In Death's Shadow

CHAPTER FOUR

It could have been wetter, I suppose, like at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay.

Our team, whittled down to a dozen waterlogged, but spirited individuals-I shared DNA with half of them-rendezvoused at the Washington Monument, where we slogged around in puddles up to our ankles and fortified ourselves with the water du jour-Dasani-and containers of Yoplait served up with plastic spoons by volunteers in official yellow Race for the Cure®T-shirts.

Somewhere down on Constitution near the Ellipse, we'd left the children, damp but happy, in the capable hands of Emily and her father, but we'd long ago lost track of Brian and Dennis, who had gone off in search of a battery for Brian's digital camera. One of those underwater models would have been far more practical.

The rest of my team was packed-elbow-to-elbow, along with 55,000 of our closest friends-into two blocks of Constitution Avenue that normally accommodated eight lanes of rush hour traffic. I sipped my water, intrigued, as the crowd began to sort itself into distinct clusters around me.

Behind Connie, a man and a woman waited with their arms wrapped protectively around their daughter, not yet thirty, but, sadly, already wearing the pink T-shirt that identified her as a breast cancer survivor.

Next to them, a husband snapped photograph after photograph of his wife as she mugged for the camera, switching the bill of her pink ball cap forward, backward, and sideways, laughing merrily into the lens.

A Neanderthal in short-shorts barged past to join a pack of eight or nine individuals, all running-their bibs proclaimed-in honor of Marjorie. As I watched, a woman who had been bent over retying a shoelace stood, and I could read the writing on her shirt: I'M MARJORIE.

I was thinking, Way to go, Marjorie! when Connie nudged my arm with the hand she was using to hold her water bottle. "Look behind you," she whispered. "That just breaks my heart."

I turned slowly, casually, to see what Connie was talking about.

A thirtyish guy with a profile right off a Roman coin knelt on the wet pavement, helping his daughter, around four, adjust her rain cape. Through the plastic, the little girl's bib read: IN MEMORY OF MOMMY.

I swallowed hard, thinking how close Emily might have come to running this race in memory of me. My throat tightened as I recalled that awful day when, still groggy from the anesthesia, I'd awakened in the hospital to hear Emily sobbing in the hallway just outside my room.

I stole a glance at Valerie and knew, instantly, even before she spoke, that she was thinking the same thing. "That little girl's mother must have fought very, very hard," Valerie whispered.

I found Valerie's hand and squeezed it, too choked up to speak. I stared into the distance instead, toward the huge balloon archway that marked the starting line, then back into the mob of runners-north, south, east-in any direction other than that of the sad-eyed little girl and her handsome father.

My eyes skimmed the crowd. On the fringes, near the curb, stood a woman, her pink shirt showing through a clear plastic raincoat. Even from ten feet away I could tell her eyes were rimmed with red.

I nudged Valerie. "Look. See that woman over there? Is she all by herself?"

"Don't think so. See those two guys? Just behind her?"

But as Valerie spoke, the men moved away, confirming my suspicion that the woman was alone. She hugged herself, arms laced tightly across her chest as if trying to contain some private grief.

"Here, hold my water for a minute, will you?"

I elbowed my way through the mob until I was even with the woman. "You okay?" I asked, stepping up on the curb.

Even the rain couldn't hide the tears that coursed down her cheeks. "My sister was supposed to run with me today." She drew a ragged breath, gulping air. "But she… she died last week."

It was probably my imagination, but the rain seemed to fall harder then, drumming a dull rat-a-tat-tat on the bill of my cap. I slipped my arm around the woman's shoulders. "It's been four years for me. How about you?"

“Six years in September."

"You are a survivor," I said. We stood in companionable silence for a few minutes as packs of runners ebbed and flowed around us. Water that had collected on the twisted hem of her slicker poured onto her jogging shoes, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Your sister would have wanted you to run today, you know."

"I know. It's just so hard to… to… go on."

"But that's what it's all about, isn't it? Just going on."

She turned to face me then, swiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. "You're right," she said. "You're absolutely right."

"Come run with us." I waved to my team, huddled in a pathetic blue and gold clump about ten yards away.

"Thanks. I'm okay. Really."

The woman squeezed my arm gently then turned and, before I could stop her, was swallowed up by the crowd.

I stood there for a moment, staring after her, praying she'd live to run the race again next year, when I noticed Connie trying to attract my attention by making exaggerated gestures, pointing to the starting line and to her watch.

Way up front, in the sea of runners, heads began to bobble. "They're off!" Connie called. But the crowd was so dense that, just like traffic jammed up on the beltway, I knew it would be five minutes, or even more, before we'd move even an inch in the direction of the starting line.

As I rejoined my group, the rain began to descend in torrents. Connie shrieked, then began laughing. "I'm soaked clear down to my underwear!" Someone began to cheer, and before long everyone around us, drenched and dripping, was laughing and cheering, too.

I nudged my way forward and stood next to Valerie, who had added a digital MP3 player to her running ensemble. I tapped her on the shoulder. "What are you listening to?" I asked.

Valerie smiled, removed one of her ear buds and handed it to me. "Listen."

I held the ear bud to my ear and concentrated, trying to identify the music over the deafening roar of the crowd. It wasn't hard. Lindsey Buckingham's gorgeously twangy guitar was slipping and sliding all around the lyrics of "I'm So Afraid," one of the tracks on Valerie's favorite Fleetwood Mac album, The Dance. "'Days when the rain and the sun are gone,'" I sang out loud, tearing up again as bittersweet memories washed over me. Valerie had a boom box in the hospital room we shared. We must have played The Dance CD a thousand times, singing along, each confined to our separate beds, until we knew the lyrics to every song by heart.

