Charlie and Annushka combined households in the small mother/daughter house that Annushka owned with GiGi. Annushka had on her side GiGi, E (about 19), and T (about 15). Charlie brought along Xman who was 21 at the time.
Cramped quarters were nothing new to any of them except Xman. Together, he and his dad built a mini-apartment in the basement. All considered, a wise thing to do.
When I started dating Xman, I was brought up from Richmond to Jersey to Meet the Fam. I thought Annushka was all style and elegance. I didn't know at the time that she'd spent her childhood bargaining in Swahili for chickens for her mother to cook. I liked Charlie right away.
Later, I was sprung on Annushka as a permanent house guest. I looked for a job. Supposedly, Xman and I were going to get an apartment together before we got married. For three months, I lived with them. By this time, E was out of the house, so I took her room.
Charlie got home from work every afternoon around four, while Annushka was still at work. From my bed, I could hear him phone her. "How are you, love?" I'd hear him say. Every time he said it, he said it like it was new to him, like he couldn't get over it being true that he and Annushka were married.
When Xman and I got married, Charlie complained at the reception that he hadn't slept well the night before. "I couldn't swallow," he said. And he couldn't eat at the reception. When they went back home the next day, he went to a doctor. Within the week, he was diagnosed with cancer.
He had surgery and then he had chemotherapy. Too sick to work, he was still bored at home.
I was working part-time and going to school part-time so sometimes he would call me up and say, "Let's go to Five Points. I'll buy you lunch."
Five Points has been named one of Jersey's best hot dog stands. It was an old family place to Charlie and I loved going there. (Still do.) But we didn't just go for hot dogs. On the way back, he'd spot yard sale signs and point them out to me and we had to stop at them, just so he could get out and bargain with whoever was selling whatever.
Sometimes we'd just ride around, me driving, Charlie the passenger. Since he was a teenager, he'd wanted a Cadillac. He bought one, cash, just before Xman and I got married. He got to drive it three times. It wasn't long before he was too weak to drive.
There was a crisis one night and Charlie was rushed to the hospital. He was given three units of blood, apparently too quickly. It took several weeks for the crisis to pass, but he came home. And instead of getting stronger, he just kept getting weaker and grayer until finally, he went to the Jersey Hospital of Death.
The doctors were bewildered. Charlie's cancer had reappeared but the real threat to his health was something no one had seen before. There was a problem with his blood. He developed lesions on his head and hands. He lost weight, got weaker and weaker, and was put in isolation since he seemed to get any and every virus or cold or sore throat that wafted by.
Charlie stayed in the Jersey Hospital of Death for two months, getting sicker and sicker. Annushka worked. And worked. And worked.
Xman did the same.
Mike had suddenly reappeared but visited rarely.
E was living far away. T was barely out of high school but she had a full time job full of its own attendant dramas. I was still working part-time, going to school part-time and my way home from school went right past the JHoD.
I stopped in on my way in to class. By this time, the doctors thought it was pointless to keep him in isolation, that he was dying anyway. I went in once and ended up skipping class.
I sat on the side of his bed, holding his hand. He was crying. He cried a lot then. He said, "You're the only one I can cry in front of." He couldn't cry in front of Mike or Xman. If he cried in front of Annushka, she would cry, too. But I didn't cry. I just held his hand.
He said, "I know I'm dying."
I said,"I know you're dying, too. Do you want to talk about it?"
And he said he did. So we sat and talked and talked. Annushka came in from work and saw us, me sitting on the bed, Charlie so thin beneath the sheet. "What are you two up to?" she said.
"Just talking." I kissed him. I had told him I loved him that day and he told me he loved me too.
I went home. I tried to talk to Xman about his dad, but he wouldn't talk to me. He just seemed furious.
It seemed to go on forever. Charlie had been so sick for so long. More than once, I found myself thinking, why doesn't he just die? It'll all be better if he just dies, if this pain just stops for all of us.
And of course he did die and while I felt like something had been taken from my shoulders, there was a new hollowness in me.
Not a week later, I was on a crowded street in Jersey when I saw him walking about fifteen feet ahead of me. "Charlie!" I shouted and ran after him, touching the man's arm, only to have him turn and see it wasn't Charlie at all. I saw Charlie hundreds of times in the next two or three or five years. Even now, it's rare, but sometimes I'll see a man walk ahead of me, walking like Charlie did.
And sometimes when I go to Five Points, I can feel him move around there. I remember sitting with him, his thin hands fiddling with a straw wrapper. I remember him looking up at me, mischievous, knowing Annushka wanted him at home resting while he knew there were bargains to be made.
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