Authors: Jessica Wilde
Ben came in and spoke with her
for a long time while I fed Liv and kept her occupied. I understood that
Jocelyn needed some time with her friend, but it didn't make it any easier to
leave that room. When Ben finally emerged, he walked up to me and gave me a
firm handshake. "I'll be back with Linda and the kids soon. She wants to
meet you."
"Sounds good. Thanks for
everything."
He shook his head, "No
thanks needed. That woman is family to me. You take care of her, Andrew.
Despite everything she has to say and argue about, she needs you." He
patted me on the back and cleared his throat of the emotion that came to the
surface. "Be strong. That's all any of us can do."
I looked down at my feet and
tried to remember how to be strong. When Maddy and I lost our parents, I was
strong. I could do that again, couldn't I?
He left quickly after that and I
carried Liv up to her mother and we all laid in the bed and watched reruns of
The Big Bang Theory on the TV I brought from my house for the rest of the
evening with Liv snuggled between us.
She tried to convince me to just
go to work the next day and that she would be just fine, but by the way she had
been holding onto Olivia throughout the day, I knew she didn't really
want
to be alone. So I just told her to stop arguing with me and deal with it. I
drove her to her appointment in Portland on Wednesday and surprisingly enough,
she didn't complain once or make any excuses about going alone.
Madison had picked up Olivia just
before we left and Jocelyn wasn't taking it very well. She couldn't stand to
miss any time and it took all my power to swallow down the lump in my throat
that grew when both of my girls started crying as we parted ways.
She kept apologizing, saying she
was just a blubbering mess, but I kept telling her she had nothing to apologize
for. She had every right be a blubbering mess.
We sat in the waiting room
holding hands in silence. We had talked a little bit the last couple days, but
it was mostly details about what happened the last time. She told me about the
chemotherapy and the surgeries. It made me sick to think of what she went
through. Her ex was an incompetent douche and even though he started doing more
to help when she was first diagnosed, he made sure he was away a lot,
especially after a chemo treatment. She said it made her horribly sick and weak
and she didn't think she could do it again.
Every time I looked at her, I
wondered if that would be the last time I would see her. I slept in her bed
with her and brought some of my things over so I wouldn't have to leave her
alone, even though I was close enough for that excuse to be irrational. She
didn't object to any of it after I had told her there was no other option, but
I could see the frustration in her eyes every time I tried to help her with
something simple. She just had to do everything on her own and it was
infuriating.
"I'm not glass, Andrew. I
might be sick, but I'm not dead yet," she said when I wouldn't let her
cook dinner.
Her words ripped through me and
tore into my soul. 'Not dead yet'. She immediately apologized for snapping at
me, but I just brushed it off and told her I would back off a little bit. It
was impossible at first, but she started to feel better and her strength was
back so it got easier. We hadn't made love again since that night of the concert.
Neither one of us had really spoken about it in depth and I was at a loss. I
reached for her in the morning and she let me hold her, but just as quickly
decided to get up and get moving, making me itch to spank the living daylights
out of her and drag her under me so I could love her until we both collapsed
from exhaustion.
Today, I felt like I was the one
made of glass. She was so damn strong and here I was
pretending
to be
strong for her when I was really bits and pieces on the inside and probably looked
just as broken on the outside. She may be scared, yes, but that didn't stop her
from living the same every day. I was probably causing her more stress by
hovering over her, but I couldn't help it. I tried to stop, I really did.
"Jocelyn White." The
sharp voice of a middle aged nurse called across the room. Jocelyn held tightly
to my hand and led me through the door behind her.
Be strong, Andrew. For her. For
Olivia. Don't lose it.
I repeated the mantra in my head
over and over until we were sitting in a small room with a giant window
overlooking Portland. She stared out the window in silence and kept hold of my
hand. I kept my eyes on her small hand enveloped in my much larger one, her
skin so much softer than mine. Her fingers were long and skinny with chipped
pink nail polish covering each nail. She had been nervous all morning and had
continuously picked at her nails until I grabbed her hands and kissed each
finger trying to calm her down.
I had made her and Liv dinner
the night before and she was painting Liv's nails the same color, as I cooked.
I stole glances frequently and saw the incredible smile covering Olivia's
beautiful face when her mother blew on her fingers to dry the polish. She
thought it was the greatest thing in the world and when Jocelyn painted her
nails after, Olivia mimicked her mom and tried to dry the polish but ended up
spitting all over her hands. Liv wanted to do it again, but they had run out of
fingers and toes to paint. When Jocelyn turned to me, I didn't hesitate. She handed
Liv the brush and the little stinker went to town on my fingers. Took me
forever to get it off after she went to bed. Jocelyn had tears coming out of
her eyes she was laughing so hard.
My happy memory was zapped away
when the door opened and the doctor walked in. Jocelyn finally turned away from
the window, releasing my hand and steeling herself for whatever was going to be
said. The lack of a physical connection made every bone in my body feel like it
was cracking.
"Hello, Jocelyn. I'm Dr.
Harrison, it's nice to meet you. Dr. Moore has told me a lot about you."
He shook her hand and smiled brightly. I introduced myself and shook hands and
then he immediately went straight to the situation at hand.
"Well, Jocelyn, Dr. Clayton
sent the MRI to me and I have had a chance to look at it thoroughly. Given your
history and treatments, I think you have done very well. Being able to make it
through a pregnancy that soon after is pretty spectacular."
"Thank you," she said
shakily and my body strained to wrap around her and protect her.
