Reggo
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2007
- Messages
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When I finished writing the last chapter, I realised it was hella long, so I've split it into two. Please to enjoy.
Warning: some swears.
Disclaimer: Absotively not true.
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All I Want Is You
After Lucy and I reconciled in Dublin earlier this year, she decided to come along on the tour with us. And she and I got back in the habit of expressing our love for each other physically. That’s awfully flowery, isn’t it? We started fucking again. There. That’s better.
The night before our last gig in Cardiff, I roll off of her. “Who needs the gym when we can do that?” I sigh, content, and I stare at the ceiling, expecting some sort of snarky comment. She doesn’t reply. “Lucy?” I turn toward her.
“Sorry, that hurt for some reason,” she shifts uncomfortably and pulls the blankets over herself. “It’s hurt the last few times we’ve had sex. I don’t know why.”
“I’ll be gentler next time,” I shrug and kiss her.
“It’s not anything you’re doing. Maybe I’m just getting old,” she shrugs. I nod, dozing off. “Good night, Adam,” she says softly and kisses my cheek.
After the gig, the band decides to have a little party to celebrate a successful European leg. Lucy only stays for a half an hour before she leaves, saying she doesn’t feel well. I leave when people start getting drunk and stupid and Lucy’s asleep when I get to our hotel room. I curl up behind her, wrapping as much of myself around her as I can and delighting in the sweet scent of her hair.
Everything goes back to normal until I’m meant to find Lucy for Paul in Toronto and when I do track her down, she’s throwing up in the ladies’ room at the venue. “Everything okay?” I ask, holding her hair out of the way.
“I don’t know. I just hope it’s not what I think it is,” she sighs, then retches into the bowl.
I rub her back. “What do you think it is?” Though I can guess.
She stands up, rinses her mouth with water from the sink and spits it into the toilet. “Well, I’m praying I’m not pregnant.”
Pregnant. I can’t help but smile. I didn’t think I even liked children until I had Aurora. This one will be number five. Of course, the thought that I’m still a virile man appeals to my inner Neanderthal. She sighs when he looks at me. “Of course you’re thrilled. You don’t have to go through nine months of ankle-swelling, belly-stretching hell.”
“You’re right, but I don’t see any downside to us having another child,” I shrug.
“There isn’t. I’m just not sure that’s something I want to do,” she flushes the toilet. “I heard McGuinness is looking for me. What does he want?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell him you’re sleeping. Why don’t you go lay down?”
She kisses me and I am a little disgusted by the taste of vomit on her lips. I don’t know how she manages it, but she falls asleep in the dressing room and sleeps through an entire gig and through most of the next morning. Lucy doesn’t start barfing again, but then she doesn’t eat much either.
At the first Foxborough gig, it seems like she’s always in the loo for one reason or another. I see her double over coming out after lunch and she’s sobbing because her stomach won’t quit cramping. I rush Lucy to the hospital and they treat her for gas pains and release her in time for the gig.
By the second night in East Rutherford, the pain is back and it’s not letting up, and I’m afraid she’s going to miscarry. I call her obstetrician in New York and get her in under an emergency noon appointment, my schedule be damned.
After a thorough examination, the doctor sighs.
“I’m not pregnant, am I, Dr Carroll?” Lucy asks as she gets dressed.
“No, Lucy, you’re not,” she says bluntly. I take Lucy’s hand and brace myself for whatever may be coming next. “I’m not sure what this is exactly, but I’m going to order some blood tests, okay?” Lucy nods. “In the meantime, let’s get rid of that pain and nausea, hmm?” Dr Carroll writes her a couple of prescriptions. “We should get all the tests back in a week or so, but these should last you a month, if you need it. I don’t think we really have anything to worry about here.”
Nothing to worry about.
Nothing to worry about starts with ten vacuum tubes of blood being drawn. A prescription for Phenergan. And another for Vicodin. Nothing to worry about is another month of discomfort, vomiting and sleepless nights for Lucy because of her belly pain. The Vicodin makes her not care about the pain, though it is obviously still there, by the way she moves, and the anti-nausea drugs only postpone the inevitable. Lucy starts taking them more frequently so they won’t wear off and she won’t be hunched over a toilet for hours.
She gives me a scare in Oklahoma. It takes me a full hour to wake her up. I thought she’d gone into a coma, or worse. She’d taken an extra Vicodin so she could sleep.
“I’m sorry, Adam. I’m just so exhausted. I needed some sleep,” she says softly.
I want to scream at her, because she scared me to death, but I know how hard this past month has been for her. “It’s okay. Just let me know next time, okay?”
She nods and I let her go back to sleep, under supervision, of course, which comes in the form of our nanny, Felicia O’Grady. She’s 19 and a bubbly, sweet Irish girl with endless patience, perfect for Nate, Lola, and Samantha. I ask Felicia to keep an eye on Lucy while she minds the children in our suite.
As we’re flying into Vancouver, Lucy’s cell phone rings. I help her up and she goes to the back of the plane to take it. Everyone sits in silence until she gets off the phone and walks back to her seat.
Nothing to worry about is about to become something to worry about.
Lucy clearly wants to cry, but she holds herself together. “That was Dr Carroll.” She sighs. “They found some abnormal cells when they did the blood tests, so they grew a culture. Turns out they came from my abdomen, so she wants to do an exploratory surgery to find out where they’re coming from exactly.” Lucy closes her eyes, either in pain, or to keep the looks of pity away. “So I’ll be staying in New York after the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame gig while you guys go on to Berlin.”
No one says anything for a while. Edge looks at his knees, wanting to say something, but keeping quiet. Bono starts furiously texting, probably Ali. Lucy sits down in the empty seat next to Lola, who was sitting across from Larry. Lucy puts her feet on Larry’s armrest and dares him to say something about it with a look. Instead, he decides to lighten the mood.
“So is your doctor Louisa Carroll?”
Lucy groans at the bad pun and nudges him with her foot, but laughs anyway. He takes off her shoe, grabs her toes with his left hand, and touches the sole of her foot with his right index finger.
“No, Larry, come on. Laughing makes my stomach hurt. Don’t,” she giggles and tries to pull her foot away.
“But I’m not doing anything,” he grins.
They stare at each other, smiling, then Lucy speaks up. “God, your nose is huge. I bet I could stick my big toe up there. C’mere, let me try,” She stretches her left foot into his face and he bats it away.
Larry glares at her, still smiling, “Bitch.” He lets her foot go.
“Gorilla nose,” Lucy sticks her tongue out at him.
Bono suddenly cracks up laughing, “Louisa Carroll! I get it!”
“Nice of you to join the rest of us, B,” Larry laughs. Bono folds his arms and pouts.
