Space Between the Cracks

All paths lead to the garden, and I spent quite a lot of time in the garden yesterday, sitting at the picnic table, drinking herb tea from a mason jar and reading—or rereading I should say—Jonathan Franzen.

When you need distraction, Jonathan Franzen is the go-to guy!

Claude came by. He wanted to talk beets and llama manure.

David, the incredibly charming CIA student, came by. He wanted to chat more about flowers that are effective insect repellants—“So. Marigolds! But what else?” I’m sure he sees talking to me as some kind of oral history project, decanting the mind of The Old Hippie for all the accumulated knowledge of that soon-to-be-extinct tribe, which otherwise will be lost to civilization.

###

B texted me a snapshot of his ER discharge papers.

Looks like they’ve already made the diagnosis.

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Patient Visit Information

You were seen today for:

Lytic bone lesion of right femur
Metastatic malignant neoplasm

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“I guess the nice ER doc was just to nice to say it straight out,” B said. He was still laughing.

“Metastatic means the primary tumor site is elsewhere,” I said.

“That’s what I would assume, and my guess would be liver.”

“My guess would be lungs,” I said.

The whole conversation made me want to run out and buy a pack of cigarettes.

###

It’s not my tragedy.

But I can’t help feeling ownership.

I feel so bad for him.

I thought he was gonna die five years ago, but then came the miracle of Harvoni.

Redemption.

And he worked with that, he really did. Became a happier person.

He and Sarolta were very sweet together. Two little Beatrix Potter mice planning their future. They were going to buy a house together next year. In Elmira!

“Elmira’s a pit, but houses go for $60,000,” he told me. “And it’s only a half hour drive from Ithaca.”

“You’ll be pioneers!” I said. “Help create a future where Elmira’s not a pit.”

He’d gone to the bank and arranged financing and everything. Like a real human boy!

And he’d changed his look. Dealt with the baldness that had always been a source of deepest humiliation by shaving his head.

Bought an espresso machine. Acquired an art collection! Mid 20th-century Scandinavian artists! Highly collectible, he told me. The commodification of that particular school of painting had only just begun, so their value was only going to go up and up and up.

It’s just unutterably sad.

###

The big question was whether or not to tell Robin.

On the one hand, Robin hates being lied to.

On the other hand, Robin has a tendency to spiral emotionally. And he and his father have what I consider a psychologically unhealthy codependent relationship.

“I never see myself as the hero of my own life,” B explained to me once years and years ago. “I always see myself as the consiglieri or the sidekick to someone else. And that someone else is the hero.”

Oh, trust me! I already knew that. I had to put up with being micromanaged by Ben for many years! It was exhausting.

After that, Ben’s fixation became Robin.

Robin both liked it and didn’t like it. But micromanagement came to be what Robin thinks of as love.

Once Ben fell in love with Sarolta, she became the hero.

And I think Robin felt a considerable degree of resentment when that concentrated high-beam that is Ben’s attention rotated away from him.

“I’m Team Mom all the way!” he told me when I visited two weeks ago.

“It’s not a contest, Robin,” I told him gently.

###

Anyway, B did tell Robin, and now Robin is a mess.

I got texts from him this morning that were written at 2 in the morning:

I can’t even fall asleep and I’m just sad and I had this talk with dad and I just feel even saddder and the one thing he said is I just want you stop being depressed and I don’t know how I accomplish that when everything is just piling up faster and faster and I’m trying to find the space between the cracks to slip

All I could tell Robin was that I love him and that his dad was gonna need every ounce of his emotional strength in order to focus upon getting well. (Although I don’t actually believe that Ben is going to get well: Secondary bone mets probably put him at Stage IV.)

And that melatonin is a very effective sleep aid.

And that I would be sending him money to give to his dad but that he couldn’t tell his dad it was coming from me because his dad might not accept it. But I am worried about their financial situation since Ben obviously can’t work.