SIX
After our day at the river, it took exactly one day before Delphine again stood at my doorstep, she took me out to dinner and showed up at my doorstep again the next afternoon. Apparently my revelation about not being on any kind of spectrum had done nothing to quell her affection for me. I found myself being relieved and looking forward to each time she knocked on my front door unannounced. It became a regular thing, every afternoon around four, she would arrive, groceries in one hand, a DVD or a book or a board game in the other. If her presence hadn’t been something to look forward to, her cooking would have been, Delphine cooked up the most amazing meals and they were probably the best I had ever had in my life.
Both my parents weren’t really born chefs and neither was I so it was nice to have someone make you delicious food each and every day, mushroom risotto one day, perfectly cooked salmon the next, roast beef that melted in your mouth the day after that. The coolest thing was that Delphine loved cooking for me, exclaiming that it had been such a long time since she’d been able to really get back into it because she didn’t enjoy cooking just for one. Delphine kept me busy and brought a little bit of routine back into my life. We didn’t talk about her feelings for me again.
During the weekend, about a week before I had to go back to the hospital she knocked on my door a little earlier than she had during the previous days. It was a little after noon and she showed up wearing a pair of black shorts that showed off a set of long, tan legs and a loose, white top that left little to the imagination. Seeing her set off a deep pang inside the pit of my stomach that I pushed away before I could determine whatever it was that gave me that strange feeling.
"Hi," I breathed. I literally breathed the word, it was ridiculous.
"Cosima, come, take a shower and get dressed, we're going to do something today.”
Like we hadn't been doing stuff all week.
"Where are we going?”
"There's this open-air-film-festival this afternoon, starting at two, I really want to go and I would love for you to join me.”
I knew the festival she was talking about, it was one of the many that were held in summer, I'd gone there often during previous years. It was a good one, like the one I'd attended a little over a month ago. The one that had made me decide to have chemo therapy.
"I didn't know you were a fan of short movies.”
"So you know the festival?”
"I'm a script writer, what'd you expect? I'd love to join, come on it, I'm going to take a shower, you're lucky, I already had breakfast so it shouldn't take me very long.”
I hopped into the shower, or rather strolled over to the bathroom where I just got in and showered rapidly. Then I towelled myself dry and got dressed into a pair of new jeans my mom had gotten me, all black and with that I put on a black sweater without a print that was also new. I suspected it was from the children's department, it was so small.
Then I brushed my teeth, put on my wig and went out into the living room where Delphine sat at my table, a laptop in front of her. She was working, on a Saturday and for a moment I watched her type. For the first time I wondered how old she was. She appeared to be my age but I knew that appearances could be deceiving. People usually estimated me to be around twenty-one, that was partly due to my slight form, I was rather petite with my five-six and size XS or twenty-six. It had always been like that, whenever I wanted to get myself some alcoholic beverages, I needed to show my ID more often than not. Over the years I'd grown used to it and usually just had my driver's license by hand, ready to flash it if asked.
Delphine looked to be about my age, but I realized I had never even asked her, so I just did. Her reaction was priceless, her eyes grew big, her mouth fell open, like I had asked her whether she'd ever caught an STD.
"Where the hell did that question come from?" she asked.
"Well, I was wondering, I just realized I never asked, do you even know how old I am.”
"Yeah, you're twenty-six.”
"How the hell did you know that?”
"I asked Sarah.”
"Ah."
Well that made sense. They had talked about me. Sarah had told me so the day before when she had come over during the afternoon so we could have lunch and talk about everything that was going on in my life. I'd lied my ass off during the entire ten minutes she'd drilled me about it, after which I'd switched to a safer topic, her. She could talk about herself and her life for hours and she had, only every now and then asking me a question or trying to figure out what was going on between Delphine and me. I hadn't given her a straight answer once and I'd felt bad about lying, despite it being for the best. For now at least.
"But I'm thirty-one" Delphine then said.
Now I was the one with the gigantic eyes and my mouth hanging open. What the fuck. I had not seen that one coming.
"No way, you're lying!”
Delphine laughed. "I'm not actually, I just look younger than my actual age.”
"That's insane, you come across so, how do you say it, young and I don’t know hurricane-like or something.”
"Age is just a number Cosima.”
"Yeah, I guess it is.”
For a long moment Delphine stared at me, then closed her laptop and got up. "Ready to get going?"
An hour later we were sitting together on a blanket, she was leaning against one of the many trees that surrounded the film festival area. I just sat by myself, about a foot away from Delphine who was quieter than usual. I wasn't sure why and wasn't whether I wanted to know so I just didn't ask.
