“Why are you angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

“You said you were angry.”

“Did I say I was angry?”

“When you sat down just now.  You said you were angry.”

Bob and I often refer to the cafe building as The West Fulton Mall.  The Honor Store sells groceries and our farm products, the cafe offers breakfast and lunch, the post office is in the same building, Panther Creek flows beside it, serving as a water park; overnight lodging is available upstairs, and there’s a shamanic healer who lives around back.  Her name is Eileen, and I’m sitting on her couch now.  My knees have seized up, and my stomach has climbed it’s way up into my chest, leaving me with a hiatal hernia.  Fed up with my discomfort, I finish up my Wednesday prep work at the cafe early, so I can take some time to go ‘round back and get a healing session.

“I said I was angry?  Well, I’m not angry.  Everything is going as well as can be expected,” I tell Eileen.  

My summer has been a series of negotiated agreements with the divine.  Just don’t let Bob have cancer, and I’ll be happy and able to roll with everything else.  Then, Ok, Ok, that wasn’t in the cards….I’ll accept that, but just don’t let the cancer have spread, and I’ll be happy and able to roll with everything else.  Then, Ok, just one more thing — Just let the insurance agree to pay for proton therapy in New York City so he doesn’t have to get traditional radiation.  That’ s the last ask.  We get that, everything else is TOTALLY manageable.  I’ll be really really happy.  I can make everything else work. 

And really, I got two out of three asks.  The cancer hasn’t spread from his prostate to the rest of his body, and the insurance has approved for Bob to get treatment at the New York Proton Center in East Harlem.  We just got word last week.

I should be happy, right?  So why’s my body breaking down now?  

All summer long, I’d been marveling at my good health, thankful for that one quiet mercy.  Unlike recent summers where the demands of running a cafe with minimal help and heightened Covid protocols left my feet in constant pain; or run-ins with tick-borne diseases left my muscles cramped and my neck in agony; this one’s been a breeze, physically.  (For me, anyhow.  Let’s not talk about all the poking and prodding poor Bob has endured.)  Sure, I hate having my life dictated by doctors appointments.  I hate the fat folder of medical papers and test results that I have to schlep everywhere, because I’ve learned that “having medical records forwarded” in our current system means there’s only a ten percent chance that the information was received, processed and reviewed prior to our visit….And I hate driving one hour each way to every appointment, spending one hour with Bob while we give a nurse his medical history, have her walk out the door, and then have a doctor step in and spend another hour asking us for the same medical history all over again, between responding to his pager and taking phone calls…And I hate trying to be patient in a windowless office, trying not to think about the chickens growing in the pastures, the arrival of the Thanksgiving turkeys, playing forest frisbee with the dogs in the woods, what it would feel like to paddle and camp along the Bog River, or wondering when I’m next going to get a chance to flop down on the back porch at the farm for a lazy chat with my mom and dad, or if I’m ever going to get any canning done this season.  At least my knees could bend, my digestion was great, my attention was sharp, my energy levels were fabulous through every appointment, every phone call with the insurance, every time I sat at the computer or picked up a book to do research on how to best help my husband get through prostate cancer.  We were able to chart a course and now, our first-choice medical treatment is being made available.

I have nothing to be angry about.  Right?

I just have to help Bob finalize housing for five weeks of treatment in the city.  And figure out how to keep the business going while he’s gone.  And figure out how our family is going to get to see each other.  And maintain Ula’s homeschool schedule.  And help Saoirse transition to her online college program.  

I’m not angry.

It’s just that, suddenly,  my knees are making me miserable.  And maybe my stomach muscles are a little tight.   So tight that it hurts to eat. 

And, sheesh…why am I going to the bathroom so much?  Am I developing a UTI?

“Of course you have a UTI.  You’re pissed,” Corbie tells me on Friday, when I ask her about probiotics for urinary tract infections.  “Your body’s saying what you won’t.”

Why does everybody keep saying that?

What reason do I have to be pissed?  

“I have no right to be angry,” I explain to Eileen on her couch.  “That’s not rational.”

“Rationality’s got nothing to do with it,” Eileen says.  

That’s tough for me.  As a wife, a mother, a daughter and the head of a business, everything I do comes from a place of love.  I want to be my husband’s partner as he goes through this.  I want to keep our family rhythms and traditions going.  I want my daughters to enjoy high school and college.  I adore our business, and I take deep pleasure working on it.  How do I reconcile my body’s irrational anger with my deliberate life choices?

“Okay.  Just close your eyes and breathe for a moment,” Eileen tells me.  

I follow her instructions.

“Now, without stopping to think, tell me the first emotion that you feel.”

“Anger.”

Eileen directs me to get on the table and she begins her energy work.  An hour later she sends me home with instructions.  I need to write.  I need to process my anger.  I need to acknowledge it and let it move through me.

