The creative department prepared for Geno’s return, which was scheduled for the week before Halloween. We worked to find balance between “Welcome back. We missed you,” and “We’re really relieved you didn’t die.” Despite Dr. DeBlazio’s briefing, a few of the young turks in client services took pains to avoid even walking by Geno’s office, much less setting foot inside.
They needn’t have worried.
Three days before Halloween, Geno spiked a 104-degree fever, and by the time Curtis got him to St. Mark’s, Geno went into cardiac arrest. The ER team was able to stabilize Geno, but prepared Curtis: Geno had another opportunistic infection, one they hadn’t seen before, and worse, his kidneys were shutting down. There wasn’t even time to say goodbye. Geno died three days later on Halloween, his favorite holiday.
I stopped by their house a few days after Geno’s memorial service with a box of his personal items from his office: his New York Yankee’s baseball pennant, his extra pair of “James Bond” sunglasses, his Clio, his spare pack of cigarettes and lighter, along with his ratty black sweater that he maintained, until the end, was vintage Versace. Curtis set the box on the hall table and silently and lovingly went through its contents. His hand landed on the cigarettes, and he pulled one from the pack, took Geno’s lighter, and lit it. Surprised, I said, “Curtis, you don’t smoke.”
He raised his eyes, smiled sadly and blew smoke toward the ceiling. “Ah, but you see, I do. I mean, I might as well. Smoking won’t be what kills me now.” Afraid I would see him cry, he turned away and said over a retreating shoulder, “Thanks for bringing this stuff by.” He turned and disappeared into the living room with the box. I let myself out, sat down on their front steps, and wept.
Winter came early to Chicago.
The cold wind felt vindictive in its ability to penetrate the layers of wool and down designed to protect you. Christmas decorations appeared two weeks prior to Thanksgiving. Fannie had been negotiating for weeks with Dr. Tatum, her lead oncologist, for an afternoon and evening out to see the holiday lights on Wacker Drive. His reply was the voice of the kind parent to the entreating child: “We’ll see.”
When it became clear that Fannie was not getting a yes from Dr. Tatum, Carlo took matters into his own hands. Carlo first proposed decorating Fannie’s room, but Dr. Tatum nixed that too. Her visitors were only allowed in now with masks and disposable protective jump suits. Everything going in was sterilized. Carlo, who’d shaved his head when Fannie lost her hair, stayed with her countless nights and was her personal make-a-wish team of one who refused to give up.
With the help of Rudy, the floor utility manager, and the blind eyes of the unit coordinator, the head of oncology, and the hospital administrator, Carlo arranged for a fifteen-foot lighted tree, cables to secure it, and a crane to place it. And, on a freezing night just after Thanksgiving, Fannie’s lighted Christmas tree appeared outside her hospital room window on the twelfth-floor ledge of Hope Memorial. She was elated and giggled, “All this for me, the Jew who stole Christmas!”
Days later, masked, gowned, and booted, I knocked, and Fannie replied with her usual, “Entre!” Looking around as if she expected spies to appear from out of the bathroom, she asked quietly, “Did you bring it?”
Affecting my best Bogart accent, I replied, “Well, sweetheart, it wasn’t easy, see? I had to pass two border patrols, and then there were those pesky guard dogs.”
I pulled a small homemade blueberry cheesecake out from a fold in my blue gown.
“Oh! Yum! Quick, cut us a slice before the warden comes!”
We sat eating quietly, watching the lights on Fannie’s Christmas tree do a magical blinking dance. Fannie ate, mesmerized and still taking in Carlo’s labor of love.
Tears started. “My sweet Carlo. He really is some kinda wonderful, isn’t he?”
“He found the best woman on earth and he loves her. Yes, he really is some kinda wonderful.”
Fannie took a big bite. Brightening, she spoke. “Honest to god, Drew, you really do make the best cheesecake this side of heaven.” And then, lowering her eyes and looking at me as if questioning, “I suppose it won’t be long before I can verify that for you, will it?”
Carlo and I had made a pact. If she asks, tell the truth. Until then, follow her lead. “No, Fannie. I don’t suppose it will be.” She took my gloved hand in hers and smiled, and then set her unfinished cheesecake to the side and leaned back in thought.
“You know, Drew, after all the chemo and radiation, and even the shark cartilage supplements that Dr. Tatum finally agreed to, I kinda thought that maybe at the last minute,” she paused and sighed. “Well, anyway.”
Looking up at me for answers she knew weren’t there, she answered herself. “I don’t guess there’s going to be a miracle, is there?”
I was quiet for a minute, and Fannie seemed in no hurry for an answer. When I spoke, it was from the heart, not my head. “Fannie, I’d like to think that maybe we’ve all already had the miracle. The miracle of us meeting. The miracle of you finding Carlo, falling in love. The miracle of your writing. The miracle of our first friendship, and the even greater miracle of reconnecting and sharing this past year together. The miracle of all the people who you know and love, and who love you in return. I’d like to think that maybe that’s the miracle, after all.”
“Yeah.” A contented smile came over her face. “Maybe so.” She squeezed my hand. “Maybe so.”
Two days later, Carlo called at 6:00 a.m. to tell me Fannie had died peacefully in her sleep a few hours before.
I went immediately to Hope Memorial, to find Carlo standing by her bed. “They just took her. I don’t know what to do,” he said with his brown eyes welling up. “I’ve never done,” motioning to the room and the empty bed, “this, before.”
“Me either.” And not knowing what else to do, we stayed there for a while, waiting for those who did know what to do to tell us. At her memorial the following Saturday, Carlo delivered a moving eulogy, her brother read two of Fannie’s favorite poems, and her niece sang “When You Wish Upon a Star.”
Six weeks later, on a flight to Vancouver, British Columbia, my mind wandered back to Tommy and the conference that now seemed a memory from a distant time: In working hard to keep everything the way it is, you may wake up, not too long from now, and wonder what could have been.
Geno was gone. Fannie was gone. I had resigned from the agency, sold most of my possessions, and taken a job in a foreign country, banking on its reputation for being “friendly, eh?”
Dammit Tommy, how much do you have to let go of before the good stuff comes? I was quiet, my question was earnest, and my loss was palpable. The drone of the jet engines led me to a welcome sleep.
Somewhere over snow-covered Idaho, I woke to clarity and to the resolution I’d been searching for. I rubbed my eyes and found myself smiling, for the first time in a long while. Tommy’s answer had been there all along. It was the same as my answer to Fannie. We’ve had the miracle. The treasure is the journey, not the things or accolades we accumulate along the way. When you stop guarding the treasure, the status quo makes way for movement, for newer treasures, for new memories. The journey is what makes the stories we tell. And it makes for the lives we lead.
The flight attendant broke my thought. “You’ll need to fasten your seatbelt, please. We may have some rough air ahead.”
My response got a polite but puzzled smile from the kind young woman looking down on me. “Maybe,” I replied. “Maybe not. Either way, I plan to enjoy the ride."
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