Season of Blessing (9 page)
Cathy knew
something was wrong when she saw Sylvia close herself in the garage. She never did that. Whenever Sylvia saw that anyone was out, she would get out of her car and walk down the driveway and spend at least a few minutes talking.
Cathy's stomach plummeted. She was certain Sylvia had gotten bad news.
She ran back into the house and called upstairs. “Annie? Annie, come down. I need you.”
Annie bounced down the stairs. “What is it, Mom?”
“I need for you to come with me and baby-sit Tory's kids. I need to gather her and Brenda up, so we can go see what's wrong with Sylvia.”
Annie's face changed. “Did she get her results?”
“I think she must have. She looked upset.”
“Oh, Mom, you don't think it's cancer! Tell me it's not cancer. It couldn't be cancer.”
“I don't know, Annie, but I need to get over there.”
Cathy bolted out the door, Annie close on her heels. “Mom, please let me come with you. I've been praying so hard for her.”
Cathy crossed the street and ran up Brenda's porch steps to ring the bell. “Annie, please. Tory will need a sitter so she can come without Hannah. She trusts you.”
The door came open, and Joseph took one look at Cathy's face and yelled out, “Mama!”
Annie hadn't given up. “Mom, if it is cancer, what will happen?”
Brenda dashed to the door. “Cathy, what is it?”
“Something's wrong with Sylvia,” she said. “She drove right past me and closed her garage. I think she got the results.”
“Oh, no.”
“We need to get over there. Annie's going to baby-sit for Tory.”
Brenda burst out of the house. “Let's hurry.”
As they crossed the empty lot between the Dodds' and the Sullivans' houses, Cathy glanced back at Annie. Tears were rolling down her face. Cathy stopped. “Oh, honey.”
Annie came into her arms. “Mom, I'm scared. Nothing can happen to her. She's too special.”
Cathy held her and stroked her hair. “It's going to be all right. Look, if you really want to, you can come with us. Tory could just bring Hannah with her⦔
Brenda touched Annie's shoulder. “I could get Leah and Rachel to sit for Spencer and Brittany.”
Annie considered that, then stepped back and wiped her eyes. “No. I'll do it. She really needs the three of you. I'd probably turn into a basket case and get her even more upset.” She dried her hands on her jeans.
“Thank you, sweetheart. I'll come tell you the minute I leave her.”
They headed into Tory's garage and knocked on the kitchen door.
She answered quicklyâHannah on her hipâand stared at the looks on their faces. “What is it?”
“We have to go to Sylvia,” Brenda said.
Tory brought her hand to her mouth. Annie took the baby, and the three of them hurried on their way.
Sylvia knew
who it was the moment the doorbell rang, but she wasn't up to talking to anyone. She tried to ignore the bell, but her neighbors weren't going away.
Finally she grabbed a Kleenex, blew her nose, dabbed at her eyes, and decided that she might as well get it over with.
She opened the door, and Cathy, Brenda, and Tory stood there looking intently at her as if they already knew the verdict. Unable to utter a word, she reached out to hug all three of them. They came into her arms and clung.
For the moments that they embraced, Sylvia was sure that they were the only thing holding her up, keeping her from collapsing completely.
“Have you told Harry?” Cathy asked as they each let go and stepped back to look at their friend.
“Not yet. I wanted to tell him first but I dread it so much. I'm going to have to have surgery in the next week or two. I've got so many decisions to make. This ruins everything, you know.”
“What does it ruin, honey?” Brenda asked.
Sylvia walked away from her and started flipping through the mail that sat on the counter.
“Our mission work. Harry's going to want to rush home, and what's going to happen to the people who need him? And the children are expecting me back. I don't understand this.” She threw the mail down and flattened her palms on the counter. “What is God doing?”
Her voice broke off and she pulled a chair out from the kitchen table, lowered into it. Her friends sat down, Tory and Cathy across from her, Brenda next to her.
“Sylvia, what exactly did the doctor tell you?” Cathy's voice was soft, careful.
