Paul's new vision of himself as Cathy's "Cancierge" is, as you might imagine, a trainwreck. It's not that he's incompetent, it's that he's so Adderal-Guy that his competence renders Cathy irrelevant. In order to feel like he's taking care of her, Paul needs her to do nothing while he does everything. The irony goes unspoken at this time, but I can't wait until Cathy calls him selfish for doing it. Luckily, Marlene is there to point out that it's Cathy's journey and maybe Paul shouldn't hog the road so much.
Cathy's personal theme for the week seems to be gratitude, as she teaches the class to write Thank You notes and, later, stupidly calls up that bus stop girl from last week, Mia, to tell her that Adam is sweet but breakable and very shy and not forthcoming with his feelings, etc., pretty much anything she'd want his future wife to know. As nightmarish as this should be, Mia is the same girl who gets tattoos so her parents will notice her, so she thinks it's kinda neat, refuses to tell Adam what Cathy said, and gives him his first kiss.
Dr. Todd accompanies Cathy to see the Canadian Bee Man, Liam Neeson, and get her twenty-three stings that don't actually do anything. Later, at the bar, Todd finally throws a fit after one death joke too far, then comes back to save Cathy from getting groped. A slow dance and general grief counseling session later, suddenly Todd kisses Cathy and she reacts with a quiet grace that frankly these people have been lacking. It's funny to see her beg him to be a doctor and stop having feelings when she's been working his shit overtime every time she sees him to get him to do just the opposite. Todd confesses "like" for Cathy, and she reminds him that he needs to pick the girl who lives. They drive back to the States on happy terms, because that was a very special kiss and not a ruining kiss.
Back home, things haven't gone so well. After spending the day cleaning out Marlene's house, Adam is surprised to find himself mistaken for an intruder, another one of her guns pointed at him until he takes off. Later, a lucid Marlene is treated to Paul manning up in a pretty horrible, pretty excellent fashion. He points out that having Alzheimer's means not having a goddamn gun in the house in the first place, and Marlene agrees.
When Cathy gets home, it's to a long, long Thank You note from Marlene -- detailing how much she felt they were like family, how she'll be waiting for Cathy when it's her time, asking her to apologize to Adam and take care of Thomas the dog, written just before she died -- containing the immortal line: "I know you're sick and all, but you've got to pull your head out of your ass."
Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Cathy Jamison wakes up to certain evidence that her husband is still surviving cancer, and probably has been surviving cancer since the break of dawn. In the summertime the days are long. The summer's almost over.
The ceiling over Cathy's bed has sprouted images: A bouquet of roses, a heart drawn in shells in the sand, a monarch butterfly, a sunset over a beach, a healthy rainbow. They come into focus slowly; she holds her eyes open to make them come in clearer; Paul is mopping the upstairs hallway, and offers her breakfast.
"Who knows how much bacteria has accumulated on these floors and seeped into the soles of your feet since we moved in? Fungal mold spores cause cancer: Google it."
He is wearing yellow gloves. The pictures over the bed, Paul explains, are called a Vision Board. Wake up to good thoughts, and you'll be healed. They're like a declaration of your will, to say that you prefer to live in a world with roses, and rainbows, and butterflies.
"I'm ambulatory," Cathy groans affectionately: "I can still clean floors." Paul says she can't do it all, though anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise, and proudly gestures with one rubber-gloved hand: "I'm going to be your cancierge!" That gets a full laugh, one of the deep ones he loves the best, and she's finally awake.
"I might sleep on the couch but I'm not letting you do this alone," he says, wiping the lintel above the bathroom door. Scrubbing. She reminds him that they don't have a couch anymore, that it lives in the pool hole now, but he's been awake all morning. When he tells her about the new couch, she proves ambulatory indeed.
"You bought a new couch? No!"
Yes. In a delightful color he calls Montana Moss. Hands to her head, she wonders how to approach this. She wanted to pick the new couch. Now she doesn't have to. And when Paul offers to accompany her on her Canada trip today, to see the bee man, he can't imagine why she'd say no. Dr. Todd has offered to come, she says, "because he's a doctor," but that's not really the truth either. He has offered to come because they are on a road together, and this is a road trip they have to take together. Because Cathy has things handled. It's what she does. Because Paul can't afford to wish on beestings, even if Cathy can.
Paul grins, softening his words: "Don't get all possessive of your cancer, Cathy! I've seen the x-rays, there's plenty to go around."
Cathy looks her husband in the eye: "I've got this." He corrects her pronoun.
Comments