The first movie started at three and we spoke little, which was odd for us, normally we talked the day away, between my moments of sleep of course. Today I didn't sleep though, perhaps it was because of the fact that I was at a film festival, perhaps it was because I was feeling nervous. During the sixth movie I finally felt uncomfortable enough to speak up and ask what was going on.
"This has nothing to do with you, sorry if I gave you that feeling and I guess I should explain why I am being this quiet.”
I nodded and waited for her to continue.
"I've seen you before, like even before we bumped into each other at the Starbucks.”
That made me frown. "Really? when, where?”
Delphine shrugged. "Well, it was the annual summer film-festival opening.”
A blush crept up onto my face. That had been a rough day for me, I wondered whether she'd seen me cry.
"Okay," I replied cautiously.
"So, there was this movie playing and I saw you and you cried.”
I snorted softly. Of course.
"That movie, it touched you, oui?”
"Obviously, I was crying, I hardly ever cry.”
"I have to tell you something about that movie.”
I looked over and frowned. "What is it?”
"I made that movie, it's mine.”
For a long minute I stared at Delphine in stunned silence. No way that movie was hers. She would have said something sooner, wouldn't she? How could this be possible, the movie that changed my life, the person who had been making my life better, they were connected. In a way it made sense, in a whole other way it didn't, at all, it seemed impossible for two things so grand to be connected in such a fitting way.
"What, how, you're not a film maker.”
Delphine looked a little sheepish as she answered. "I am, always have been, but on the side, which is why I like my freelance translating so much.”
"Why didn't you tell me?”
"Because I want to remain anonymous. I don't think a film suddenly gets better because you know who the creator is. This movie was one of my latest projects but I've been making movies my entire life. All I want for my films is to touch people, even if it's only one person at an entire festival. To be able to truly reach someone and make them feel the same way about life as me is something I've wanted to create my entire life.”
There was more staring and we remained quiet for a long while. The next movie started and I found myself staring at the screen while waves of emotion came over me again and again, making me feel like crying. I fought back the tears though. I fought hard and remained quiet for another full five minutes before I was able to bring forth my next words.
"Your movie changed my life Delphine. It truly did.”
A small smile crept onto her face and her cheeks flushed a little pink. She leaned in and kissed my cheek. "Those words mean the world to me.”
Her movie was shown last and it again touched me in ways I didn't know existed. Somehow the movie was even more moving than the previous time I’d watched it, perhaps because now I knew the person behind the movie. It made my heart race, it made my heart sink, I felt excitement and sadness, tears welled up in my eyes and every now and then a rare smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I turned hot and cold at the same time (and I was convinced it wasn’t the cancer or its treatment doing that to me) and felt like the world was a little bit more beautiful. To me, her movie was truly a rollercoaster of emotions coursing through me, working its way through every vein, every muscle. The emotions rooted deep inside me and took me to places I'd never been before in my entire life.
All during the movie Delphine held my hand and my gaze switched between the screen in front of me and her, she held her breath during the adrenaline-rush scenes and softly breathed out the moment the shot changed to a ‘home-scene’, which each one of these scenes her facial expression turned sad and tears threatened to spill across her eyelids. I wondered several times why the hell she wanted to remain anonymous but it suited her, she was a quiet enjoyer of life and her words had made sense, she wanted to show people what life could be like, how the little things were sometimes more beautiful than the things that were seen as grand.
A little less grand was the night spent after that, I became feverish, probably from having been out all day, or should I say, all week. It had been too much for my body to handle and let’s be honest, being around crowds just wasn’t the smartest thing to do in my condition. That night I had several sweat attacks, followed by what felt like being-frozen-to-death attacks. They weren’t pleasant and after about two hours of moving about uncomfortably in my bed, I decided to check whether I had a temperature. Turned out I did and I immediately decided to call the hospital, because that’s what they had instructed me to do whenever something ‘out of the ordinary’ happened. Whatever that entailed was probably very broad, unstoppable nosebleeds, fevers, infections, basically anything bad enough that would make you want to be inside a hospital instead of at home.
The nurse on the phone told me to come over the next day unless my fever got even higher. It didn’t but I also wasn’t able to close my eyes and fall asleep all night. Whenever that happened I just took showers, long showers because they usually made me feel a little better and a little cleaner after having sweated for three hours straight. The only good thing about being bald was that you could actually take off your hair and that made all the difference in the world. I imagined, were I to still have my hair, that it would be all greasy and matted together and tangled up into knots that were almost impossible to brush out.
