Page 33 of Jar of Hearts
“Fine,” Cat says pleasantly enough, but she’s not smiling. Her face is paler than usual, the circles under her eyes the color of eggplant. Her auburn hair, coiffed to perfection on a good day, is limp, and her gray roots are showing. “Same shit, different day.”
“What are you doing out of work, Shaw?” Built like a power lifter, CO Kellerman is actually nicer than he looks, but very strict, with zero sense of humor. Meaty arms flank a barrel chest. “You’re supposed to stay at your work assignment until three-thirty.”
Geo has her explanation ready. “Bukowski said I could close the salon early to help with Cat. She’s going to vomit in about two minutes.”
Kellerman hesitates. He’s assigned to bring Cat back, but a sick, vomiting inmate is wholly unappealing.
“I guess that’s fine,” he says, managing to sound as if he’s doing them a favor. He lets go of Cat’s arm and it drops to her side. “But you take Bonaducci straight back to her cell, you understand? No detours, except the bathroom.”
“Oh, pity, I was hoping to go on a walking tour,” Cat says.
The CO glares at her, but despite her snark, the woman is obviously feeling poorly. The light sheen of sweat across her forehead highlights how pale she is, and her glazed eyes are a tad unfocused.
“Straight to your cells,” Kellerman says again, before walking away.
Geo puts an arm around her friend, supporting her as they walk slowly down the hallway. Cat has lost so much weight, she feels like a bird whose hollow bones might snap under too much pressure. It’s a far cry from the woman Geo met five years ago, so robust and full of life. They reach Cat’s cell and Geo helps her friend sit on the bed, then grabs the bottle of water on the desk. It’s already filled in preparation for Cat’s return from the hospital; after two rounds of this, they both know the drill.
“Easy,” Geo says when the water dribbles down Cat’s chin. “Take your time.”
Cat finishes the water and leans back on her mattress. Her brow is furrowed, an expression of exhaustion and pain. “Fuck, I hate this.”
“I know.” Geo strokes what’s left of Cat’s hair. She still has it, thank god, but it’s thin and has lost all of its former luster. She always looks pale after chemo, but today her skin is the color of tissue paper. “Hang in there. That was your last session.”
“Yeah, for this round,” Cat says. “But how many more rounds? The fucking chemo feels worse than the cancer. If the cancer doesn’t kill me, the goddamned chemo will.”
Geo adjusts Cat’s pillow and removes her running shoes. She covers her with the blanket, then moves the bucket on the floor closer to the bed, within easy reach. At some point, Cat will need to throw up, and because there’s no toilet inside the cell, the bucket will have to do. They have wet cells—cells with their own sink and toilet—only in maximum, and Cat refuses to go back to the maximum-security ward. The inmates are worse, and, besides, she doesn’t have friends there.
Every week after chemotherapy, Geo takes care of Cat’s bucket of vomit, bringing it to the bathroom to empty out and clean. She helps her use the toilet, helps her shower, helps her brush her teeth. Geo doesn’t mind. Caring for Cat reminds her that she’s still a good person, that she can still do good things. It’s easy to forget that in here.
“Look at the bright side,” Geo says with a smile. “You’re done with the chemo for now. Tomorrow you’ll get some energy back, and you’ll feel like yourself again. Lenny’s coming on Saturday—”
“He’s not coming,” Cat says.
“What do you mean?”
“He wants a divorce.” Cat’s voice cracks, and her eyes moisten. “Lenny’s leaving me. He met a woman at one of the casinos, says he’s in love. She owns a nail salon. She probably has great nails.” Cat holds up a gnarled hand. Her fingernails are brutally short and yellowed from the cancer-killing toxins being pumped into her body each week. “Not like mine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Geo is shocked. “When did you find out?”
“He told me last week.”
“And you kept it to yourself the whole time?” Geo feels her anger welling up and does her best to contain it. Anger won’t help Cat now. But the whole thing is so goddamned unfair. “That sonofabitch.”
Cat and Lenny met through the Write-A-Prisoner program. They exchanged letters for six months before he finally came to see her in person. A truck driver who’s on the road three weeks out of every month, their relationship worked quite well; Lenny finally got himself a wife who couldn’t nag him for always being away. They spoke on the phone throughout the week, and he came to see her every weekend when he was home. And every few months they were granted a twenty-four-hour conjugal visit. Hazelwood has half a dozen trailers at the back of the prison equipped with full kitchens, queen-size beds, and TVs, and they would spend that time together eating, watching movies, and having sex. Cat would glow for a whole week when she got back to her cell, recounting every tiny detail to Geo with relish.
When she got sick eight months ago, Lenny vowed to stay with her. Cat’s in her sixties now, but before the cancer, she looked fifteen years younger than that. The look on Lenny’s face when Cat said “I do” to him in the prison chapel remains imprinted in Geo’s brain. And she can still remember the look on her friend’s face that day. The fucking sun had shone out of the woman’s eyes.
Now, her friend’s brown eyes are glassy. The cancer has dried up her once-luminous skin, hollowing out her cheeks, the sagging skin creating jowls around a neck that used to be smooth and firm. Her once-vibrant auburn hair is a brassy rust color, despite Geo’s best efforts in the hair salon. She’s lost so much weight, the skin on her arms and legs hangs like an extra layer of clothing that’s a size too big.
Cat has stage four colon cancer, for fuck’s sake, and her husband can’twait? She could fucking kill Lenny. Without him, Cat will go downhill even faster.
“Don’t be angry at him.” Her friend’s voice breaks into her thoughts. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re going to get out tomorrow and track him down and yell at him, force him to come see me. But don’t, okay?”
It’s exactly what Geo is planning to do. “Give me one good reason why not.”
“Because I’m asking you not to.” Cat squeezes her hand. “It’s more than the cancer that’s killing me, hon. It’s more than Lenny. It’s this goddamnedplace. The grayness of it, the monotony, the fact that every fucking day is the same. It’s the daily bickering and drama between women that are too old to live in a sorority house, which is exactly what it feels like here, doesn’t it? Minus the cute clothes and the boyfriends?”
Geo opens her mouth to respond, but Cat isn’t done.
