A Victory Garden for Trying Times Read online

  While I was reading books and letting myself off the hook, Peter was slowly coming back. He began to figure out the right portion size for his meals. It was a victory of sorts, because he did like eating again and discovered he had an appetite before each meal. And he continued to be able to swallow food and enjoy its taste without a problem. I could tell because he smacked his lips for the first time in months.

  There were missteps, though. We went out for our first restaurant meal since the diagnosis, to a local gastropub. We went at lunchtime when Peter could eat small, but the tomato soup he chose was too creamy and too rich for him. While I scarfed down mussels and frites, I watched him struggle with the contents of a small white bowl. And at home, sometimes his appetite still got the better of him after months of food being something he had to choke down. With heaviness in his stomach and pain in his back, nights brought little rest.

  Peter also had to face the truth about beer. He had been a connoisseur of craft beer for years, had become excited each time he found a new beer he liked during our travels. In India, he favoured Kingfisher, although he remarked that its slogan at the time, “Enjoyed by millions,” didn’t mean much in a country of more than a billion. In Vietnam, he drank fresh beer in Hanoi, a beer brewed each morning that only lasted a day. We even had a beer joke in Vietnam about two beers called Hue (pronounced “way”) and Huda. “No Hue. Huda thunk it?” we’d say each time we found both brews in a restaurant. Whenever we drove to visit our American friends in upper New York State, we stopped at a small store where they sold Ommegang beer from Cooperstown. One year at Christmas I bought Peter the only variety of Ommegang I could find in Toronto, a stout in their Game of Thrones series, even though I knew it wasn’t his favourite. But on Christmas morning I learned I’d scored big when he marvelled at the bottles I’d purchased. Apparently, in the States, thirsty drinkers were bidding high on eBay just to get one bottle of the stuff. And, after our move to Niagara, Peter was thrilled to discover that a local craft brewery, Silversmith, had some fine choices on tap.

  A beer on a summer day on our deck equalled pure relaxation for Peter, whether it ended a week of long hours at the CBC or a day of pleasure reading. I can still see him on a summer evening at our old Toronto home pouring an Arrogant Bastard Ale into a chilled beer tankard and chuckling over its slogan, “You’re not worthy.” The only alcohol Peter liked more than beer was the Italian liqueur grappa, which he’d discovered on our first magical evening at Florian’s in Venice as something to go with his double espresso.

  But now he had to give up beer. It was just too filling for his much smaller stomach. I told him that maybe once he had his strength back, he could have a single beer for supper one night. But in the philosophical way he’d approached many of the limitations his health had forced on him, he shrugged the idea off. He’d have a white wine now and again; he’d learn to enjoy a glass of white wine. And there was still grappa.

  It was harder for him to be philosophical about his difficulties sleeping. The first wedge we bought, made of thick foam by a company in Quebec, lifted his upper body to the angle he needed, but he was bent so sharply at the waist that he’d wake up with shooting back pain.

  And the healing of his incision was frustratingly slow; we drove three times a week to a nursing centre in St. Catharines where they changed his dressing — a long, wide strip of gauze that ran from below his collarbone to his navel. Peter had never worn undershirts in his life before his cancer diagnosis. But he had that winter because he’d always felt cold. Now he wore them to keep the dressing in place. During a visit to the surgeon in March, the resident doctor seemed shocked at the rawness of the wound. In front of Dr. F, she suggested an antibiotic.

  “Really,” I said before I could stop myself, “he’s just getting his gut in order.” Dr. F told the resident an antibiotic wasn’t necessary; the incision would heal.

  On the matter of whether he had got all the cancer, Dr. F gave us mixed messages. “We’ll get you right,” he said one time. But during another clinic visit, he said he felt guilty — a strange choice of words, I thought — and he told Peter to do what he wanted in the next two years since there was only a 45 percent chance of a cure. When I asked what we could do to keep Peter in the cured group, Dr. F said there was nothing we could do. “Exercise, eat right, but don’t bother with supplements because they don’t work,” he said.

  Again, I felt frustration at being caught in the middle of conflicting information, more than in the trivial matter of how to sucker tomatoes. Doing what was right to keep Peter healthy was a matter of life and death. We had visited a cancer naturopath in December to see what foods and supplements might help. She was a caring, knowledgeable person with sound advice. The team at Juravinski hadn’t been thrilled we’d gone to see her; we’d consulted with the oncologist on a couple of treatments the naturopath wanted to try. There’s an infusion of large amounts of vitamin C, for example, that naturopaths say enters the cancer cells and kill them. The method has had some success in breast cancer patients. But oncologists don’t want patients building up their immune systems, and they see vitamin C in those terms even if that is not the intent of the infusion. Dr. D, the chemo oncologist, didn’t want Peter to do it. She cited one study on vitamin C infusions and one form of cancer that showed the infusions had done harm. We declined the infusion and the naturopath took it graciously.