So I took a thirty minute shower on my shower-chair, where I just sat and stared at nothing in particular. There were thoughts though, many, many thoughts. Thoughts about me killing myself because this was just too much to take, especially because I knew things were going to get way worse than this. There were even more thoughts of Delphine and how it wouldn’t be fair to her if I would just end it all. Then that made me feel guilty because it also wouldn’t be fair to my parents, or Sarah or any of the others. Besides that, it would be the weak thing to do and I was not a weak person. Or so I had always thought. Now that I had cancer and had been thinking about killing myself over a dozen times per day when in the hospital, I had been forced to adjust my perception of myself a little.
Perhaps there was a weakness inside me, a part of myself I hadn’t previous known existed, because I’d been too absorbed in my work to actually see it. It often made me wonder just how well I knew myself. Was I that blind to the person I was, the person I had become over the years? Twenty-six years old and I didn’t have the slightest idea who I truly was, what my core values were. I had always thought I knew, but during the previous weeks I’d learned otherwise. Perhaps because having cancer was more confrontational than I had ever thought it would be. It made me see myself in a different light, it made me think about life instead of work. During my time in the hospital I’d had hours and hours a day to just sit and stare at the white walls that now made me cringe to even think about. Soon I’d be spending more time between those walls, sitting, staring, thinking. Chemo, there’d be more poison coursing through my veins, making me feel sick, making me puke and sweat and want to kill myself even more. The thought made me cringe as I sat in the shower, on the chair that I’d sat on for over half an hour, the warm water pounding on my skin, making me feel numb, physically, not mentally. My thoughts kept on running from one topic to the next.
After my shower I spent several hours lying in bed, there was more sweating, there were more thoughts but finally the moon chased the sun from the sky and light began creeping into my apartment. Knowing I had to go to the hospital later, I called Delphine the moment I thought calling someone was acceptable. I invited her over for breakfast and she accepted the invitation. She showed up about half an hour later.
Thoughts of my return to the hospital later that day made me feel nauseous so I just pushed them aside as I watched Delphine prepare a royal breakfast, scrambled eggs, fresh fruit (washed thoroughly because that was important when you had cancer), French toast. She was even making some sort of apple pie that smelled even better that it looked and frankly speaking I’d give its look a solid A plus. I sat at my dinner table, in the background the melodic and vivacious music of the London Grammar sounded, making me feel at ease. It was familiar and comforting in times like this, but even more at times whenever Delphine wasn’t around, which was when I felt continuously restless and rather agitated. Which was why I appreciated Delphine’s presence so much, ever since finding out about my cancer there had been few moments spent in peace. Now, even when she stood cooking and was completely focused on the task of cutting fruit and turning French toast around in the pan I felt at completely at ease.
I watched how my personal chef put the French Toast in the oven to keep them warm before speaking up. “Delphine, come sit with me please, I need to talk to you.”
Delphine looked over her shoulder. “Give me a minute to clean up things here oui?”
I gave her a tight nod and continued to watch her as she threw away some things and put pans and utensils into the dishwasher. Finally, when my kitchen counter was squeaky clean, she poured herself some juice and came sitting opposite me.
“What’s up?”
“Well, I don’t know if you had planned to come over tomorrow but in case you had, I won’t be home, or the days after.”
“Oh, you going somewhere?” Delphine asked, frowning a little.
My stomach churned a little in protest. I hated lying to her, despite the fact that it was better to lie than to tell her the truth at this point. Or at any point.
“Yes, I’m going to stay with my parents for a few days, my dad’s birthday is tomorrow.”
At least that much was true. Only we wouldn’t be spending it at home like we usually did, we’d celebrate his birthday at the hospital where I’d be spending the entire time there staring at a too-white ceiling. Another thing NOT to look forward to, lying in hospitals is officially the lamest and most boring thing to do.
Her face morphed into a look of disappointment. “Oh, all right.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because my mother only just asked me this morning.”
If I were Pinocchio my nose would probably be the size of the largest tree in the world by now.
“Oh.”
“Are you mad?”
She shook her head slightly. “Non, non, not mad,” her face turned from disappointed to sad. “I realized I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
“When will you be back?”
“Not sure, could be Tuesday or Wednesday.”
It could even be Thursday or Friday if things god bad enough but if that would be the case I’d figure something out later, not now when I didn’t even know how I would be feeling by the end of the day.
“Can I at least come by or pick you up to take you somewhere during those days.”