Till then, I had never realised that Lucy’s obstetrician shared her name with the author of Alice In Wonderland, but now I find it fitting. Because we were about to find out just how deep the rabbit-hole will go.
Since she was with us for the Hall of Fame gig, I played well there, but Berlin was utter crap. I would freeze every time I thought I felt my phone ring. Luckily we got through it, but I couldn’t sleep that night, pacing my hotel room and then the plane, waiting for Patrick to call me, my imagination torturing me with scenarios that gradually grew worse as time wore on. Somewhere over the English Channel, I finally got the phone call.
“How is she?” Fuck pleasantries.
“She’s recovering, but it’s definitely cancer. Her belly’s full of tumours. They’re doing a biopsy to make sure, but they’re going to go back in and take out as much of it as they can and pray it hasn’t spread,” Patrick says as quickly as he can.
Cancer. Lucy has cancer.
“When?” I ask, sitting in the closest chair and trying to hide how my insides are crumbling from my children and band mates.
“Within a week, if I remember correctly. It’s kind of been a hailstorm of information and I’m trying to keep it all straight,” Patrick replies.
“Right. Well, thanks for being there with her. I wish I could’ve been, but we’re on our way now,” I explain.
Cancer. My God, Lucy has cancer.
“I’ll let her know once she comes out of the anaesthesia,” Patrick hangs up and I stare at my phone, hoping that had just been my imagination again, but the call log didn’t lie. Patrick had called. Lucy has cancer.
When I look up, Edge, Nathan, Samantha, and Bono are staring at me. Larry and Lola have dozed off.
“Is Lucy okay?” Bono asks gently.
“Patrick said she was coming out of the anaesthesia just fine,” I say and shrug. Edge gives me a look that tells me to stop deflecting. “But they found cancer. A lot of it. She has another surgery next week to take it all out.”
“Is Mommy going to die?” Samantha asks, her eyes filled with tears.
“No, baby,” I lift her up and hug her tight. “Mum’s going to be fine.” I sit down in her seat and hold her on my lap. “Her doctors need to take the cancer out so she can get better.”
“What kind of cancer is it?” Nathan asks.
“Patrick didn’t say. Maybe they don’t know yet,” I shrug. “But we’ll find out when we get to New York.”
The plane drops off Larry, Edge, and Bono in Dublin. Then Nathan, Lola, Samantha, and I sleep on our trans-Atlantic flight. Well, I try to sleep. I watch my daughters and wonder if the same fate can befall them.
There is a chance with Lola; biologically, Lucy is her aunt. Selina slept with Larry, posing as Lucy. Lucy convinced Selina that the baby would be better off with us (I’m still not 100% sure she didn’t just curse her or something) and after Lucy faked a pregnancy, we adopted the baby from Selina.
I don’t suppose there is a chance with Samantha. She’s the result of me being an idiot and an asshole and sleeping with a groupie while Lucy and I were going through a very rough patch. Dayna, Samantha’s mother, got sent to prison for life for murdering her drug dealer (yes, I picked a winner) and I got custody of a little girl I didn’t even know existed until a social worker dropped her off at the Wembley gig. Lucy didn’t get angry; she said that since I’ve forgiven her for the lovers she’s taken since our separation, she would forgive me for this.
The plane lands in New York and I wake the kids and we go straight to the hospital. Lucy is awake, but clearly exhausted when we arrive.
“Hi, guys,” she smiles and tries to sit up. She can’t move by herself, so the repositions the hospital bed. “Did you have fun in Berlin?”
“Lola bemoaned the fact that we were in Germany while you were here almost constantly. And Felicia wouldn’t let me build anything. It’s Invention Day. She’s supposed to let me build something,” Nathan glares at her. “I bet she still believes light travels in a wave,” he snickers.
“Nathan, be nice,” Lucy says firmly. Nate sits on the edge of her bed. “How did the gig go?”
“I was too distracted to play very well. I…sucked,” I chuckle dryly.
Lucy nods, “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault we had to go to Berlin. Edge didn’t want to go, either,” I shrug, hoping this makes her feel better.
Lucy closes her eyes and starts to doze off and Lola bursts into tears. Lucy wakes instantly.
“Mummy, no!” she shrieks.
“Lola, I’m gonna be okay,” Lucy takes her hand. “And I’m definitely not going anywhere this afternoon, okay?”
Lola nods, but she’s still shaken up. I pick her up and set her in my lap as I sit in a chair by Lucy’s bedside.
“Recognize the room, Adam?” Lucy asks. I look around and shake my head. “This is the room Aurora was born in.” I don’t have time to feel truly gutted because a knock comes at the door and a male doctor in his fifties walks in carrying a thick chart.
“Oh, your family’s here. Am I interrupting?” he asks.
“No, it’s fine,” I say. Lucy has drifted off to sleep and I shake her awake.
“Hmm?” She takes a breath in as she wakes, then looks at the doctor. “Dr. Moseley,” she smiles, “my oncologist.”
“Hi, there,” he chuckles at Lucy. Then he looks at me closely. “Are you Adam Clayton, like the Adam Clayton?”
“Yes,” I say, hating my celebrity more at that moment than ever before.
“I saw you in Jersey in September. That show was fucking amazing!” Dr Moseley continues praising the band and I manage to stop him after a few minutes by raising my hand.
“My wife is dying of cancer,” I say sternly, as if I must remind him.
Lola stars crying, “You said she wasn’t going to die.”
“I was just exaggerating, honey,” I glare at the doctor.
“I’m sorry, Mr Clayton,” Dr Moseley snaps back into professionalism. “I scheduled your surgery for next Thursday. We hope to do as much laparoscopically to minimize scarring.”
“I’m a scalpel slut, so I don’t mind scars. I’m covered in them. I think they’re kind of cool,” Lucy’s voice lilts and she has a goofy, dazed grin on her face. “Tré likes my scars,” she mumbles before drifting off to sleep again. I try to wake her again.
“They’ve got her on some pretty strong pain killers to deal with the surgery and muscle relaxers for her stomach cramps. Once she starts recovering, she won’t need them as much,” the oncologist explains. “I’d like to talk to you about her prognosis, but I don’t want to scare your children,” he says softly.
“Let’s talk in the hall then,” I set Lola in the chair where I was sitting. “I’ll be right back,” I follow Dr Moseley into the hall and shut the door. “How long does she have?” I fold my arms.
“Well, it had progressed,” he says, “but we can try chemo and if she responds well to that, she might have another six months.”
“Six months,” I repeat. Six months from November is May. She has until May. “Okay,” I nod. “Worst case scenario?”
“She won’t see Christmas,” Dr Moseley delivers the bad news bluntly. I try not to react. “I’m sorry. We’re doing everything we can for her.”