I don’t want to do this writing assignment.  I jot a few things down, then think how awful it would be if Bob or the kids saw my dark thoughts.   When no one’s around, I give them a quick read, then I burn them. 

Privately, I commend myself for processing my anger with minimal shrapnel.  Saturday morning rolls around, and the cafe opens for business, like usual.

But it’s one of those days where every seat in the house and on the patio is filled within the first thirty minutes. And none of my regular customers want their regular orders.  And nobody seems to want what’s on the menu.

Ula roller skates from table to table, putting in their requests.  The kitchen printer goes mad, spitting out long lists of special instructions — 

Pancakes and sausage, but substitute bacon for the sausage.

Traditional breakfast, but no bread.

Traditional breakfast, but no meat.

Traditional breakfast, but no potatoes.

Egg sandwich, but no egg.

“What is WRONG with people?!”  I scream in the back kitchen.  “Why does everything have to be an EXCEPTION?”

I erupt.  I slam my frying pans, hurl the potatoes into the skillets, smash the eggs.  On the opposite side of the counter, Bob preps the plates.  He makes the breakfast salads, sets out the monkey bowls for the maple syrup, toasts the breads, scoops butter for the muffins, and lays fresh-baked croissants on the plates, passing them to me so that I can add the eggs, breakfast meats, pancakes and home fries.

“That croissant is wonky,” I snap at him, “take it off the plate and find a nicer one.”  With handmade pastries, there can be considerable variability in the appearance.  I’m okay with the wabi-sabi nature of our croissants most of the time, but this one was just absurd looking.

Wordlessly, Bob removes the croissant and replaces it with another one, then goes back to plating the next order.  I send the finished dishes out, read the next list of orders and exceptions; swear ,slam and carry on as I cook it; then turn around to dish it onto Bob’s plates.

“That croissant is wonky,” I tell him.  I pull it off, again, put it back on the croissant tray, and choose a prettier one.  

Next round of orders comes in.  MORE special exceptions.  “Make sure the eggs are runny.  Make sure the bacon is extra-crispy.”

More orders.  More orders.  More orders.

“Why can’t people get organized and eat before they come?!”  I shout under my hood vent, comforted that the customers can’t hear my tantrum.  Ula’s boyfriend Jack, who’s helping to deliver plates, pauses at the pick up counter.  He hears me, cocks his head and stares at me quizzically for a moment, wisely opts to say nothing, and hurries out, his arms loaded with plates.  

Bob hands me the next round of plates.

“THAT CROISSANT IS TOO WONKY!”  I shout at him.  “I KEEP TELLING YOU THAT AND YOU KEEP PLATING IT!”

I grab the croissant off the plate and fling it back on the tray.

Bob bends down to my height.  His brown eyes are fierce as he locks them with mine.  His lips are tight with rage.  Saying nothing, he reaches one long arm out to the croissant tray, grabs the wonky croissant, raises it high in the air, then pitches it into the compost bucket.

I gawp like a fish. “You can’t do that to a croissant!”  It takes us three days to make those.

“You don’t like it, you won’t let me use it, then we’re getting rid of it!”

“That’s food waste!”  I pull it back from the bucket and begin spinning around the kitchen,  looking for a way to rescue it.  “And now you’ve contaminated it!” I yell at him.

He grabs the croissant from my hand, his eyes still locked with mine, and chucks it into the compost again.  The printer scrolls out another long list of orders.

But nothing gets cooked.

We stand there, ready to fight to the death over this croissant.  

And that’s when I realize.

He’s angry, too.  

There we are, in this kitchen, in this cafe that we’ve built with our love for each other for the love of our community and our place.  And we’re both furious for what we face.  

We don’t want to get old.

And we don’t want to go to New York City for treatment.

And we don’t want to ever ever ever let go of each other.

And we don’t want to lose all that we’ve built.

And when it comes right down to it, we don’t get a choice about any of it.

And so the wonky croissant goes in and out of the compost bucket until the anger moves through both of us, and the aches and pains melt, and we are left with just the present moment:  Man and wife, in love. … In a little business in a tiny town that they love.  Here for today, cooking breakfast for people they really care about.  Even if they want egg sandwiches with no eggs.  Even when we run short on croissants.

As I mentioned, next week is the final episode of Season 3 of The Hearth of Sap Bush Hollow.  Once home schooling resumes in September, the podcast stops and I recharge over the fall and winter.  And all of that — the podcast and the recharging —   happens with the support of my patrons on Patreon.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons Leslie Hempling & Leighanne Saltsman.  Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you! 

 If you’re a new listener, OR a long time listener and  you’ve enjoyed this season, you can help make sure it comes back next year for as little as $1/month by hopping over to Patreon and looking up Shannon Hayes.  Or, if it’s easier, you can also donate to support the podcast by sending a check to Shannon Hayes, ℅ Sap Bush Hollow Farm, 832 W. Fulton Rd, West Fulton, NY  12194.