Panic started coursing through my body at her words. No, no, no! You can't because I'll be lying in the fucking hospital. How in the world was I going to get out of this one. I racked my brain for something to say but couldn't find the right words.
"No," was the only thing I could bring forth.
Delphine stared at me and then raked both hands through her curls in frustration. For a while she seemed to focus on her breathing. All the while I just sat there, staring at the woman in front of me whose face was contorted in emotional pain. Thoughts were swirling through her head, all of them visible in her eyes. I realized then that she was an open book to me, I really saw her for who she was. I wondered whether she saw me the same way I saw her but quickly decided that wasn't possible with all my lies and secrets.
Delphine moved forward, leaning with her elbows upon her knees, she seemed to brace herself for something and inhaled sharply. "Cosima, are you ashamed of me?" she asked in a small voice that was probably supposed to have come out more powerful.
Tears were forming in her eyes and all I wanted was to tell her the truth about everything but once again my thoughts of hurting her or worse losing her prevented me so instead, I got up and made my way over to the other side of the table, sat down next to Delphine and took her hands in mine.
“Of course not, why would I be ashamed of you, if anything I’m proud to call you my friend.”
I could see disappointment flash through her eyes at my words and she pulled back her hands and sat back, creating distance. I automatically did the same thing, as if in protest.
“How can you say we’re just friends, seriously?” she fumed, anger replaced the disappointment in her eyes and suddenly I wanted nothing so much as to go crawl into my bed, pull the covers over me and cry.
“This, you and me, we are not just friends Cosima, we are more than that and you know it, I know you have feelings for me, you’re just too stubborn to admit it.”
I sat in silence, unsure of how to reply. There was no good way to answer her words. Sure there were feelings that was undeniable, but how in the world could I ever voice them without hurting her. Not that I wasn’t hurting her now. This was just all so screwed up. All I had wanted was to be left alone to die and she came waltzing into my life, changing everything. My existence hadn’t been perfect but I had been all right with it and now suddenly there these voids that needed to be filled, voids that were only filled whenever she was around. I hadn’t asked for this, just like she hadn’t asked for falling in love with someone who was dying of cancer. It wasn’t fair to her, especially because I was the only one who knew it. She probably thought I was being difficult but that wasn’t it at all, she knew only half of it. Had I been healthy I might have actually given it a shot, it wouldn’t have been easy, with my inexperience in the love department but I probably would have done everything in my power to make it work.
“Delphine,” I started and had to pause to gather my thoughts before I spurted out an incomprehensible trail of words. “It’s more complicated than that.”
Something happened in Delphine’s expression, it seemed like suddenly a light bulb went on inside her head, her eyes widened slightly and she sighed in resignation. “Okay, I’ll give you time, you’ll come around.”
Where the hell had that come from? “What? Okay, wait what?”
“You need time to deal with this situation, until then I won’t push, I won’t make a move, I want it to be out of your own accord, if you’re ready you’re ready and I’ll be here.”
Well that had been easy, too easy and it didn’t make sense in the very least. It was like she had suddenly remembered something crucial and had changed her entire tactics on the spot, from confrontation to leaving it all up to me. Women were the weirdest. Ever. Period.
Early that afternoon I went to the hospital with a feeling of dread rooted deep in the pit of my stomach. It was a feeling I couldn’t shake. After having spent a week and a half at home, without being probed and injected and stuffed with poison, it was difficult accepting the fact that it wasn’t over, by a long shot. Even if this survived the next rounds of chemo, the first one that started somewhere during next week, and I wasn’t convinced I would, chances were I would need yet more chemo in a year, which meant more months or even years of chemo therapy of puking and feverish nights.
Ever since finding out I had leukaemia one thought had been prominently filling up my head. Was it all worth it? Was I worth it, was the life I’d lead so far worth it? Even though my body might be strong enough to go through dozens of chemo sessions, would my mind be able to keep up the pace as well? Was I willing to go through that kind of torture again? My parents were convinced I was, but I sure as hell wasn’t. The thought of jumping off a roof was often more appealing than another round of chemo. Especially when it wasn’t even sure whether I would live through the next five years. A large percentage of people with leukaemia died within the next five years after being diagnosed with the cancer. Which didn’t make me very hopeful. Cancer’s a bitch. Or I’m cancer’s bitch, whatever you feel like.
My doctor had encouraged me to join some sort of support group, because talking about cancer was a good way to come to terms with it, after being faced with the death of my first cancer-friend, I’d stopped going. It didn’t do anything for me other than show me death was imminent, even in the ones stronger than me. If anything, it proved to me leukaemia was practically unbeatable. Thoughts like that made me wonder whether I had always been so negative. I couldn’t remember.