“I know. It’s just…painful.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder. “This sort of news is never easy. I’m very sorry. But we are going to do everything we can for her.”
“I know,” I nod again, “but Nathan as Asperger’s and Lola will probably be taken away to live with her biological father, because our adoption of her was unofficial. I barely know enough about raising kids to share custody since we’re technically divorced, but I’ve had to hire a nanny because I’m so busy, I rarely get to be home for any measurable period of time.”
“It sounds like you’re doing the best you can,” he pats my shoulder then looks at this watch. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go and see my other patients. Take care, Mr Clayton.”
I nod, dumbly, a third time. He walks away.
The best I could do would be to quit. Pack it in with the band and take care of my wife. Maybe if I do that, she might have more than six months.
But I have tour dates. I have a four-month-long tour next year. It kicks off in June, so if this doctor’s right, she’ll be gone by then. And Edge and Bono want to finish Songs of Ascent before we leave again. Why can’t they do the experimental shit without me? Edge is a more-than-competent bass player, he can write and record my parts and I’ll learn to play them in case we release something as a single, like "Miss Sarajevo".
Yes, I’m being an idiot; I just don’t want to leave Lucy.
I stay with Lucy in the hospital until her second surgery. Moseley invites me to watch from the gallery, but I can’t. I want to be as close to her as I can, but I can’t watch them hack into her and rip her insides out. I wear a groove in the surgical waiting room floor, texting Felicia and Edge, making sure the kids are behaving and talking out every scenario that could come of this surgery. Edge does his best to keep me thinking positive, but my stomach falls through the floor and I have that crumbling feeling when I hear a code being called in one of the operating rooms. I hope it’s not Lucy, and I hope they’re able to bring her back if it is her. I’m just not ready to let her go yet.
Twenty agonizing, breathless minutes later, Dr Moseley comes in the waiting room. “She looks good,” he says first and I can breathe again. “Now, we had to do a full hysterectomy. We took out her uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes. We also had to remove several lymph nodes from her pelvic area, abdomen, and up into her chest. As a precaution, we took out her omenta, spleen, and appendix as well,” the oncologist is listing off the body parts that they removed and I’m starting to wonder if they left anything in. “It appears she has stage III ovarian cancer. Now, to make sure we get it all, I’m going to start her on chemo in six weeks, once she’s recovered from the surgery.”
“So she’ll be in the hospital again for Christmas?” I ask, already dreading explaining that to the kids.
“Oh, no. Chemotherapy is only one day a month,” Moseley claps me on the back. “She may not be feeling very well, but you’ll have her home for the holidays.”
“Thanks,” I nod. “Can I go see her?”
“She’s still in recovery. We’ll be bringing her back to her room when she’s come out of the anaesthesia.” Dr Moseley walks out of the room to talk to another doctor. I sit down in a chair and sigh and look at the ceiling. I’m relieved that she made it through the surgery without complications, but now I’m even more anxious about the future. Chemotherapy is a wonderful treatment, but it is nasty shit. If we thought she felt awful before, she’s only going to feel worse with that running through her veins.
I walk to her room and find her awake.
“They took a lot out,” she says in a gravely voice as I sit on her bed. “But they think they got most of the cancer,” she coughs from speaking too much after being intubated.
“You don’t have to talk, Lucy. Dr Moseley explained it all to me,” I take her hand. “Now we just have to get through chemo and hope for the best.”
“I’m not looking forward to chemo,” she whispers to avoid coughing again.
“I know. I’m not either. But if it will get rid of the cancer, isn’t that something to look forward to?” I kiss her forehead.
“You’re an eternal optimist, Adam,” she smiles. “You should get home and have dinner with the kids. Tell them I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to leave you alone if--”
“Adam, I’m just going to sleep. I’ll be okay,” she squeezes my hand. “Go see the kids and have dinner. Get out of here for a while.”
She won’t be happy unless I listen to her. I kiss her, “See you later.” I go home and tell a very worried Nathan, Lola, and Samantha that their mother will be fine. I order in a pizza and watch a movie with them. Felicia helps me get them to bed, then I call Edge. I tell him how much they took out of Lucy and how worried I am that chemo will make things worse instead of better.
“Chemo was one of the things that made Sian better,” Edge reminds me. “And yeah, it’s gonna be hell on her system, but it gets better because she will start getting better. And after the longest six months of your life, she won’t have cancer anymore, you know, and things will start getting back to normal.”
“I hope so. That’s when the tour starts again,” I sigh. “All I do anymore is worry about Lucy.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Adam. I thought it as bad enough with Sian, but from what you’ve told me, it sounds like Lucy’s worse than Sian ever was,” Edge says gently.
“Do you think she will die from this?” I ask bluntly.
“Well, I’m no expert or anything, but I guess there’s a chance.”
“Okay,” I sniffle. “Thanks for the chat, Edge.”
“Adam, I didn’t--”
I hang up. I sit on my bed, my knees pulled to my chest. It’s time I was realistic about this. No matter how much I love her or how hard she fights this, and no matter what the doctors throw at it, this cancer is going to take her life sooner rather than later. I expect to start crying, but nothing comes. I sleep extremely well that night. I guess there’s some peace in facing the truth.
Lucy comes home five days after her surgery and she bounces back quickly. Her stomach pains are gone and she’s able to eat without puking, move without wincing, and sleep all the way through the night. I don’t want to lose that small victory, but she starts chemo two days before Christmas.
She’s nauseous Christmas Eve, but gets it under control with a stronger anti-nausea drug and ginger tea. She’s fatigued, but by New Year’s Eve, she wants to take the kids to Times Square to watch the ball drop. I suggest we just watch it on TV instead. And her hair doesn’t seem to be falling out. The chemo may not be so bad after all. I spoil the kids rotten for Christmas. Lucy scolds me for it, but I spoil her rotten, too. For the first time, I feel optimistic about this whole cancer thing, if this is all chemo is going to do to her.
My optimism was just naïveté. The next round of chemo wreaks havoc on her body. Most of her hair falls out one morning while she’s brushing it out and I find her on the floor of our en suite bathroom, handfuls of her hair in her fists, and she’s weeping terribly. I sit on the floor, scoop her up and cry with her, upset that she’s upset and my hopes dashed.
“It just keeps coming out, Adam,” she moans into my chest.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s just for a little while. We’ll get you some wigs or some scarves until it grows back, okay?” I kiss the top of her head. “You’re still beautiful to me.”
That makes her smile. She tries to get up, but can’t pull herself to her feet. I pick her up and carry her to bed.
“Looks like we’re going to take it easy today, hmm?” I kiss her forehead as I set her down. I help her prop up some pillows behind her back.