The doctor shifted in his seat a
little as he turned back to the computer and clicked a few times. "I want
to show you exactly what I am seeing." He turned the screen to face us and
a distorted looking image of a brain was displayed. "Now, based on your
history, you were diagnosed with a malignant Anaplastic Astrocytoma several
years ago, is that correct?"
She nodded.
He pointed to a white spot,
"This was what it looked like then."
The realization that this was an
image taken years ago reminded me of what she went through and my palms started
sweating, my stomach churned. The pressure in my chest made it hard for me to
breathe, but I kept my face impassive.
"This," he said after a
few clicks, "was the result after your surgeries and subsequent treatment
with radiation and chemo."
The image was a little clearer
this time and the spot was gone but the area around it was distorted, I'm
guessing from the surgery.
"Now, before I show you the
most recent image from your E.R. visit, I want you to remember that nothing is
for sure, yet. I would need to do a biopsy for a more definitive
diagnosis."
She nodded again and I could only
stare at the computer and listen to the tick of the clock on the wall,
reminding me that time was a cruel bastard. It seems endless, makes you feel
comfortable and secure, patient, like it's on your side. Then all of a sudden,
you don't know where it went, and you feel… betrayed.
That damn clock keeps ticking on,
but it's no longer ticking
for
you.
I felt her reach for my hand and
without hesitation, I entwined my fingers with hers and kissed her knuckles
taking my own comfort from her.
Be strong.
I felt like a jerk. I
couldn't imagine what she was going through and here I was trying to take
comfort from her touch when I should be the one giving it. The problem was, I
had no idea how to do this.
Another image popped up on the
screen, this time the spot was a little smaller and on the other side of the
brain with the previous side still completely clear. "From what I can tell
right now, the removal of the tumor would be more successful than not and if we
do find that it is malignant, we can follow up with radiation and chemo if
necessary, but again, we don't know for sure that this is cancerous. I don't
want to give you false hope, but I also don't want you to
lose
any hope
you have. When that happens, it works against you."
Jocelyn looked at the image on
the screen for only a moment, then looked down at our hands. This was good
news, or so I thought. Surgery wouldn't be too bad, right? But she seemed to
retreat into herself.
"I want to get a little more
blood work done today and get surgery scheduled right away. How does that
sound?"
I nodded my head, more to myself
than anyone else, but Jocelyn didn't respond.
Not until she spoke to
me
,
knocking the wind right out of me.
"Andrew, will you please
excuse us?"
"What?" My heart
lurched in my chest and my hands started to tingle from the quick shallow
breaths I had been taking since the doctor walked in.
"Please," she pleaded.
Her voice sounded distant and
cold, like she was doing everything in her power to remain unaffected. She
wasn't going to make any decisions with me sitting next to her. She had been
dealing with this for a long time and from the look in her eyes, she already
knew what she was going to do if she was told she needed chemo and my heart
couldn't bear to think of it.
Jocelyn
"We can schedule the
surgery, but if it's… if the cancer is back and I..."
Dr. Harrison leaned forward and
his eyes were warm and sympathetic. Ready to hear me out.
"I can't go through the
chemotherapy again. My daughter… she doesn't need to see that, I don't want her
to see that. I have to take care of her and I can't if I'm sick all the
time."
Images of what I went through
before flashed through my mind. The endless nights of pain and nausea, the
weakness to the point where I couldn't lift a glass of water. I couldn't do it
again. If it hadn't been for Monty, I would have never gotten through it in the
first place.
The man didn't seem too concerned
about this and he gave me a tight smile. He closed up the images and scooted
his stool closer to me until he was sitting just a couple of feet in front of
me. "I'm sure Ben mentioned that I'm not the most… linear doctor that you could
have come to. Am I right?"
A memory of a brief conversation
with Ben flashed through my mind. He wasn't sure if I should really see this
man, but because I was able to get in much sooner, he hadn't complained too
much. "He said that you had some questionable methods of treatment."
"That's right. With some
situations, I do." He took a deep breath and eyed me carefully. "Tell
me, Jocelyn, Dr. Moore said your headaches started back shortly before you
moved to Banks. Why did you take so long to see someone?"
I stumbled for a moment then
thought about what the last few months had been like. I had hardly realized
they had stopped since I was so focused on Andrew and Olivia and when they did,
I didn't think anything else about it. "They had stopped."
"Stopped? Explain."
"They just sort of started
to dwindle until they were completely gone for a while. I thought maybe it was
just from the stress of moving…"
The look he gave me made me a
little uncomfortable. It was almost triumphant. My first reaction was to back
away, but I had nowhere to go.
He cocked his head to the door.
"Tell me, how long has he been in your life?"
I narrowed my eyes at him, trying
to get a read on where he was going with all of this. "Does it
matter?"
"Yes, very much so," he
replied immediately with a firm nod. "In fact, it could make all the
difference."
"Just after I moved
here."
"So, you have been involved
for a few months then?"
"Well, we became really good
friends at first and just recently in July started up a relationship." Why
did he need to know any of this? It was none of his business.
He smiled and for the first time
I noticed how handsome he really was. He was tall, almost as tall as Andrew,
but he was much thinner. Andrew had muscles where this man lacked them. His
white coat hung off of his shoulders where anything Andrew wore clung to them.
He had dark hair, not quite as dark as Andrew, and baby blue eyes. He was quite
handsome, but my chest ached. He wasn't Andrew. No one was Andrew and no one
ever could be.