Promises to Keep (31 page)

“I’m scared too,” she says eventually, for she cannot tell her it’s all going to be okay. She just doesn’t know.

 

Mark appears five minutes later. He steps into the room and shuts the door softly, then comes and kisses the women hello, shaking hands with Reece. But there is nothing in his manner that is light. He is as grave as Reece has ever seen him.

Callie, lying prostrate, follows him around the room with those huge eyes.

Mark clears his throat, clutches his clipboard, then perches on one of the chairs.

“As you know we did the lumbar puncture the other day, and the results were negative,” he says.

“That was good news, wasn’t it?” Reece says.

Mark pauses. “In forty to fifty percent of lumbar punctures performed we see a false negative. What we did find were mildly elevated protein levels, but given the possibility of the false cytology, we performed another one.”

He pauses again and takes a deep breath.

“We confirmed the results today with an MRI. Callie has a disease called leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.”

There is a long silence, broken by Reece. “What is that?”

Mark goes on to explain that leptomeninges are the innermost layers of the system of membranes that envelop the central nervous system, and their primary function, together with the cerebrospinal fluid, is to protect the nervous system.

“Leptomeningeal carcinomatosis is a tumor that has diffused within the leptomeninges. It means the tumor is in the cerebrospinal fluid and traveling around Callie’s nervous system, hence the headaches and,” he sighs, “a new symptom these last twenty-four hours of weakness and numbness on her left side.”

“When you say tumor,” Reece says and swallows hard, “do you mean the cancer is back?”

Mark lifts heavy eyes. “It does not present as a tumor in the way other cancers do, but five percent of breast cancer sufferers will get this disease, and this is the same cancer as the primary breast cancer.”

“So what is the treatment?” Honor asks quietly.

Mark turns to her, looking between her and Callie as he speaks. “We will start with whole-brain radiation therapy. I have called the radiologist to come up here to consult on the amount needed, but I would say three weeks of radiation.”

“And then?” Callie asks, and Mark turns to address her directly.

“Then, if it is successful, we can start intrathecal therapy, where an ommaya port is inserted directly into the brain to target the chemotherapy.”

“So what is the prognosis?” Callie is the only one who has the courage to ask. It is whateveryone is thinking, but no one is daring to put it into words.

Mark hesitates. “It’s difficult to say. This is rare. We don’t see it very often. But Callie, Reece, you know we will do everything we can. The treatment is palliative, but can be very effective in easing the sympto—”

“
Palliative?
” Lila jumps in, her professional voice belying her thumping heart. “You mean it won’t make her better, it will make her more comfortable?”

He nods.

“So she’s not going to get better?” Reece looks white with shock.

Everyone in the room seems to have forgotten that Callie is there.

“I’m sorry.” Mark then looks at Callie, reaches over and takes her hand as a silence falls. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re my friend, Mark,” Callie whispers, the only person who seems able to speak. “You know my family. You know my kids. You’ve been to my home. If I’m to get my house in order, how long have I got?”

Mark swallows. “If the treatment is successful, maybe six months to a year.”

No one says anything.

“And if it’s not successful?” Callie’s voice is surprisingly strong.

“Four to six weeks.”

 

Mark leaves, and Callie turns her head to look at her husband, her mother, her best friend. No one can speak and, as Callie looks at them, tears start to trickle down her face.

Reece rushes over and puts his arms around her, and Honor and Lila stand up and leave the room.

They walk silently to the waiting room at the other end of the corridor, and as they walk in they look at each other, both bursting into tears, clutching each other for support, Honor heaving like a child as Lila sobs.

A nurse comes in, rubs their backs, then places a fresh box of tissues on the table, and leaves them alone in their grief.

After they finally pull apart, they sink into chairs, numb, to stare at the wall with tears dripping down their faces until Reece comes to get them.

“She wants to see you,” he says to Honor, who nods and makes the weary trek down the hallway, while Reece sinks into the chair next to Lila, leans his head on her shoulder and starts to cry.

 

“You need to take care of my children,” Callie says, when Honor has stopped crying. “Reece is an amazing dad, but he can’t do it himself. He needs a shitload of help. You have to be there for them.”

“I will. Of course I will.” Honor feels ready to explode with tears, but she cannot do it here; she has to be as strong as she can be for Callie.

“Six months to a year means I can plan,” Callie says softly. “We can make videos for Eliza and Jack, write them letters. I can organize things. Oh Jesus—” And she stops and looks away.

“What?”

“I just . . . I can’t believe it. I’m not . . . ready. I’m not ready to die. There’s too much I need to do.”

“I’ll help you,” Honor says, not able to believe it either. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

 

Lila is the last to go in. She cannot pull herself together enough to see Callie, and so she waits in the waiting room for an hour. Eventually, when Honor and Reece have gone downstairs to the cafeteria to grab some coffee—even though neither of them wants it, but they don’t know what else to do—she takes a deep breath and walks up to Callie’s room.