“Adam, register Lola and Nate in school. They’re bored and I don’t want them getting behind. I also think you should release a statement, even if it’s just a little one, to let your fans know what’s going on and so no rumours get started in the tabloids, you know?” She turns on the television and gets comfortable. “Could you get me some ginger tea, too? My stomach’s starting to turn a little.”
I do everything she asks. I also hire a cook and a housekeeper, as I’m hopeless at both, Lucy tries, but gets too tired, and it’s unfair to Felicia to rely on her for everything. Nate gets in trouble the first week of school for saying that his science teacher’s only contribution to science in the past twenty years was lighting her own farts. Nathan’s only defence? “To be fair, I prefaced that with all due respect.” I’m mortified, Lucy treats him like a hero, but we both agree that he has to apologise. He does, begrudgingly, and we have him transferred into the advanced-placement science class.
The third dose of chemo completely sidelines Lucy for a week. But we’re halfway through it now; it can only get better from here, right? She’s put on a diet of clear liquids until her stomach settles down, so the cook and I get creative so she doesn’t get sick of chicken broth and Jell-O. I see the beginnings of World War III starting between my daughters in the sitting room when Samantha says that Lola talks funny.
“I do not! I sound just like Daddy,” Lola folds her arms.
“Daddy talks funny, too,” Sam says. Lola smacks her younger sister on the shoulder and Samantha starts crying.
“Lola! That was uncalled for. Go to your room. You’re grounded for the rest of the night,” I say. Lola sulks to her bedroom. Lucy looks up from her book and smiles. “What?”
“Listen to you, taking charge. I’m proud of you,” She sits up and kisses me.
“Actually, neither Dad nor Lola talks funny, Samantha. Both of them have spent most of their lives in Ireland, giving them their distinct accents, while Mom, you, and I have spent almost our entire lives in America, and therefore we have a different accent. Hardly grounds for a physical altercation,” Nathan says without looking up from whatever he’s doing on his laptop, probably building himself his own version of the Large Hadron Collider.
Tré finds out she’s sick and calls her. Lucy insists she’s fine and that he doesn’t need to come to New York, but they talk and laugh for two hours straight. I’m glad she’s found something to bolster her spirits; I just wish I was a part of that. Bono comes to New York for a visit and brings Lucy a present. He and Ali designed a scarf for her and they are going to sell more just like it through Edun. He asks Lucy if she wants to be the model for the website.
Her face lights up. Something to do besides sitting around the house feeling miserable. “I’d love to!” She hugs him. “Oh, thank you, B!” she kisses his cheek.
“I’ll call Anton and see when he’s free,” he winks at her.
“Anton?” Lucy squeals then giggles at herself. I don’t discourage her. I couldn’t if I tried, anyway. Besides, she needs something to do to feel a little bit normal. It’s not Broadway, but it’s something.
The photo shoot takes place that weekend and Lucy has a ball, joking with Anton and playing with Bono, dragging him into most of the shots. My favourite pose from the shoot was one of Lucy and Bono. She has her arm around Bono’s neck and she’s kissing the side of his head, her nose displacing his sunglasses, while he’s looking at the camera with a bemused look on his face. Another good one is Lucy with her beautiful bald head blindfolding Bono with the scarf and Bono trying to lift it up. The one we end up using is of her laughing at my reaction to Bono goosing me. Anton lets me have a flash drive of the outtakes after the shoot.
Lucy takes the fourth dose of chemo head-on, rejuvenated by having a purpose. Edge and Larry join Bono in New York and drag me, kicking and screaming, into the studio to finish Songs of Ascent. I add a nurse to the staff to keep an eye on Lucy while I’m away for hours and hours at a time. We quickly work through finishing the album and they drag me along to do the press for it before the tour starts and I miss being with Lucy for her fifth dose of chemo. The press tour for Songs is purposely less intensive than the one for No Line On The Horizon, so I can be back home in time for Lucy’s final chemo treatment.
It wipes her out, it makes her sick, but there’s such a huge feeling of relief, because now that chemo’s over and she’s lived a month longer than she was supposed to, cancer’s over. She’s going to get better now and Dr Moseley had no idea how strong Lucy’s spirit is when he gave us that piddly prognosis.
We decide to celebrate the milestone by inviting our friends for a night out. I reserve an entire restaurant and Bono, Ali, Edge, Morleigh, Larry, Ann, Lucy’s brother Patrick, everyone who works for Principle In New York, and about fifty of Lucy’s closest friends from Broadway show up. And her friends are some pretty big stars, too. Bebe Neuwirth, Bernadette Peters, and Megan Mullally to name a few. I’m not sure if Lucy invited him or not, but Tré Cool crashes the party and spends almost an hour hogging Lucy’s attention in a booth before she climbs over him to talk to someone else. He leaves soon after.
We sit down to order dinner and Lucy stares at me instead of looking over her menu. I look over and realise she’s glaring at me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“’What’s wrong?’!” She repeats, like I’ve given nuclear secrets to the enemy. “Aurora’s home with a fever of 103 and we’re out having a party? What the hell is wrong with you?” She throws her napkin on the table and stands up. “I have to go.” I get up and follow her. She gets a few steps away and stops.
“Lucy?” I ask softly, standing behind her, embarrassed with a hundred pairs of eyes on us.
“Adam,” she reaches back and she grabs my wrist. She turns and she’s shaking. “I don’t remember how I got here,” she whispers. “I’m scared, honey.”
“Do you need to go home?” I take her hands.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t remember this party, Adam. I’ve had this headache, but I thought it was just from the chemo,” she touches her forehead. “What if it’s something bad?”
“We’ll call Dr Moseley in the morning,” I kiss her. “Do you feel like coming back to dinner?” She nods and we sit back down. The party is much more subdued after that. Everyone starts treating Lucy like she’s fragile and instead of being finished with this bastard of a disease, this party suddenly seems all too premature. Chemo may be over, but she’s not cured yet.
Lucy starts crying in the cab ride home I hold her and carry her from the taxi to our bedroom. I get her changed into a nightgown and tuck her into bed. Exhausted from the party and crying, she goes to sleep quickly. I slip into my office so Lucy won’t hear me.
That night is the first night I really cry over what is happening to Lucy. I’d of course cried with her when she got frustrated or scared. And we had mourned the loss of her gorgeous blonde hair together, but that night, I completely lose my composure. I don’t want to go on tour anymore. I don’t want our lives to continue to march forward, because the end of hers seems so dangerously close. And now her memory is slipping. What if the cancer has spread and it’s in her brain?
I convince myself for about fifteen minutes that the chemo somehow gave her Alzheimer’s, but logic takes over and I’m up until 4 in the morning researching brain cancers on the internet, trying to diagnose and cure Lucy in the three-week window before the tenth of June.
