Interference Read Online Free PDF Page B

days. Like an animal sensing danger, she supposes. Her hearing is better too. She’s fully self-aware, always. It’s dis­concerting. “Off we go,” Mrs. Rathbin shouts, “on a one-horse open sleigh.” Mrs. Rathbin’s open-laced boots have left puddles from the brief morning rain on the floor. Claire sighs. Wonders if Ralph will notice or if he’ll step into the puddles in his socked feet. She pictures him doing this, wandering the house in those wet socks, not bothering to change, leaving footprints behind.
    Claire finds nothing funny these days and she knows she’s in for a long ride with this woman. In the old days she might have thought Mrs. Rathbin was humorous — a strange, large, bustling, weird woman. Someone to study. But right now this fat, busy, opinionated, loud woman is too much. Claire couldn’t have imagined she would ever miss the silent Mr. Manuel. But then there are a lot of things she can’t imagine these days. Like the future. Like what it’s going to feel like at the end. The last seconds. Where will she be? What will she be thinking? Will there be pain? Will she remember things about her life? Will things flash before her, will there be a white light? Will she fight it? Accept it? Scream? Cry? Go silently? Claire has so many questions that she knows will remain unanswered. For a while yet. And by the time they are answered it won’t matter anymore.
    Claire wipes her eyes.
    Sometimes, at night, she sits straight up in bed because she can’t breathe. She can’t breathe as she imagines the end — her end. Sometimes she hyperventilates, rushes to the bathroom before she wakes Ralph. This can’t be it, she thinks. This can’t be all there is.
    The worst thing about all of this is that Claire didn’t even feel sick. Not even for one minute. She was at her yearly physical exam. The doctor sent her for routine tests. She felt great. And then he sat her down, in his office — a room she had never been in before — and he said, “You have cancer.” The second he said that — “You have cancer” — Claire began to feel awful. As if her whole body decided to shut down at once. She felt overwhelmed and sore. Her breast — the evil one — ached. She felt exhausted. And then the operation, the chemotherapy, the radiation, everything conspires together to make you feel so sick you take this disease seriously. But at the very beginning, before she knew, she felt the best she ever had. Yoga classes in full swing, coffees with friends, working just the right amount, her kids fun and independent. Life was good. Sometimes Claire wonders what would have happened if the doctor hadn’t told her. Would she have gotten sick? Maybe she would have gone on indefinitely? Maybe it’s the knowing that makes you sick?
    Claire rubs her head. Now that she’s done the chemotherapy she’s starting to grow peach fuzz, but it’s sharp and itchy. If she wears a hat she can’t stop scratching. But if she doesn’t wear a hat she feels naked and exposed and cold.
    Mrs. Rathbin is struggling with her boots, tripping over the untied laces, fiddling in her large bag for her car keys.
    Claire studies Jude’s picture. He’s eight in the photo. He doesn’t look like a girl now. Not in the least. His voice is so low she can barely hear it — a growl — and there is a small dusting of soft hair on his upper lip. Claire has to be careful changing his bedsheets or taking out his garbage. Balled up Kleenexes everywhere. Wet stains. The juices of a fifteen-year-old boy. He looks at her with sorrow in his eyes. Horrible sorrow. She can feel it leaking from him. He doesn’t know what to say or how to react. His mother’s breast is sick. Her lymph nodes are gone. Just sliced out. And her hair fell out. She has no eyebrows or eyelashes. Eczema on her skin.
    Ralph says that she needs to