Who could have predicted that, years later, Valerie and I would be bonding again on a street in Washington, D.C. Like twins, each connected by our own umbilical cord to Valerie's MP3 player, our heads bobbed together in perfect rhythm as we sang: "'So afraid/Slip and I fall and I die.'"

The song ended. Almost reluctantly, I handed the ear bud back to Valerie. Instead of screwing it back into her ear, though, she let it dangle and reached out to wrap me in a bear hug. We might have stood there forever, oblivious to the crowd, the noise, and even the pounding rain, if Connie hadn't whomped me on the back.

The runners in front of us had begun jogging in place.

I picked up my feet. "Valerie, can I ask you a rude question?"

"Sure," said Valerie, jogging in place beside me.

“When we first met, you were worried about how to pay your medical bills, so when I heard about the cruise and saw your house-” My voice trailed off. "You win the lottery or something?"

Valerie took off her cap and shook the water out of her hair. "Ha ha, I wish." She grinned broadly. "We had kind of a windfall."

"Yeah?"

"An insurance settlement."

"You won a lawsuit?"

"No, not a lawsuit." As space opened up, we began to jog forward. "Look, it's complicated. I'll explain later." Valerie adjusted her cap, screwed in her ear bud, and with a friendly wave jogged away.

"What was that all about?" asked Connie, running up to take Valerie's place beside me.

"It's complicated," I said. "I'll explain later."

Side by side Connie and I jogged south on 17th Street and west on Independence Avenue. An insurance settlement, I mused. Very in-ter-rest-ting. I barely noticed the water rushing along the roadway as I ran, until the stream became a torrent, carrying with it raw sewage from a storm drain that had overflowed. With Connie trailing close behind, I eased through the foul-smelling bottleneck, trying not to breathe. I'll never wear these shoes again, I thought, plodding on and on toward the Lincoln Memorial.

An insurance settlement. Chug-chug-chug. Malpractice, maybe. Chug-chug. With an out of court settlement.

Pulling slightly away from the pod of runners behind us, Connie and I looped west toward the Tidal Basin. As I dashed over Kutz Bridge, with my socks squish squish squishing, I found myself hoping Valerie would spill all, nondisclosure agreement, if any, be damned. I glanced right and couldn't resist waving to Thomas Jefferson, standing in the shelter of his memorial. Old T.J.'s Nikes, at least, were dry.

We zipped past the Holocaust Memorial, picking up speed near the Freer Gallery, so much so that the netting set up by Park Police to keep back the spectators became a blue peripheral blur. At the Hirschorn Museum, I slowed to concentrate on massaging a painful stitch out of my side, but Connie, recklessly throwing away any chance she might have had of setting a land speed record-as if-declined to run ahead, staying with me as we turned north on 7th Street. Runners streaked by, cutting and weaving, as we passed the Sculpture Garden and rounded the corner onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Just ahead, like a carrot on a stick, was Freedom Plaza and the black banner and digital time clocks that marked the finish line. Endorphins kicked in, and I sprinted the last hundred yards.

A few seconds later a loudspeaker blared, "Hannah Ives has crossed the finish line. She's a breast cancer survivor," and I thought my lungs would burst, whether with pride or from exhaustion, it would be difficult to say.

Valerie was waiting, as promised, on the steps of the Old Post Office Building. We gave each other a high five, then I collapsed onto the wet marble.

"Seventy-six minutes, more or less," I wheezed. "Gawd, I'm exhausted!"

Connie bent over, her hands resting on her knees. "How'd you do, Val?" she said, addressing her shoes.

Valerie beamed. “Twenty-seven."

Connie straightened. "Twenty-seven minutes? My God, girl. You on drugs?"

Valerie smiled. "I've been working out."

Breathe, Hannah! In through the nose. Out through the mouth. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. "I am so out of shape," I panted. I stood up, stretched and wind-milled my arms. “I thought once around the Naval Academy seawall three times a week would prepare me for this-”

"Do you have a running partner?" Valerie asked.

"No," I admitted. "I suppose it would be easier if I went running with someone."

Connie raised both hands, palms out. "Don't look at me, sweetheart! I've got a business to run."

That was certainly true. An article in the Sunday Arts & Leisure section about Connie's folk art dolls, made entirely out of gourds she grew herself on the Ives family farm, had brought in a flood of orders, so many that Connie had hired a part-time assistant.

"You got Thursdays free?" Valerie asked, ignoring my sister-in-law.

I nodded.

"I'll run with you," she volunteered. "Meet me at Quiet Waters Park around ten."

"Thanks," I said, enormously grateful. "I'd like that."

Connie had been drinking from her water bottle when she stopped in mid-swig and looked around as if she'd lost something. She had. Her husband.

"Where are the guys, Val? Surely they've crossed the finish line before now."

Valerie hooked a thumb toward the arched doorways that led into the building. "Brian and Dennis have gone to find Paul and the kids. I suggested we meet at the Hotel Washington on 15th Street. We can catch a cab to the restaurant more easily from there. Don't know about you, girls, but I'm ready for some serious carbohydrates."

A vision of the Thai Room's delectable Bean Thread Jelly Mushroom shimmered large before me, like an oasis in the desert, especially after my skimpy breakfast.

"C'mon," I called, my stomach rumbling. "Last one to the hotel is a rotten egg roll!"