Warning: some swears.
Disclaimer: Absotively not true.
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All I Want Is You
After Lucy and I reconciled in Dublin earlier this year, she decided to come along on the tour with us. And she and I got back in the habit of expressing our love for each other physically. That’s awfully flowery, isn’t it? We started fucking again. There. That’s better.
The night before our last gig in Cardiff, I roll off of her. “Who needs the gym when we can do that?” I sigh, content, and I stare at the ceiling, expecting some sort of snarky comment. She doesn’t reply. “Lucy?” I turn toward her.
“Sorry, that hurt for some reason,” she shifts uncomfortably and pulls the blankets over herself. “It’s hurt the last few times we’ve had sex. I don’t know why.”
“I’ll be gentler next time,” I shrug and kiss her.
“It’s not anything you’re doing. Maybe I’m just getting old,” she shrugs. I nod, dozing off. “Good night, Adam,” she says softly and kisses my cheek.
After the gig, the band decides to have a little party to celebrate a successful European leg. Lucy only stays for a half an hour before she leaves, saying she doesn’t feel well. I leave when people start getting drunk and stupid and Lucy’s asleep when I get to our hotel room. I curl up behind her, wrapping as much of myself around her as I can and delighting in the sweet scent of her hair.
Everything goes back to normal until I’m meant to find Lucy for Paul in Toronto and when I do track her down, she’s throwing up in the ladies’ room at the venue. “Everything okay?” I ask, holding her hair out of the way.
“I don’t know. I just hope it’s not what I think it is,” she sighs, then retches into the bowl.
I rub her back. “What do you think it is?” Though I can guess.
She stands up, rinses her mouth with water from the sink and spits it into the toilet. “Well, I’m praying I’m not pregnant.”
Pregnant. I can’t help but smile. I didn’t think I even liked children until I had Aurora. This one will be number five. Of course, the thought that I’m still a virile man appeals to my inner Neanderthal. She sighs when he looks at me. “Of course you’re thrilled. You don’t have to go through nine months of ankle-swelling, belly-stretching hell.”
“You’re right, but I don’t see any downside to us having another child,” I shrug.
“There isn’t. I’m just not sure that’s something I want to do,” she flushes the toilet. “I heard McGuinness is looking for me. What does he want?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell him you’re sleeping. Why don’t you go lay down?”
She kisses me and I am a little disgusted by the taste of vomit on her lips. I don’t know how she manages it, but she falls asleep in the dressing room and sleeps through an entire gig and through most of the next morning. Lucy doesn’t start barfing again, but then she doesn’t eat much either.
At the first Foxborough gig, it seems like she’s always in the loo for one reason or another. I see her double over coming out after lunch and she’s sobbing because her stomach won’t quit cramping. I rush Lucy to the hospital and they treat her for gas pains and release her in time for the gig.
By the second night in East Rutherford, the pain is back and it’s not letting up, and I’m afraid she’s going to miscarry. I call her obstetrician in New York and get her in under an emergency noon appointment, my schedule be damned.
After a thorough examination, the doctor sighs.
“I’m not pregnant, am I, Dr Carroll?” Lucy asks as she gets dressed.
“No, Lucy, you’re not,” she says bluntly. I take Lucy’s hand and brace myself for whatever may be coming next. “I’m not sure what this is exactly, but I’m going to order some blood tests, okay?” Lucy nods. “In the meantime, let’s get rid of that pain and nausea, hmm?” Dr Carroll writes her a couple of prescriptions. “We should get all the tests back in a week or so, but these should last you a month, if you need it. I don’t think we really have anything to worry about here.”
Nothing to worry about.
Nothing to worry about starts with ten vacuum tubes of blood being drawn. A prescription for Phenergan. And another for Vicodin. Nothing to worry about is another month of discomfort, vomiting and sleepless nights for Lucy because of her belly pain. The Vicodin makes her not care about the pain, though it is obviously still there, by the way she moves, and the anti-nausea drugs only postpone the inevitable. Lucy starts taking them more frequently so they won’t wear off and she won’t be hunched over a toilet for hours.
She gives me a scare in Oklahoma. It takes me a full hour to wake her up. I thought she’d gone into a coma, or worse. She’d taken an extra Vicodin so she could sleep.
“I’m sorry, Adam. I’m just so exhausted. I needed some sleep,” she says softly.
I want to scream at her, because she scared me to death, but I know how hard this past month has been for her. “It’s okay. Just let me know next time, okay?”
She nods and I let her go back to sleep, under supervision, of course, which comes in the form of our nanny, Felicia O’Grady. She’s 19 and a bubbly, sweet Irish girl with endless patience, perfect for Nate, Lola, and Samantha. I ask Felicia to keep an eye on Lucy while she minds the children in our suite.
As we’re flying into Vancouver, Lucy’s cell phone rings. I help her up and she goes to the back of the plane to take it. Everyone sits in silence until she gets off the phone and walks back to her seat.
Nothing to worry about is about to become something to worry about.
Lucy clearly wants to cry, but she holds herself together. “That was Dr Carroll.” She sighs. “They found some abnormal cells when they did the blood tests, so they grew a culture. Turns out they came from my abdomen, so she wants to do an exploratory surgery to find out where they’re coming from exactly.” Lucy closes her eyes, either in pain, or to keep the looks of pity away. “So I’ll be staying in New York after the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame gig while you guys go on to Berlin.”
No one says anything for a while. Edge looks at his knees, wanting to say something, but keeping quiet. Bono starts furiously texting, probably Ali. Lucy sits down in the empty seat next to Lola, who was sitting across from Larry. Lucy puts her feet on Larry’s armrest and dares him to say something about it with a look. Instead, he decides to lighten the mood.
“So is your doctor Louisa Carroll?”
Lucy groans at the bad pun and nudges him with her foot, but laughs anyway. He takes off her shoe, grabs her toes with his left hand, and touches the sole of her foot with his right index finger.
“No, Larry, come on. Laughing makes my stomach hurt. Don’t,” she giggles and tries to pull her foot away.
“But I’m not doing anything,” he grins.
They stare at each other, smiling, then Lucy speaks up. “God, your nose is huge. I bet I could stick my big toe up there. C’mere, let me try,” She stretches her left foot into his face and he bats it away.
Larry glares at her, still smiling, “Bitch.” He lets her foot go.
“Gorilla nose,” Lucy sticks her tongue out at him.
Bono suddenly cracks up laughing, “Louisa Carroll! I get it!”
“Nice of you to join the rest of us, B,” Larry laughs. Bono folds his arms and pouts.