Sylvia propped her forehead in her hand. “Cancer in the breast,” she said. “Poorly defined margins. Aggressive cells. I have to decide whether to have a lumpectomy or a mastectomy, and what
kind
of mastectomy, or even a bilateral mastectomy⦔ She hated that they'd come when she was so upset. She'd wanted to be stoic, philosophical, gracious. “I'm sorry, girls. I don't mean to get you all upset. I handled myself really well in the doctor's office. I really did. And then I went to the post office and the cleaners.” She hadn't handled herself well at the cleaners, but she didn't tell them so.
“You know, this really makes me sick, the way I'm responding. It's not at all what I would have envisioned.”
“What in the world did you envision?” Tory asked.
“I pictured myself being tough and godly, taking it all with some sense of divine power working in my life. I thought I was grounded enough in my faith that I could accept whatever God decided to throw my way, that I wouldn't fall apart.”
Brenda hugged her. “Honey, you haven't fallen apart. You've just been given the worst news of your life. You're supposed to cry.”
Cathy took her hand. “Sylvia, what would you say if it was me, if I had just come home with a cancer diagnosis and I was crying? Would you think I was weak?”
Sylvia lifted her chin and took in a deep breath. “Of course not. I'd probably cry with you, and say something totally inane. I'd probably give you some platitude like âThis, too, shall pass,' or quote you Philippians 4:13: âI can do all things through him who strengthens me.' And I'd tell you that God will never leave or forsake you, that I wouldn't either.” Tears assaulted her again and she wiped them away. “But, please, I'm begging youâdon't say any of those things to me.”
Tory smiled. “They're all true, you know.”
“I know,” Sylvia said. “I know they're true, and I'll hold on to them as this progresses, but right now I'm angry and confused, and I have too many options, and I don't know what to do.”
“Well, let's break it down,” Cathy said. “One thing at a time. First, you need to call Harry.”
Sylvia nodded. “I know. But this is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done. How will I convince him to stay there?”
Brenda got up and looked down at her. “Stay there? Sylvia, you
can't
convince him to stay there. He needs to be here with you.”
“But his work is more important,” Sylvia said. “Don't you understand? Some of those people would have died without him. They can't do without him.”
“Somehow they can,” Tory said. “Sylvia, they can do without him because God put this in your path right now. He didn't do it so you could go through it alone while Harry works for the Lord. There are times when our work has to stop and we have to deal with things that come into our lives. This is one of those times.”
“You know he's going to want to come.” Brenda handed her a box of Kleenex. “Don't give him a hard time about it. Just let him do what he needs to do.”
Sylvia knew they were right. She tore a tissue out of the box. “Oh, I hate breaking Harry's heart. And I hate not being there to comfort him when he hangs up the phone.”
Sylvia blew her nose again and grabbed another one to wipe her eyes. “Who would have thought? When I came home feeling tired and weak, who would have thought I had cancer?”
“Maybe Harry did,” Brenda said. “He sent you home for tests, didn't he?”
“Harry never suspected cancer,” she said. “Not in a million years. And it turns out that the fatigue and the weakness are not even about the cancer. It's stupid anemia.”
“Well, be thankful for it,” Cathy said. “It was what got you back here so they could discover the breast cancer. God is working.”
Sylvia got up, putting distance between them. “I know I should be thankful. It's just hard right now. I guess I've got to call him. I can't put it off any longer. I know he's waiting to hear.”
“Honey, do you want us to stay or go?” Cathy asked.
Sylvia stared at them all for a moment. Part of her wanted to deal with this alone in a dark closet where she could curl up on the floor and scream out her anger and misery and confusion. But she knew it was better for her if they were here to walk her through this.
“Why don't you wait in here and let me go call him in the bedroom? I might need you when I come out.”
The three women nodded and sat where they were as she headed into the bedroom.
Harry picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, honey.” She forced her voice to sound upbeat, but feared that her stopped-up nose would give away her distress.
“Sylvia, what did you find out?”
She tried to draw in a breath and cleared her throat. “It's malignant, Harry.”
Silence followed, and she pictured him covering his face, struggling with tears, trying to clear his own voice. “How big is the tumor?”
“Three centimeters,” she said. “And the margins are poorly defined, and the cancer cells are aggressive.” There. It was all out.
Harry didn't say a word. She knew he was letting it sink in, running it through his database, lining it up with all of his medical knowledge. She knew he was shaking, rubbing his face, frowning, and struggling with tears.
