Not Stegner

When Wallace Stegner wanted to dramatize a character's cancer, he had her lean over a hammock, in the midst of a social gathering, and vomit.  The point?  Illness takes over, has no sense of social propriety, interrupts the schedule, grosses out the fainthearted and generally runs counter to the mission statement.  Throwing up has long been associated with cancer in my mind.  And in the public mind too.  I remind myself of all this in the wake of Marlou's sudden episode this morning.  She was helping me on with my shoes, a routine that has long marked the start of our days, when she felt sick and rushed away.  I was alarmed, but she was back in minutes and proceeded, without comment, to have another go at my leg brace.

This says a lot about Marlou and what she has endured in the last 2 1/2 years.  There was plenty of vomiting with the chemo in the early days.  But armed with, at one point, five separate anti-nausea drugs, she got on top of things and carried on.  Carrying on has included two trips to Europe, four to Hawaii, not to mention Death Valley, Seattle and Phoenix.  No one can say we have been stuck at home.

As for this morning's nausea, one has to forget Stegner.  The vomiting came and went.  The shoes went on.  We started talking schedules.  And I did, really did, want to get this expanse of plastic sheeting, black and thick and True Value, spread over my recently turned-under beds of cover crop.  Marlou said she would give it a thought.  That was enough.  Whoever handles the sheeting, at least it's a household topic.  As for the message in the vomiting, well what is it?  That Marlou has cancer?  Duh, as the young people say.  Or, as Marlou herself would quote from Casablanca, 'What?  Gambling at Rick's?'

In our separate ways, our different ways, Marlou and I keep finding a path through and around fear.  All sorts of things, disturbing and unsettling and full of fate and decline, went through my head this morning my wife was sick in the bathroom.  In the aftermath Marlou was actually more concerned about her husband seated on the bed, shoeless and stunned.  She had run into the bathroom for a brief, functional moment, and she was back now, getting on with the day.  And the only hitch was me, the worrying spouse.  She had moved on and was hoping I would too.

Tone is everything.  Here, there was no grim stoicism.  No one was swallowing down bitter emotions to soldier on, stiff-upper-lip style.  There was just no reason to worry, as far as Marlou was concerned.  I immediately suggested that we cancel all the day's errands.  But no, Marlou wouldn't hear of it.  We had things to do.  And now we had roles to reverse, for Marlou has been complaining of too much in our daily schedule.  Too many people, events and happenings.  Whatever the day held it could continue to hold.  We are past the voodoo quality of cancer.  We are into the day-to-day experience.

Yesterday in San Francisco, my friend Jim and I were seated outside at Café Centro, admiring South Park, aware that the day was declining and pretending that we weren't.  One half of a pair at the adjoining table rose and departed, leaving the other half, a pudgy, bespectacled guy somewhat younger than myself, who wanted to talk.  About anything, it was clear.  Jim and I only had an hour or so together, so there was no time for this.  We were talking about work and girlfriends, and this guy kept talking to us, so I decided to switch topics.  Cancer.  The latest on Marlou's cancer.  Oh, the guy said, chemotherapy never works.  I gave him a dirty look.  He rose and left.

Someone wiser than me, wiser even then Susan Sonntag, is going to have to write about cancer's place in the popular mind.  It is popular, that is the strange thing.  It is especially popular when someone else has it.  Yes, it evokes primal fear, but it also sets off nuts talking in cafés.  It is part of our intimacy that Marlou and I have worked through some of this, separating ourselves from fear.  And vaguely mindful of the fear of others.  Whatever it takes.  A hug here, a dirty look there, and we were up and off for the day.