Till then, I had never realised that Lucy’s obstetrician shared her name with the author of Alice In Wonderland, but now I find it fitting. Because we were about to find out just how deep the rabbit-hole will go.
Since she was with us for the Hall of Fame gig, I played well there, but Berlin was utter crap. I would freeze every time I thought I felt my phone ring. Luckily we got through it, but I couldn’t sleep that night, pacing my hotel room and then the plane, waiting for Patrick to call me, my imagination torturing me with scenarios that gradually grew worse as time wore on. Somewhere over the English Channel, I finally got the phone call.
“How is she?” Fuck pleasantries.
“She’s recovering, but it’s definitely cancer. Her belly’s full of tumours. They’re doing a biopsy to make sure, but they’re going to go back in and take out as much of it as they can and pray it hasn’t spread,” Patrick says as quickly as he can.
Cancer. Lucy has cancer.
“When?” I ask, sitting in the closest chair and trying to hide how my insides are crumbling from my children and band mates.
“Within a week, if I remember correctly. It’s kind of been a hailstorm of information and I’m trying to keep it all straight,” Patrick replies.
“Right. Well, thanks for being there with her. I wish I could’ve been, but we’re on our way now,” I explain.
Cancer. My God, Lucy has cancer.
“I’ll let her know once she comes out of the anaesthesia,” Patrick hangs up and I stare at my phone, hoping that had just been my imagination again, but the call log didn’t lie. Patrick had called. Lucy has cancer.
When I look up, Edge, Nathan, Samantha, and Bono are staring at me. Larry and Lola have dozed off.
“Is Lucy okay?” Bono asks gently.
“Patrick said she was coming out of the anaesthesia just fine,” I say and shrug. Edge gives me a look that tells me to stop deflecting. “But they found cancer. A lot of it. She has another surgery next week to take it all out.”
“Is Mommy going to die?” Samantha asks, her eyes filled with tears.
“No, baby,” I lift her up and hug her tight. “Mum’s going to be fine.” I sit down in her seat and hold her on my lap. “Her doctors need to take the cancer out so she can get better.”
“What kind of cancer is it?” Nathan asks.
“Patrick didn’t say. Maybe they don’t know yet,” I shrug. “But we’ll find out when we get to New York.”
The plane drops off Larry, Edge, and Bono in Dublin. Then Nathan, Lola, Samantha, and I sleep on our trans-Atlantic flight. Well, I try to sleep. I watch my daughters and wonder if the same fate can befall them.
There is a chance with Lola; biologically, Lucy is her aunt. Selina slept with Larry, posing as Lucy. Lucy convinced Selina that the baby would be better off with us (I’m still not 100% sure she didn’t just curse her or something) and after Lucy faked a pregnancy, we adopted the baby from Selina.
I don’t suppose there is a chance with Samantha. She’s the result of me being an idiot and an asshole and sleeping with a groupie while Lucy and I were going through a very rough patch. Dayna, Samantha’s mother, got sent to prison for life for murdering her drug dealer (yes, I picked a winner) and I got custody of a little girl I didn’t even know existed until a social worker dropped her off at the Wembley gig. Lucy didn’t get angry; she said that since I’ve forgiven her for the lovers she’s taken since our separation, she would forgive me for this.
The plane lands in New York and I wake the kids and we go straight to the hospital. Lucy is awake, but clearly exhausted when we arrive.
“Hi, guys,” she smiles and tries to sit up. She can’t move by herself, so the repositions the hospital bed. “Did you have fun in Berlin?”
“Lola bemoaned the fact that we were in Germany while you were here almost constantly. And Felicia wouldn’t let me build anything. It’s Invention Day. She’s supposed to let me build something,” Nathan glares at her. “I bet she still believes light travels in a wave,” he snickers.
“Nathan, be nice,” Lucy says firmly. Nate sits on the edge of her bed. “How did the gig go?”
“I was too distracted to play very well. I…sucked,” I chuckle dryly.
Lucy nods, “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault we had to go to Berlin. Edge didn’t want to go, either,” I shrug, hoping this makes her feel better.
Lucy closes her eyes and starts to doze off and Lola bursts into tears. Lucy wakes instantly.
“Mummy, no!” she shrieks.
“Lola, I’m gonna be okay,” Lucy takes her hand. “And I’m definitely not going anywhere this afternoon, okay?”
Lola nods, but she’s still shaken up. I pick her up and set her in my lap as I sit in a chair by Lucy’s bedside.
“Recognize the room, Adam?” Lucy asks. I look around and shake my head. “This is the room Aurora was born in.” I don’t have time to feel truly gutted because a knock comes at the door and a male doctor in his fifties walks in carrying a thick chart.
“Oh, your family’s here. Am I interrupting?” he asks.
“No, it’s fine,” I say. Lucy has drifted off to sleep and I shake her awake.
“Hmm?” She takes a breath in as she wakes, then looks at the doctor. “Dr. Moseley,” she smiles, “my oncologist.”
“Hi, there,” he chuckles at Lucy. Then he looks at me closely. “Are you Adam Clayton, like the Adam Clayton?”
“Yes,” I say, hating my celebrity more at that moment than ever before.
“I saw you in Jersey in September. That show was fucking amazing!” Dr Moseley continues praising the band and I manage to stop him after a few minutes by raising my hand.
“My wife is dying of cancer,” I say sternly, as if I must remind him.
Lola stars crying, “You said she wasn’t going to die.”
“I was just exaggerating, honey,” I glare at the doctor.
“I’m sorry, Mr Clayton,” Dr Moseley snaps back into professionalism. “I scheduled your surgery for next Thursday. We hope to do as much laparoscopically to minimize scarring.”
“I’m a scalpel slut, so I don’t mind scars. I’m covered in them. I think they’re kind of cool,” Lucy’s voice lilts and she has a goofy, dazed grin on her face. “Tré likes my scars,” she mumbles before drifting off to sleep again. I try to wake her again.
“They’ve got her on some pretty strong pain killers to deal with the surgery and muscle relaxers for her stomach cramps. Once she starts recovering, she won’t need them as much,” the oncologist explains. “I’d like to talk to you about her prognosis, but I don’t want to scare your children,” he says softly.
“Let’s talk in the hall then,” I set Lola in the chair where I was sitting. “I’ll be right back,” I follow Dr Moseley into the hall and shut the door. “How long does she have?” I fold my arms.
“Well, it had progressed,” he says, “but we can try chemo and if she responds well to that, she might have another six months.”
“Six months,” I repeat. Six months from November is May. She has until May. “Okay,” I nod. “Worst case scenario?”
“She won’t see Christmas,” Dr Moseley delivers the bad news bluntly. I try not to react. “I’m sorry. We’re doing everything we can for her.”