My mother had picked me up at eleven-forty-five, only half an hour after Delphine had left and though she had put on a smile, I could see that she was worried. My mother promised me that my father would join us at the hospital somewhere in the afternoon, which probably meant he was pretty worried too because he hadn't come to visit me in the hospital very often during my previous time there. He absolutely abhorred hospitals though he had never told me why. I suspected it had something to do with his father and his father in law dying of cancer in the hospital but it could have been something else entirely as well.
I had felt nauseous all the way to the hospital, even though I knew I wouldn’t be having chemo. Apparently it’s normal for your body to make associations between hospitals and puking after having had chemo so I felt pretty crappy all the way there. My mother kept asking me if I was all right and put her hand on my forehead every two minutes to check whether my temperature had gone up, which totally made me feel like a child, especially because I had checked right before she had picked me up and it hadn’t gone up since the evening before, it hadn’t gone down either. Lucky me.
The minute I walked into the hospital some kind of weird anxiety came over me, I was sure it had something to do with the chemo from the month before, and I had to lean on my mom to actually get to the oncology department where I was assigned to a room where they took my temperature again and did some tests. Once they had determined I wasn’t dying they told me to put on my pyjamas and to get comfortable. Like one ever gets comfortable inside a freaking hospital. As before, I didn’t have a roommate, which I liked because I didn’t feel like sharing cancer stories with anyone other than nobody.
My mom stuck around for a while but I sent her home after she became a little too fussy, which drove me nuts. Seriously, I loved my mom to death, she was one of the few people I could handle for longer than an actual hour, but my gosh, that woman had turned into an unprofessional nurse since her daughter had been diagnosed with cancer, discussing things with doctors and nurses like she had actually worked there her entire life. Plus there was the part where she offered to help undress me and naturally the encouraging words when I had to swallow medication and obviously the continuous checking-for-temperature on the forehead (at a certain point she actually suggested to the doctor to stuff a thermometer in my ass herself to get the best result). After that I kicked her out. There was only so much I could take. She came back a couple of hours later with my father. His presence always had a good calming effect on her. She acted less like a nurse and more like a mother.
In the end I spent two nights in the hospital before I was released, only to have to return the next week. We celebrated my father’s birthday in the hospital, which was a sad and uncomfortable happening. They brought cake, I asked my mother to buy a bottle of expensive Scotch so I could give it to him (which was a tradition). We talked, we sang a happy-birthday song, they went home eventually and once they were gone I thought that this very well might have been the last time I’d ever celebrate my father’s birthday and just how fucked up their next birthdays would be once I’d died. That made me feel so sad I couldn’t stop crying all evening and night.
The only good thing that happened during those two-nights-two-whole-and-two-half-days at the hospital, was that during my last day my father came for a visit and to take me home by himself, which was a rare and precious moment. My dad and I weren’t often alone together and yet every single time we did spend time together, I’d vouched I’d take him to places by myself more often. As usual though, life had happened, or rather work had intervened and it hadn’t happened, which was why the last time we spent time together had to have been at least two years earlier. After my dad had put me in the car he took me to the ocean, which was a two-hour drive I spent sleeping, and according to my father, snoring, in the seat next to him. I didn’t believe him though, I wasn’t a snorer. Not that anyone had ever been in the position to tell me, so what did I know.
Once we arrived at our destination we went to have lunch in the harbour, at a restaurant we’d gone to very often when I was younger. My father, like me, had a passion for water and we spent hours sitting together, watching the waves hit the sandy beach. I loved its continuity, it went on like this forever, never once pausing, no matter what happened. People had little to no influence on the ocean, on its tides. It was a hypnotic sight and it was great to be spending time with my father. We didn’t talk much, didn’t have to, he was one of the few people I could spend time with without having to talk all the time.
Don’t get me wrong, we talked, about his work, about my cancer, about my work and I even told him about the movie that had made me decide to have the treatment after all. I hadn’t even told my mom that because I didn’t think she’d understand. My father and I were the same kind of people, we understood each other without having to use too many words. We shared a connection that my mother didn’t understand and had always been envious of.
The day with my dad went by fast and I spent the ride home fast asleep again, he brought me home and put me in bed without me waking once. I woke up somewhere during the night and felt slightly disoriented, I realized my dad had to have tucked me in, like he used to do when I was younger and I had fallen asleep again with a rare warmth inside my heart.