The Chemo Calendar I Handed His Daughter

What came home

They pulled back into the driveway a little after one that afternoon. I was home, because I’d already taken the day.

Michelle got out first and came around and helped him out. He walked into the house under his own steam, but just barely, with the pump pouch on his belt and his face the color of wet newspaper.

He went straight to the recliner. Michelle went straight to the guest room and shut the door. She did not eat supper.

I left a plate covered in foil in the oven for her, and in the morning it was still there.

At two in the morning I woke up to Les being sick in the hall bathroom.

That was always the worst night, the first night of the pump. I had my feet on the floor before I was even awake.

Then I heard the guest room door open. I heard her bare feet in the hall. I heard her say, low, “Okay, Dad. Okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

It about killed me to stay in that bed. I sat on the edge of it with my hands in my lap and listened to my husband be sick and his daughter rub his back, and I did not get up.

She had asked for this. And he needed her more than he needed me right then.

Those were the two things I told myself, over and over, until the toilet flushed and the water ran and the guest room door finally closed.

On Thursday the home health nurse came out to unhook the pump. Her name was Kim, and she’d been coming since October.

She looked at Michelle, and then at me, and she was smart enough not to ask anything.

Two weeks of quiet

Those two weeks were the quietest I have ever lived through in my own house.

Michelle set up her laptop at the kitchen table during the day and worked her phone. I went to work. We passed each other in the hall like two cats.

She did ask me things. Small things, and always sideways, like she was asking the room and I happened to be standing in it.

“Does he always sleep this much on Thursday?” she asked one afternoon, looking at her screen.

“Thursday and Friday,” I said. “By Saturday he usually wants to sit up and watch the basketball. Sunday he’ll eat.”

Another time I came home and found her standing in front of the refrigerator with her coat half off, reading the note I had taped to the door at Thanksgiving.

Gloves first. No cold drinks. Ask him before you hand him anything.

“He tried to get the milk out,” she said. “Bare-handed. He made a sound like I’ve never heard him make.”

“He forgets,” I said. “Especially the first week.”

She nodded. She didn’t thank me. I didn’t expect her to.

One night I walked past the guest room and her door was open a crack.

She was sitting on the bed with the calendar pictures up on her phone, zoomed in, reading my little notes in the margins one by one.

I kept walking.