“I know. It’s just…painful.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder. “This sort of news is never easy. I’m very sorry. But we are going to do everything we can for her.”
“I know,” I nod again, “but Nathan as Asperger’s and Lola will probably be taken away to live with her biological father, because our adoption of her was unofficial. I barely know enough about raising kids to share custody since we’re technically divorced, but I’ve had to hire a nanny because I’m so busy, I rarely get to be home for any measurable period of time.”
“It sounds like you’re doing the best you can,” he pats my shoulder then looks at this watch. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go and see my other patients. Take care, Mr Clayton.”
I nod, dumbly, a third time. He walks away.
The best I could do would be to quit. Pack it in with the band and take care of my wife. Maybe if I do that, she might have more than six months.
But I have tour dates. I have a four-month-long tour next year. It kicks off in June, so if this doctor’s right, she’ll be gone by then. And Edge and Bono want to finish Songs of Ascent before we leave again. Why can’t they do the experimental shit without me? Edge is a more-than-competent bass player, he can write and record my parts and I’ll learn to play them in case we release something as a single, like "Miss Sarajevo".
Yes, I’m being an idiot; I just don’t want to leave Lucy.
I stay with Lucy in the hospital until her second surgery. Moseley invites me to watch from the gallery, but I can’t. I want to be as close to her as I can, but I can’t watch them hack into her and rip her insides out. I wear a groove in the surgical waiting room floor, texting Felicia and Edge, making sure the kids are behaving and talking out every scenario that could come of this surgery. Edge does his best to keep me thinking positive, but my stomach falls through the floor and I have that crumbling feeling when I hear a code being called in one of the operating rooms. I hope it’s not Lucy, and I hope they’re able to bring her back if it is her. I’m just not ready to let her go yet.
Twenty agonizing, breathless minutes later, Dr Moseley comes in the waiting room. “She looks good,” he says first and I can breathe again. “Now, we had to do a full hysterectomy. We took out her uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes. We also had to remove several lymph nodes from her pelvic area, abdomen, and up into her chest. As a precaution, we took out her omenta, spleen, and appendix as well,” the oncologist is listing off the body parts that they removed and I’m starting to wonder if they left anything in. “It appears she has stage III ovarian cancer. Now, to make sure we get it all, I’m going to start her on chemo in six weeks, once she’s recovered from the surgery.”
“So she’ll be in the hospital again for Christmas?” I ask, already dreading explaining that to the kids.
“Oh, no. Chemotherapy is only one day a month,” Moseley claps me on the back. “She may not be feeling very well, but you’ll have her home for the holidays.”
“Thanks,” I nod. “Can I go see her?”
“She’s still in recovery. We’ll be bringing her back to her room when she’s come out of the anaesthesia.” Dr Moseley walks out of the room to talk to another doctor. I sit down in a chair and sigh and look at the ceiling. I’m relieved that she made it through the surgery without complications, but now I’m even more anxious about the future. Chemotherapy is a wonderful treatment, but it is nasty shit. If we thought she felt awful before, she’s only going to feel worse with that running through her veins.
I walk to her room and find her awake.
“They took a lot out,” she says in a gravely voice as I sit on her bed. “But they think they got most of the cancer,” she coughs from speaking too much after being intubated.
“You don’t have to talk, Lucy. Dr Moseley explained it all to me,” I take her hand. “Now we just have to get through chemo and hope for the best.”
“I’m not looking forward to chemo,” she whispers to avoid coughing again.
“I know. I’m not either. But if it will get rid of the cancer, isn’t that something to look forward to?” I kiss her forehead.
“You’re an eternal optimist, Adam,” she smiles. “You should get home and have dinner with the kids. Tell them I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to leave you alone if--”
“Adam, I’m just going to sleep. I’ll be okay,” she squeezes my hand. “Go see the kids and have dinner. Get out of here for a while.”
She won’t be happy unless I listen to her. I kiss her, “See you later.” I go home and tell a very worried Nathan, Lola, and Samantha that their mother will be fine. I order in a pizza and watch a movie with them. Felicia helps me get them to bed, then I call Edge. I tell him how much they took out of Lucy and how worried I am that chemo will make things worse instead of better.
“Chemo was one of the things that made Sian better,” Edge reminds me. “And yeah, it’s gonna be hell on her system, but it gets better because she will start getting better. And after the longest six months of your life, she won’t have cancer anymore, you know, and things will start getting back to normal.”
“I hope so. That’s when the tour starts again,” I sigh. “All I do anymore is worry about Lucy.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Adam. I thought it as bad enough with Sian, but from what you’ve told me, it sounds like Lucy’s worse than Sian ever was,” Edge says gently.
“Do you think she will die from this?” I ask bluntly.
“Well, I’m no expert or anything, but I guess there’s a chance.”
“Okay,” I sniffle. “Thanks for the chat, Edge.”
“Adam, I didn’t--”
I hang up. I sit on my bed, my knees pulled to my chest. It’s time I was realistic about this. No matter how much I love her or how hard she fights this, and no matter what the doctors throw at it, this cancer is going to take her life sooner rather than later. I expect to start crying, but nothing comes. I sleep extremely well that night. I guess there’s some peace in facing the truth.
Lucy comes home five days after her surgery and she bounces back quickly. Her stomach pains are gone and she’s able to eat without puking, move without wincing, and sleep all the way through the night. I don’t want to lose that small victory, but she starts chemo two days before Christmas.
She’s nauseous Christmas Eve, but gets it under control with a stronger anti-nausea drug and ginger tea. She’s fatigued, but by New Year’s Eve, she wants to take the kids to Times Square to watch the ball drop. I suggest we just watch it on TV instead. And her hair doesn’t seem to be falling out. The chemo may not be so bad after all. I spoil the kids rotten for Christmas. Lucy scolds me for it, but I spoil her rotten, too. For the first time, I feel optimistic about this whole cancer thing, if this is all chemo is going to do to her.
My optimism was just naïveté. The next round of chemo wreaks havoc on her body. Most of her hair falls out one morning while she’s brushing it out and I find her on the floor of our en suite bathroom, handfuls of her hair in her fists, and she’s weeping terribly. I sit on the floor, scoop her up and cry with her, upset that she’s upset and my hopes dashed.
“It just keeps coming out, Adam,” she moans into my chest.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s just for a little while. We’ll get you some wigs or some scarves until it grows back, okay?” I kiss the top of her head. “You’re still beautiful to me.”
That makes her smile. She tries to get up, but can’t pull herself to her feet. I pick her up and carry her to bed.
“Looks like we’re going to take it easy today, hmm?” I kiss her forehead as I set her down. I help her prop up some pillows behind her back.
