My Time is Now


I am not a doctor, for I am sick already. I am not a therapist, for I have enough problems of my own. I am not a psychic, for I fear that I have no future ahead of me. Who am I?
I am the woman you don’t notice, even if I sit down right next to you. I am the woman who reflects a person of old age, even though I am only forty-four. I am a storm with no sound, a sky with no sun. I am a perfectly imperfect shade of gray- just like the clouds on a rainy day. Who am I?
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Of course it was raining. Just my luck, I thought to myself as I shrugged on my rain jacket for what seemed like the thousandth time since moving to Cranston. I apologized once again to Sahara for not being able to take her out for a walk due to the inconveniently bad weather. “I’m sorry, girl. I know being cooped up in this condo is never any fun,” I said to my only companion as I stroked her thick, chocolaty-brown coat. “I promise I’ll make it up to you as soon as I can.” Just then, as she stared up at me with those big, beautiful Labrador eyes of hers, I knew she believed me.
Despite the rain, I began making my way down the sidewalk. Down the sidewalk I went to the Reader’s Café. I made this trip on an almost daily basis, but only whenever I felt well enough to get out of the house, that is. As I walk, I don’t notice much, for there is nothing new to notice. Everything is the same: same stores, same people, same dragging sensation as I shuffle my feet along the same well-weathered sidewalk. Everything is always the same- except for today. Today, I notice a new brightly decorated sign amongst the usual various shades of gray. It is positioned in front of a store a couple of blocks away from my destination. I glance over at it once, twice, three times. The more I look at it, the more I am reminded of my relation to what the sign is advertising- bandanas.
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I remember that my doctor told me, “Good morning,” with a smile he was trying too hard to make look real. I followed that with a “Good morning, Dr. Kemp,” and our visit continued on.
“So, Ms. Picard, why did you come to see me? You just had your annual checkup only two months ago, and everything was fine. Are you not feeling well?”
“Actually, Dr. Kemp, no. I haven’t been feeling well. I scheduled an appointment with you because I don’t really have a clue what’s going on with my body right now. Sometimes I’ll wake up with skin rashes; these little red bumps under my skin appear out of nowhere. I don’t know what it’s from. And I’ve also been bleeding and bruising much easier than normal.” The doctor took a long moment to look at my medical chart, then back up at me.
“Have you had any loss of appetite, or any pain or discomfort? Trouble sleeping, vomiting, or headaches?” I had to stop to think about the past couple of months.
“Yes, I have. I’ve been feeling very tired a lot of the time, and I also sometimes get a bad pain underneath my ribs on the left side.” The doctor told me to lie down on the observation table and began probing at my neck and stomach. He continued to ask me questions concerning my condition, and I continued to answer them. He then asked me if he could draw some blood for blood work to be done; he would call me about the results in a few days.
The phone rang the following Sunday. The conversation began with, “Hello, this is the receptionist for Dr. Kemp. Is Ms. Genevieve Picard there?” I was then later informed that I needed to come back in to the office for a consultation with the doctor. Upon my arrival, I was escorted back into the doctor’s office for the second time that month. The doctor had me sit down on in a chair in the corner as he rolled his chair closer to mine.
“Your blood work results came back,” he had said. “Your red blood cell count seems to be low. And your white blood cell count seems to be very high, but they don’t seem to be functioning correctly.” I then asked him what all of that had to do with my condition.
He told me I had leukemia.
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I was subconsciously drawn into the store, walking around, touching and feeling the multitude of bandanas one by one. As I go from one to the next, the colored squares of cloth take my brain from reality to reminiscing. I remember the countless days I had worn a bandana over my head just to try to cover up what was lying underneath. Ironically enough, nothing was lying underneath. It looked as if someone had shorn my head in their sleep, for my hair was patchy and definitely not acceptable to the viewers of the world around me. Chemotherapy seemed almost pointless, despite the fact that it turned me into a bald train wreck. After so many months of chemo with little to no improvement, I had decided that there was no hopeful future in front of me. I continued to feel this way until today when I finally completed my postponed travel to the Reader’s Café.
During my usual visit to this swanky little library/coffee shop, I sat alone, sipping coffee and reading The Notebook. No one dared to come next to me; they knew they couldn’t start a conversation with me no matter how hard they tried. I was the type of woman who was happier when I kept to myself rather than having people pestering and prodding at my insides with their questions.
