into the reality of getting caught.

Melanie, not knowing this, looked amused. “Friend of yours?” she said.

“Not exactly,” he said.

A card came in the mail. It was from Dolores, the leader of Vicki’s cancer support group back in Connecticut. Alan, the member of the group with pancreatic cancer, had passed away the previous Monday. Vicki stared at the words “passed away” in Dolores’s spidery handwriting. Alan was fifty-seven years old, he’d been married for thirty- one of those years, he was the father of one son and two daughters; he had a grandchild, the son of his son, a baby named Brendan, who was the same age as Porter. Alan, either coincidental y or on purpose, always chose the seat next to Vicki in the support group circle; they held hands during the opening and closing prayer. This was al Vicki knew of the man, and yet as she read Dolores’s note (“passed away”) she felt cold and numb. Alan had kissed Vicki’s cheek before she left for Nantucket. She’d said, I’ll see you when I get back. And he’d said, You bet.

The support group had been Dr. Garcia’s idea. Vicki had attended half a dozen times—twice a week for the three weeks before she left for the summer. What she had learned, perhaps the only thing she had learned, was that cancer was a journey, a series of ups and downs, of good days and bad days, of progress and setbacks. Vicki yearned to be back in the circle so she could tel the story of her own journey and hear murmurs from people who understood.

The fever, which lasted five days, was like nothing Vicki had ever experienced. She was alternately burning up and freezing cold; she shook so violently in the bathtub that the water splashed over the sides. She wore a sweater to bed, she slept fitful y and had horrible nightmares—armed robbers in ski masks with guns in her bedroom, demanding that she hand over one of her boys. Choose one! How could she choose ? Take me!

she’d said. Take me! Yes, they would take her. They carried her out of the room by her arms and legs.

Her vision, during the day, was splotchy, she suffered from insidious headaches; it hurt just to look out the window at the bright sunlight and the green leaves. Her brain felt like a piece of meat boiling in a pot. She was dehydrated, despite the fact that Brenda replenished a frosty pitcher of ice water with lemon slices floating on top every few hours. Brenda held the straw to Vicki’s lips, as did Melanie, as did Ted. Ted laid a washcloth across her forehead—a washcloth that they started keeping in the freezer, that made her cry out with pain and relief. Once, Vicki opened her eyes and was certain she saw her mother standing in the doorway of the bedroom. It was El en Lyndon, come from Philadelphia, despite the fact that her leg was imprisoned in a complicated brace. El en’s hand was cool on Vicki’s forehead; Vicki inhaled her mother’s perfume. Vicki closed her eyes and suddenly she was back at her parents’ house, in her childhood bed, with a cup of broth and angel toast dusted with cinnamon, with strains of Mozart floating up the stairs from the kitchen. Vicki rose from her bed. There was something in her shoes. Sand.

She was taking antibiotics, strong ones, although no one in the hospital could tel her where the infection was. Her fever dropped to 101 then shot back up to over 104. They threatened to admit her while she was at the hospital getting an injection of Neupogen, the drug that was supposed to boost her white count. She was taking four painkil ers every six hours, and every two hours she suffered through the goddamned thermometer under her tongue or in the crook of her arm. Vicki started moaning about her missed chemo. Now that she couldn’t have it, she wanted it badly. Dr. Alcott told her not to worry. Blood count up first, then they would let her return for treatment. Vicki’s body felt like a murky soup, her blood poisoned and diluted. Al the colors of the rainbow mixed together, Blaine had once informed her, made brown. That was Vicki.

Al across the globe, mothers were dying. Engulfed in fever, Vicki tried to count them—women she remembered from childhood (Mrs. Antonini next door died of Lou Gehrig’s disease, leaving behind seven-year-old twins); people she didn’t know (Josh’s mother, hanging herself); people she had read about in the newspaper (a Palestinian woman, eight months pregnant, blew herself to pieces at an Israeli checkpoint. In Royersford, Pennsylvania, a disgruntled client walked into the headquarters of his insurance company with an AK-47. His first victim was the receptionist, Mary Gal agher, who was on her first day back from maternity leave. Seven mothers were kil ed in Los Angeles when a commuter bus flipped on the freeway and caught on fire). These women floated over Vicki’s bed, she could see them, sort of, she could hear them crying. Or was that Vicki crying? Curse the God who took mothers out of this world! But no sooner was she cursing Him than she was praying. Praying! Don’t let it be me.

Please.

The only pleasure she had, if you could cal it pleasure, were those sips of water. The water was so cold and Vicki was so, so thirsty. Half the time, she swore, she didn’t even swal ow it. It was absorbed instantly by the chalky insides of her mouth, the dry sponge of her tongue. She had to be careful to ration herself. If she drank too much at once, she would spend torturous moments hanging off the side of her bed, sweating, her stomach twisting and clenching, her back spasming, her shoulders and neck as tense as steel cable as she fought to bring up teaspoons of bitter yel ow bile.

On the sixth day, she woke up and her sheets were soaked. She feared she’d wet the bed, but she could barely bring herself to care. On top of everything else, what was a little incontinence? But no—it was sweat. Her fever had broken. Vicki took her temperature herself, then had Brenda double-check: 98.6.

Blaine ran into the room to see her, and she barely recognized him. He was brown from the sun. His hair, so blond it was almost white, had been cut to reveal pale stripes behind his ears and around his neck. Porter had a haircut, too.

“Who took them to get haircuts?” Vicki said. “Ted?”

“Josh,” Brenda said. “But that was last week.”

Already it was the middle of July. Where had the time gone? Vicki’s fever had subsided and she and everyone else were glad about that, but Vicki was left feeling like a hol ow log, one that the cancer cel s might carry away, like so many ants. She went back to the hospital, they drew more blood, Vicki’s count rose. On Tuesday, they would resume treatment, though slowly at first. She had lost an additional five pounds.