“Have you told the kids?”
“No, not yet. I don't want to, Harry. It'll scare them to death. I'd rather wait until some things are decided. Then I can give them more information, and maybe it'll soften the blow.”
His sigh was shaky. “That's my Sylvia. Always thinking about others.”
She could hear in his voice that he was taking it hard. “Harry, we have some decisions to make.” Oh, she didn't want to cry right now, but her throat grew tight and she felt that emotion creeping up, waiting to ambush her. “It's so confusing. He recommended a modified radical mastectomy because of the size and nature of the tumor. But I'm thinking about maybe having a lumpectomy and radiation, and then if that doesn't get it all, I could go back and have a mastectomy later.”
“Sylvia, that's not wise. You'd be giving this cancer the chance to metastasize.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “He also suggested that I could opt for a bilateral mastectomy just to keep from taking any chances with the other breast. Harry, I want to do the right thing, but this is all so unreal. I feel like I'm watching a Monday night movie.”
“I don't,” he said. “I feel like my bride is in serious jeopardy, and I want to get home to her as fast as I can.”
She longed to tell him that he didn't need to come, but she knew it was all in vain. He was probably throwing things into his suitcase even as they spoke.
“Harry, what's going to happen to the mission work, to the clinic, and to the orphanage?”
“Sylvia, it was God's plan to send us here in the first place. Do you think he doesn't have a plan now that we're leaving?”
“But why would he get us there only to make us come home?”
“He knows what he's doing. And he's got replacements for us. We've got to trust him. But right now I've got to get home to you.”
“Harry, my biggest wish is that you would stay there and keep doing the work and let me handle this. The girls will take care of me. I can handle it.”
“Sylvia, I can't think of anything more torturous than to be here while my wife is suffering at home. God doesn't require that of me.”
“I'm not suffering. I'm doing just fine. I don't have any pain.”
“You will after the mastectomy. You're part of me, Sylvia, and when we suffer, we suffer together. That's all there is to it. I don't want to hear another word about it.”
She closed her eyes. Tears streamed down her face. “When will you be here?”
“I'll get the first flight out of Managua tomorrow,” he said.
“You don't have to rush. You can take a day or two.”
When he spoke again his voice wobbled. “They said it was aggressive, Sylvia. I want it out of you as soon as possible. I'll see you tomorrow. Until then, honey, I want you to relax and not worry.”
“How do I do that?”
“Call on the girls. Get them to come over and have popcorn and watch a funny movie.”
She shook her head. “No. What I really need to do is read about breast cancer. I need information, Harry. I think I'll feel better if I know what I'm doing.”
“All right, whatever you need to do. But I'm here, okay? If you need to talk tonight, just call me.” His voice broke off and she knew he was crying. Anger surged through her again.
Lord, why would you break his heart like this?
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too. I'll see you tomorrow, honey.”
She hung up the phone and grabbed up his pillow, mashed it against her face, and wept into it, hoping her friends in the living room didn't hear. She sat there like that for a long time, spending her tears, venting her anguish. Finally she went into the bathroom and washed her face. Quickly, she reapplied her makeup. Then, taking a deep breath, she went back into the living room.
Cathy, Tory, and Brenda had been crying. Their eyes were red and puffy. They were all huddled together on the couch, and she sensed they had been praying.
She stood in the doorway, her hand on the casing. “Harry's coming home tomorrow.”
“Good.” Cathy's smile was overbright. “That will help a lot.”
Sylvia nodded and averted her eyes.
“So what do you want to do to get your mind off of this?” Brenda asked.
“I don't want to get my mind off of it,” Sylvia said. “I want to keep my mind on it. I want to read the stuff the doctor gave me, and go to the bookstore and get every book I can find on the subject. And I want to stay up late tonight reading until I feel like I have a better handle on this. I know that God is in control. There's no doubt about that. And I know that he's faithful. I'll hold onto that as I go. But I feel like a certain amount of this is under my control, and I need to know more to make the right decisions.”
“Okay,” Cathy said, “then let's go.”
Sylvia looked around at them. “All four of us? What about the kids? What about Hannah?”