Even though I had this feeling from time to time of someone watching me, I thought nothing of it. I knew I was watched, glanced at, even stared at. I knew that I was a freak. No one else looked like me, so why wouldn’t they stare? But today, this feeling was different. This didn’t feel like the same type of staring. This was the feeling of a prolonged, curious stare- as if someone were drinking me in, but not swallowing so they could decipher what ingredients combined to form me. It got to the point where it was so intense that I had to look around to see who my secret creeper was. I looked to my left. I saw no staring. I looked to my right. I saw no staring there, either. I began to feel a little dismayed as I looked about the room one last time. As I was about to give up pinpointing my stalker, the pair of eyes set inside my skull met with another. The eye’s owner never once looked away, but just kept gazing into my eyes.
He began coming around from behind the counter; it was then that I realized who he was. He was the young man that made my coffee most days I was here. I couldn’t remember much else, for his gaze was far too distracting to concentrate on any other thing at the moment. His gait towards me slightly increased with each foot he gained in my direction until he was eventually close enough that I could smell the evident scent of coffee swirling off of his apron. No one spoke, but he sat down next to me anyway. “Why?” he finally voiced. I hesitated, and then responded, “What do you mean, ‘why?’”
“Why do you come in here practically every day? Why are you always alone? Why do you always order the same coffee? Why do you always read the same book? I don’t know, just why?”
“I- I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered, turning away.
“There’s a reason for everything. And yes, you do know why. You have to know.”
He continued to poke and prod and pester, despite my worthless attempts to get him to leave me alone. I could tell that this pointless, cycling conversation wasn’t going to terminate until he had taken it in even the slightest direction in his favor. I tried to postpone the inevitable by staring out in the opposite direction of my new acquaintance.
In front of me was a window. It was more like a wall of glass than a window, but nevertheless, a clear sheet of glass within the wall, framing a portion of the outside view. Through this window was common area full of trees, shrubs, other various things. But above all, a tree was the thing to catch my eye most. Still putting off the conversation which was bound to come to an end sooner or later, I began to study the tree. It was mid-autumn, so the leaves were bright and radiating with streaks of sunshine color and blotches of red and orange all over. The ground matched the tree perfectly, as if they were two parts of a shirt that were made to be stitched together. He continued to speak. I continued to stare at the tree. Presently, I noticed a leaf falling from the tree, followed by another, which was followed by another. Winter was coming sooner than I had thought. I turned back around to face the curious young man. As I did this, he fell silent. I made up for his loss of words by asking him, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you here? Why are you talking to me? Why have you been watching me? Why are you so intrigued by me? I don’t know, just why?”
My questioning seemed to catch him off guard, but after some quick intellect, he began again with, “Let’s start over. We didn’t get to do this quite right. Here, I’ll start. Hi, my name is Noah, and this is my story.” He went on to tell me his age, where he came from, what his family is like, where he was attending college, and why he was spending his extra time working instead of partying like his dorm mates. He even didn’t fail to mention all the pets he’s had since he was two. Before long, it was clear that he was actually curious about me. Not only curious was he, but he was intrigued, fascinated. He genuinely wanted to find out about me. He proved his motive by his persistent, continuous rambling for the past couple of hours. I must have been pondering this for a while because I was suddenly brought back down to earth by my new friend’s voice sounding, “Well, your turn.”
I hardly had any idea what to say. He told me that this sort of stuff was easy. You begin with your name, a few fun facts, and so forth. I gave it a shot.
“Um, well, my name is Genevieve Picard. I prefer Genn, though. I’m forty-four, and I live here in Cranston. I have a chocolate lab named Sahara; I love her to death. Um,” I paused to think of something interesting about myself. Unfortunately, I came up short. I then realized how much of my life was wasted because I was so caught up in my own self-pity. Then I blurted, “Oh yeah, and I have-” I stopped, almost unintentionally replacing the last word with a horrified gasp. How could I have almost told this complete stranger my biggest secret of all?
“You have what?” questioned Noah.
“I-I have to go,” I breathed, standing up as I spoke.
Noah grabbed my arm, almost pulling me back down into my chair. “Please stay,” he begged. I would have left at that moment if I hadn’t seen his eyes. They were big and beautiful, beckoning me back to my seat. His gazes were so memorizing; I had to stay.
“Let me ask again. You have what?” he said to me, almost coaxing the whole story to the tip of my tongue.
I played dumb. “I don’t remember what I was going to say,” I said. Unfortunately, he saw right through that. I had to decide now which leap of faith I was going to take: telling Noah everything, or running to hide for the rest of my life? I glanced back out of the window towards the falling tree leaves again, and decided my time was now. My time was now to speak up, to stop holding back, to stop being afraid, to stop letting this cancer have control over me. I sighed, and then started from the very beginning.
“Hi, my name is Genn, and I have leukemia.”