  We were, though, happy to follow the naturopath’s nutritional suggestions that were based on science and studies. Peter drank aloe vera gel and swallowed calendula tablets to soothe his raw throat. She advised us to add black raspberries to Peter’s diet; they are high in a compound called anthocyanin, which had proved effective in reducing esophageal tumours. Although I found the studies online, I could not find the freeze-dried black raspberries or black raspberry powder they referred to anywhere in Canada. Finally, I found a French black raspberry jam, sweetened only with grape juice, that I added to Peter’s smoothies through the winter and spring. I drew black raspberry bushes on one side of my Victory Garden map and started searching for a nursery where I could buy the plants.

  I understand that cancer doctors often dismiss the ideas of alternative medicine, not only for egotistic, “doctors are always right” kind of reasons, but also because they fear that desperate patients will try all sorts of unfounded treatments and end up like Steve Jobs, who, some believed, might have been saved by traditional cancer treatments. I also understand why natural healers worry about the toxic effects of established procedures like radiation and chemotherapy. I just wish the two sides would get their acts together and find some common ground so patients don’t have to do it themselves at one of the most demanding times of their lives.

  But even in the world of cancer doctors, there’s confusion. After the surgery, Dr. F wanted to send Peter back to the radiologist, Dr. S, for more blasts in the region he’d had difficulty cutting out. Peter and I were both pretty sure Dr. S had told us he’d given Peter all the radiation he could without damaging organs. And when we did go back to the Juravinski, that’s precisely what he told us. “You need your heart and lungs,” Dr. S said.

  Both he and the chemo oncologist, Dr. D, seemed pleased with the results of the pathology report. The cancer in the lymph nodes was gone. The cancer had made it into the muscle of the esophagus — who knew it had one? — but they saw no reason to believe Dr. F hadn’t got all that. And until scans showed otherwise, there was nothing they could do.

  But Dr. D did say, “Cancer is a tricky disease. If it comes back, it’s usually in the first two years.” We would have to wait until a CT scan in late May to see if the cancer was indeed gone before doctors would do a single thing more.

  Still, we tried to keep our minds on victory, and, for me, thinking about my garden helped. Early in March two parcels of seeds arrived at the post office. In our town we had to pick up our mail, and during the eighteen months we’d been there, I’d painstakingly established a rapport with a woman who worked behind
the counter, a woman with a sarcastic bent and what seemed like disdain for the new retirees who’d made the postcard town their home. I handed her two cards that had been left in our box and she found the matching packages in the backroom. As she gave them to me, she noticed the logos for the seed companies. “You’re optimistic,” she said.

  “Yes, I am,” I told her. I thought I saw a glint of new respect, a twinkle that said, So you’re not just another big-city retiree, but I might have imagined it.

  Once I had the seeds, I tried to decide the timing of when to start germinating them so the plants would be the right size at the right moment. Some varieties needed four weeks, some six, before they could be set out after the last frost. Traditionally, in my family, the Victoria Day weekend was considered the first safe weekend to plant tomatoes and other tender plants. But the earth had warmed since my grandparents’ days and I’d found I could safely put out most plants a week or two before the holiday. But would I be able to this year, with its miserable spring?

  The year before, I’d started seeds on windowsills. But I decided with a Victory Garden, I’d set up a system with lighting in the basement. I bought two fluorescent grow lights and a frame to hold them that would hang from the joists in the ceiling. But the lamps sat in their packages for weeks. The weather, like Peter’s slow recovery, was holding us back. Snowfalls in early April deepened my inertia and kept me from getting outside to get the vegetable beds in shape. It was time to plant radishes and lettuce, but I just couldn’t get started.

  The second weekend in April, with the weather still unseasonably cold, I started my tomato and basil seeds indoors. A week later, I started zucchini, red pepper, broccoli, and Armenian cucumber. I set them all in front of bright windows and started to assemble the lighting system for their second stage, when their true leaves emerged. I did this without my usual enthusiasm for the first step of the season; I was starting to have doubts the seeds would grow or my garden would flourish. Maybe I was still too scared to believe Peter would be all right, so I couldn’t imagine anything would turn out as it should.

  One Sunday smack dab in the middle of April, when I usually had my early vegetables in, I got T to come for the day to help me get the vegetable beds ready. I’d found T the year before through friends in town. He was a young man who loved the earth, a guy who lived from day to day by working where he could. Once, the previous spring, when I’d hired him for two days in a row, I said I’d pay him the second day. But he asked for his payment for the first day right away so he could buy supper that evening. It was only then I realized how close he lived to the line.

  There was something hapless about T that made people in town watch out for him. At a small restaurant where locals go, the bartender once gave him twenty dollars for a haircut. Peter and I assumed he hadn’t used the money for the cut since his hair looked as though someone had put a bowl on his head and cut around it. But I trusted T and found him to be an efficient worker, so proud of his work he’d take pictures with his phone of trees he’d planted.