“Adam, register Lola and Nate in school. They’re bored and I don’t want them getting behind. I also think you should release a statement, even if it’s just a little one, to let your fans know what’s going on and so no rumours get started in the tabloids, you know?” She turns on the television and gets comfortable. “Could you get me some ginger tea, too? My stomach’s starting to turn a little.”
I do everything she asks. I also hire a cook and a housekeeper, as I’m hopeless at both, Lucy tries, but gets too tired, and it’s unfair to Felicia to rely on her for everything. Nate gets in trouble the first week of school for saying that his science teacher’s only contribution to science in the past twenty years was lighting her own farts. Nathan’s only defence? “To be fair, I prefaced that with all due respect.” I’m mortified, Lucy treats him like a hero, but we both agree that he has to apologise. He does, begrudgingly, and we have him transferred into the advanced-placement science class.
The third dose of chemo completely sidelines Lucy for a week. But we’re halfway through it now; it can only get better from here, right? She’s put on a diet of clear liquids until her stomach settles down, so the cook and I get creative so she doesn’t get sick of chicken broth and Jell-O. I see the beginnings of World War III starting between my daughters in the sitting room when Samantha says that Lola talks funny.
“I do not! I sound just like Daddy,” Lola folds her arms.
“Daddy talks funny, too,” Sam says. Lola smacks her younger sister on the shoulder and Samantha starts crying.
“Lola! That was uncalled for. Go to your room. You’re grounded for the rest of the night,” I say. Lola sulks to her bedroom. Lucy looks up from her book and smiles. “What?”
“Listen to you, taking charge. I’m proud of you,” She sits up and kisses me.
“Actually, neither Dad nor Lola talks funny, Samantha. Both of them have spent most of their lives in Ireland, giving them their distinct accents, while Mom, you, and I have spent almost our entire lives in America, and therefore we have a different accent. Hardly grounds for a physical altercation,” Nathan says without looking up from whatever he’s doing on his laptop, probably building himself his own version of the Large Hadron Collider.
Tré finds out she’s sick and calls her. Lucy insists she’s fine and that he doesn’t need to come to New York, but they talk and laugh for two hours straight. I’m glad she’s found something to bolster her spirits; I just wish I was a part of that. Bono comes to New York for a visit and brings Lucy a present. He and Ali designed a scarf for her and they are going to sell more just like it through Edun. He asks Lucy if she wants to be the model for the website.
Her face lights up. Something to do besides sitting around the house feeling miserable. “I’d love to!” She hugs him. “Oh, thank you, B!” she kisses his cheek.
“I’ll call Anton and see when he’s free,” he winks at her.
“Anton?” Lucy squeals then giggles at herself. I don’t discourage her. I couldn’t if I tried, anyway. Besides, she needs something to do to feel a little bit normal. It’s not Broadway, but it’s something.
The photo shoot takes place that weekend and Lucy has a ball, joking with Anton and playing with Bono, dragging him into most of the shots. My favourite pose from the shoot was one of Lucy and Bono. She has her arm around Bono’s neck and she’s kissing the side of his head, her nose displacing his sunglasses, while he’s looking at the camera with a bemused look on his face. Another good one is Lucy with her beautiful bald head blindfolding Bono with the scarf and Bono trying to lift it up. The one we end up using is of her laughing at my reaction to Bono goosing me. Anton lets me have a flash drive of the outtakes after the shoot.
Lucy takes the fourth dose of chemo head-on, rejuvenated by having a purpose. Edge and Larry join Bono in New York and drag me, kicking and screaming, into the studio to finish Songs of Ascent. I add a nurse to the staff to keep an eye on Lucy while I’m away for hours and hours at a time. We quickly work through finishing the album and they drag me along to do the press for it before the tour starts and I miss being with Lucy for her fifth dose of chemo. The press tour for Songs is purposely less intensive than the one for No Line On The Horizon, so I can be back home in time for Lucy’s final chemo treatment.
It wipes her out, it makes her sick, but there’s such a huge feeling of relief, because now that chemo’s over and she’s lived a month longer than she was supposed to, cancer’s over. She’s going to get better now and Dr Moseley had no idea how strong Lucy’s spirit is when he gave us that piddly prognosis.
We decide to celebrate the milestone by inviting our friends for a night out. I reserve an entire restaurant and Bono, Ali, Edge, Morleigh, Larry, Ann, Lucy’s brother Patrick, everyone who works for Principle In New York, and about fifty of Lucy’s closest friends from Broadway show up. And her friends are some pretty big stars, too. Bebe Neuwirth, Bernadette Peters, and Megan Mullally to name a few. I’m not sure if Lucy invited him or not, but Tré Cool crashes the party and spends almost an hour hogging Lucy’s attention in a booth before she climbs over him to talk to someone else. He leaves soon after.
We sit down to order dinner and Lucy stares at me instead of looking over her menu. I look over and realise she’s glaring at me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“’What’s wrong?’!” She repeats, like I’ve given nuclear secrets to the enemy. “Aurora’s home with a fever of 103 and we’re out having a party? What the hell is wrong with you?” She throws her napkin on the table and stands up. “I have to go.” I get up and follow her. She gets a few steps away and stops.
“Lucy?” I ask softly, standing behind her, embarrassed with a hundred pairs of eyes on us.
“Adam,” she reaches back and she grabs my wrist. She turns and she’s shaking. “I don’t remember how I got here,” she whispers. “I’m scared, honey.”
“Do you need to go home?” I take her hands.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t remember this party, Adam. I’ve had this headache, but I thought it was just from the chemo,” she touches her forehead. “What if it’s something bad?”
“We’ll call Dr Moseley in the morning,” I kiss her. “Do you feel like coming back to dinner?” She nods and we sit back down. The party is much more subdued after that. Everyone starts treating Lucy like she’s fragile and instead of being finished with this bastard of a disease, this party suddenly seems all too premature. Chemo may be over, but she’s not cured yet.
Lucy starts crying in the cab ride home I hold her and carry her from the taxi to our bedroom. I get her changed into a nightgown and tuck her into bed. Exhausted from the party and crying, she goes to sleep quickly. I slip into my office so Lucy won’t hear me.
That night is the first night I really cry over what is happening to Lucy. I’d of course cried with her when she got frustrated or scared. And we had mourned the loss of her gorgeous blonde hair together, but that night, I completely lose my composure. I don’t want to go on tour anymore. I don’t want our lives to continue to march forward, because the end of hers seems so dangerously close. And now her memory is slipping. What if the cancer has spread and it’s in her brain?
I convince myself for about fifteen minutes that the chemo somehow gave her Alzheimer’s, but logic takes over and I’m up until 4 in the morning researching brain cancers on the internet, trying to diagnose and cure Lucy in the three-week window before the tenth of June.
