It takes only a few hours before we hear that the news is not good. It appears, to the best of the doctor’s knowledge, that Dad has cancer. The only puzzling thing is that they have never seen any kind of cancer like this before. What they know is that the lump on Dad’s face is definitely a tumor and it is growing fast. Immediate surgery is the only hope.
When Mom calls, she tells us they are signing permission papers scheduling Dad for radical surgery first thing in the morning. The tumor, we are told, is growing so rapidly that they have to cut off his entire nose.
“Oh my God!” I scream, putting the phone back on the hook. “This is terrible!” Then I remember the date. “But… but… it’s his birthday tomorrow,” I sob. I’ve been planning to give him the macramé necklace I just finished working on, the one he shyly mentioned that he liked, the one with the roach clip on it.
We are all in tears.
Mom comes home in silent shock and quietly readies us for the hospital in the morning. In the blink of an eye, the relationship I’ve been developing with my father has changed, and again the uncertainty of the future is frightening.
Dad is out of surgery sooner than they had anticipated. We stand anxiously as they wheel him into the ICU recovery room, where we see that his entire face is bandaged. The doctors explain to us that the tumor does not appear to be malignant at this point but that its rate of growth is alarming. “Tumors that grow like that can easily turn malignant, and this one could have suffocated him quickly if it had gotten any bigger. Apparently, he used to mix batches of Agent Orange in Vietnam. This may very well be the cause of this type of cancer, but it’s too early to tell. We made the best decision in removing the nose,” the doctors confirm.
It all makes sense, of course, but damn this is harsh.
When Dad begins to wake, the nurses call us in, knowing we are eager to visit and support him.
I walk quickly to the edge of his bed and softly call out to him, “Hi, Dad… how ya feeling?”
His eyes flutter open, and he tries to focus. He raises his hand to fumble at his bandaged face. “Umph,” he mumbles wearily, and closes his eyes tight as if trying to wish the whole nightmare away.
I take his hand and struggle to find healing words but fall painfully short. My eyes wander over the room, across the white square-tiled floor, and up the mint green—colored wall next to the head of the bed. A calendar advertising a local insurance agency reads July in bold letters. I remember today is Dad’s birthday.
Excited, I blurt out, “Happy birthday, Dad!”
It is not the best thing to say. The look he gives me could kill a large animal. I feel awful and kick myself for saying it. I shrink back, appalled at myself, and let my brother and sister take their turns visiting. I clench my fists and hope they will find better words of comfort.
Then it is Mom’s turn. “Vell, do you need anyting?” Mom asks coldly, her accent sharper than usual. Now that she knows he is going to live for a while, she feels put out. There is a strange vindictive tone to her voice that makes me uncomfortable. Mom has a habit of speaking her mind and damn the consequences. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to care that Dad is so vulnerable right now. She puffs herself up like a cobra ready to strike and, to my dismay, lets all of her pent-up anger fly. “Vell, maybe you should have thought about all those things you did to us, Vayne. Dis never vould have happened. Da vay you left Grandma vaiting for you! She died vaiting for you!” She stops abruptly, her eyes shoot accusing daggers, suggesting that this tumor is God’s retribution on him.
Terry, Wayne, and I back into the corner of the curtain in the ICU cubicle.
How could she?
Dad’s eyes light up through the fog of the anesthesia, and he glares at her. “You… you wished this on me, didn’t you, Edda?” His voice cracks, and he throws a desperate stab of guilt at her. Mom stands still in her tracks. In shock and horror, her eyes and mouth drop open. Dad’s brief moment of strength fades quickly, and he falls back onto his pillow. “Go home,” he says, dismissing her with a weak wave.
“Come on, kids!” Mom orders as she turns on her heel and walks out.
Somehow, I guess, the little green man with the long white beard in Dad’s stone has lied.
CHAPTER THREE
From Sea to Shining Sea
“Where’s Terry?” Dad demands, walking into the air-conditioned house from the hospital. He has heard from Mom that she ran away.
He looks awful. Like a heavyweight boxer after a title fight, he has dark, heavy bruising under his eyes from the radical scraping of sinuses, and his voice is raspy. It has been two weeks since the surgery, and his face is still heavily bandaged at the nose area, the gauze strips wrapping around his head.
Much less laid-back and more serious now than he was before the surgery, Dad is now barking orders. Dealing with a life-threatening illness, he has little patience. He’s not messing around. “Where is she?”
I stand up and answer matter-of-factly, “Nobody knows, Dad.”
“Aw, now what? What is it, Dawn? What’s the deal?”
“She ran away.”
“Aw, come on. What was she thinking? That I wasn’t coming back?”
“I don’t know, but I think I know where to find her.” I don’t tell him this, but I have heard a rumor that she took off with her boyfriend.
“Then go find her!” His tone is filled with disgust. “Let’s get this shit over with.”
My sister, Terry, is very mixed up. As the middle child, she seems to find it difficult to feel favor from either Mom or Dad. She took a huge step of uncertainty in choosing our father to be her legal guardian. At this point in her fourteen years of life, though, she trusts only the streets. With Dad so suddenly at the hospital for a surgery with unsure results, Terry’s best reaction was to bail. When the familiar streets called, she ran to them for comfort.
Terry’s boyfriend—Juan, a Cuban boy she clings to as her solace—also hangs out on the streets. Older than Terry by four years, Juan protects her from most of the Cuban aggression she seems to naturally attract. He also helps get her into lots of trouble. Juan, a grown kid from the streets of Carol City, fancies himself a smooth con man. He stands five foot two inches tall and has pockmarked skin, dark eyes that shine mischievously, and a crooked smile. He is the one Terry is with when she is often nowhere to be found. Rumor on the street has it that they are shacking up at a friend’s house near Collins Avenue on Haulover Beach, where we often hitchhike when we skip school.
Dad isn’t in the mood to mess around. He wants to get this show on the road. The divorce is final, the house is sold, and he is in a lot of pain. We have only a couple of days before we have to vacate our home.
“Go get her,” he orders again, knowing I will handle things.
“Where’s Terry? We’re looking for Terry.” Scouring our neighborhood, I leave the message with my best sources on the street. I am eager to help Dad, and I puff myself up with the importance of the role. When I receive the address where she is staying, I head back home with the news.
“Let me see that!” Dad impatiently snatches the paper from my hand. “Okay. What do you have to tell me about this, Dawn? What is this place? What’s their deal?”
“I don’t know. Sounds like a gang place, Dad.”
“Awww, shit! Let’s go get her!” He grabs the car keys from the wall and heads out the door. I follow close behind, and as I slip into the passenger seat, I silently ready myself for a hostile confrontation.