Ericka is Sam's mother. She drove to New York from Vermont so that we could help our friend CC move from her boyfriend's condo into a studio apartment a few blocks away. Three days after a double mastectomy, the boyfriend kicked her out. I could use my powers of description and turn this into a drama. But that seems gratuitous.
CC now posts the strangest things on Facebook about having hope in the dark and other crap that I've never found comfort in. I hope all these cliches do something for her because it's pretty obvious that this cancer and boyfriend ordeal may be the worst sorrow of her life.
Sorrow can only be endured alone, this is what I kept thinking as I packed away CC's things. I folded her underwear because she can't move her arms--if that were my underwear, I would have run away from embarrassment. Ericka moved furniture that seemed too heavy for her. Another woman put away kitchen things in a matter of hours. Four children lifted too many boxes. All of us trying to make a home for someone incapable of doing anything for herself, all of us with good intentions. But at the end of the weekend when all the boxes were gone and we all went home, CC is still sick and humiliated and helpless.
"I cannot bear to think of the cruelty at the core of this foul world."
I just read that tonight. The end of a novel I've been struggling with for weeks. And it is true, isn't it? I don't want to believe it. Even as I sit here typing this, I do not quite believe it. I'm not the negative old bag I make myself out to be -- I am, at heart, hopeful and strong.
But I worry about CC. It's frightening to realize that none of us can do anything for her, and this seems like too much all at once.
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