  With T the year before I’d planted cedars, yews, and a hemlock tree; prepared the vegetable beds; and pulled out deep-rooted grasses to plant Japanese maples and perennials. And I’d had him move rocks for me. In Toronto, I’d created a rock garden with flats of rocks and found rocks. Over a ten-year period, I’d moved the garden up our sloped front yard until all the grass was gone, replaced by rocks, ground cover, and perennials. But I’d also done a lot of harm to my lower back, ending up in the emergency ward one time when I couldn’t stand up straight. In this garden, I promised myself, I wouldn’t do further damage. When I had rocks to move and large trees to plant, I called on T, who is a very big guy.

  As he was moving one rock to a place under a tree, he complained that people thought of him as just a heavy lifter. I held my tongue because it was true. But, in a strange way, I liked his company. He talked continuously about his troubles with women, the temporary shelters he’d lived in — barns, basements, greenhouses — and the places in this tourist town where local workers could get a good deal on a decent meal. I also learned a lot from him about the nursery and farming businesses in the area. But more than that, we shared a love of dirt and growing things.

  Peter often prepared tea for us to drink while we worked. One time he called us to the deck to get our cups and T just sat down and, without a single question from Peter, ranted about the sorry state of his love life for forty minutes while I got back to work in the garden.

  One of the reasons I worked alongside T was to keep him focused. He had a dreamy state of mind and could get lost in studying the lines on a fallen nut or the trails of worms moving in the dirt. But he also could work fast and I had to keep coming up with new tasks for him. T had come to the region from northern Ontario to study horticulture at Niagara College; he’d dropped out to work in a greenhouse, which then failed. His passion was terraforming — creating self-sustaining landscapes — and he wanted someday to practise that on a plot of land. In the fall, he’d run into a man from Australia who was working on terraforming projects there and invited him to come to work with him. T had thought he might head to Australia in January, but was worried about leaving the life he’d established here.

  “Go,” I’d told him. “You’re young. Have an adventure.”

  So when I phoned him in April to see if he was around, I was surprised to get him on the first call. “Did you go to Australia?” I asked.

  “Not yet. I don’t have a passport. I’m still working on it.”

  He agreed to come that Sunday to help dig the vegetable beds. We began by pulling up the still-live kale plants so we could layer organic matter on the whole bed. I picked all the fresh leaves I could from the plants before tossing them in the compost, and I gave T a bag of baby kale.

  “Wow, and it’s organic,” he said.

  Over the winter he’d given up smoking, found cheap yoga classes in town, lined up a new girlfriend, and got a better haircut. The yoga had made him lean, the young woman had made him happy, and his newfound love of all things healthy had made him a cautious eater. When I offered him the milky Earl Grey tea he’d welcomed the year before, he said he was worried about the hormones in the milk and asked for green tea instead. When we raked off the straw I’d spread on the beds in the fall, he discovered some of it had sprouted in the mild winter and he eagerly picked the grassy shoots to make juice. “Do you know how much they charge for one of those drinks?” he said. But then he decided the straw I’d bought might be genetically modified and threw all the green stems away.

  We got a lot done that day, covering the bed with steer and duck manure, as well as a sea compost that T said would add a lot of micronutrients. By the afternoon, both beds were ready for planting, but I knew I wouldn’t get to it anytime soon. The weather was still cold, and I’d come to understand the vegetable garden had more to do with my sense of victory than Peter’s. It wasn’t just that he’d never had as much fondness for vegetables as I did; he’d never shown an inclination to drop a seed in the ground. It was time to shift my focus in the garden.

  Trees had always given Peter joy. And getting more of them into our garden would be his act of faith. His love of trees began when he was in that body cast as a boy and stared at a tree outside his window for a whole year. He’d been in awe of its changes while he lay still in a bed at the back of his family’s house. And so, while we waited for the weather to warm and Peter to feel stronger, the two of us came up with a plan to add as many trees as we could that spring. We drove to the best nursery in town and picked out a weeping pine for the backyard and, for a redesigned front yard, a yellow magnolia, a second flowering dogwood, and a Japanese red maple.

  As we walked around the nursery with the woman who was helping us with the changes to the front yard, we stopped at a row of red maples. There were several short and cheaper trees to choose from and one tall, elegant one with a long curving branch that was, of course, double the price.

  “Let’s
get that one,” Peter said.

  “Good choice,” the woman from the nursery said. “That way you won’t have to wait as long for it to grow.”

  Neither Peter nor I said anything, but I knew that we were both thinking that if Peter saw that tree grow to its full twenty feet, it would be a major victory for him.

  The next time I had T over, I had him dig up the deep roots of a large grassy plant to make space for the weeping pine. I told him we were going to have a landscaper plant the other trees even though we didn’t know how long we’d be in this house. I’d told T that Peter had been sick over the winter, and in the way of small towns, T already knew all about the cancer but seemed happy to let the subject drop. That day as he dug the hole for the pine tree, he said, “I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said, ‘If I knew I was going to die tomorrow, I’d still plant an apple tree today.’”

  It wasn’t Jefferson, I discovered later. The quote has been attributed to Martin Luther in this form: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” But T had captured the way Peter and I planned to approach life and our garden.