Perhaps Callie is sleeping, she thinks, tiptoeing round the bed to see Callie’s head resting on her folded hands on the pillow, her eyes wide open and staring out of the window as tear after silent tear slowly slides down her cheeks, soaking the pillow beneath.

Lila wants to gather her up, fold her into her arms and make everything better, but there is nothing she can do. She sits on the bed and leans her head down on Callie’s shoulder. She realizes, in all the years she has known her friend, she has never seen her cry.

For Callie is the girl who can do anything. She is the girl who is always happy. The girl who seizes life and wrings out every last drop.

How can this possibly be happening?

They stay there, for a long time. Eventually Callie turns her head and looks Lila deep in the eyes. “I’m scared,” she whispers. “I don’t want to die.”

“I know.”

“Who’s going to raise my children? Who’s going to look after Reece?”

“I’ll find someone for you,” Lila says. “I’ll speak to the agencies. I’ll find them a nanny-governess person. I’ll find someone amazing to raise your kids.”

Callie nods. “And you? And Steffi too. Both of you. You have to make sure they’re okay. You have to help Reece. I love him to pieces but you know how hopeless he is.”

Lila smiles through her tears. “You’d be surprised if you saw how amazing he has been.”

“I would.” Callie smiles back through tears of her own.

“I love you,” Lila says softly, leaning forward and kissing Callie on the cheek, then the other cheek, then her forehead. She would keep kissing her for hours if she could. As it is, it seems she cannot be in this room without physically touching her—sitting on Callie’s bed and holding her hand, resting a hand on her back, leaning her head on Callie’s shoulder and leaking tears. It is as comforting to Lila as it is to Callie.

“I love you,” Callie says, and they lie there, holding each other, until Reece comes back upstairs to take Lila’s place.

 

“We have to call Dad,” Callie says, exhausted now, the emotions and the pain meds too much for her.

“I’ll call him tonight,” Reece says.

“No,” Callie says. “Tell Steffi. Then let her tell Dad. And we have to have a party.”

“A what?” Reece thinks he has heard wrong.

“A party. I’d rather celebrate my life while I’m still alive.”

“Where? In the hospital?”

“No. I’m coming home. The kids. I have to do so much. Leave them rules to live by. Tell them about me, and about them as babies.”

“We can do all of that,” Reece says. “I can bring a tape recorder. We can start tomorrow.”

“How do we tell the children?” Callie’s eyes grow watery again. “How do I tell our children that I am going to die, that the longest I’m going to be around for is a year?”

 

Nobody says anything to the children that night.

Reece, Lila and Honor go back to Steffi’s to collect them, and Reece stays behind, after the children have gone home, to tell Steffi.

“What?” she keeps repeating, a loud buzzing in her ears. “What?”

She cannot understand, refuses to understand until after Reece has gone. She sinks down on the floor in the living room, staring numbly at the fireplace, when suddenly a huge sob lifts her up, and she lies, crying, for hours, Fingal curled up by her side.

In the early hours of the morning she pulls herself up to go to bed. Her limbs are so heavy, she can hardly move. This, she realizes, is what they mean when they talk about weighed down with grief.

 

 

A
psychologist comes in the next morning to talk to Callie and Reece. She is warm, understanding and wise. She gives them the words to tell the children, explains that the children have neither the life experience nor the intellectual or emotional development that allows them to understand what is going on in the way adults do.

She sits quietly as Callie and Reece both cry, and works through examples of what to say; but there is no rush, she says. Be honest with them about her illness, that she is taking medicine for it, but introduce the possibility of its not working. Studies have shown that the more prepared the children are, the better they will handle it.

Mark comes in afterward, and explains the course of treatment.

“I want to go home. Can I do it from home?”

He is reluctant, concerned about the pain medication, but willing to let her go home if they can get the pain under control in the next couple of days.

“I just want to be in my own bed,” Callie says. With the children. A year,” she keeps repeating to herself, the words seeming to reassure her. “There’s a lot I can get done in a year.”

 

 

A
weight has settled on Steffi’s chest during the night. She wakes up with tears already flowing down her cheeks, before she has even consciously remembered the news. She has no more sobs left, but a steady stream of tears trickle down throughout her early morning routine: making coffee, letting Fingal out, feeding the animals.

She is supposed to be cooking ginger almond chicken for Amy this morning, but Amy will understand. She pulls on some leggings, a scarf, slips her feet into thick socks and boots, and climbs into the car to go and see Callie.

Steffi would not say this to anyone, does not even dare think it properly, but she heard a year, and she heard four to six weeks and, while she has never considered herself to have a psychic bone in her body, she knows that she will not have Callie for long, that Callie will not be here by summer. Possibly not even by spring.

And the little time they have left must be wonderful. She will make sure of it.

She stops at the flower market on the way and buys a huge and horrendously expensive bunch of peonies—God only knows where they got them from: who has peonies in winter?—but Callie will love them.

At Mary’s she runs in and picks up her own banana and chocolate cake, and a nightgown.

“Are you okay, my dear?” Mary peers closely at Steffi’s red, puffy eyes and blotchy cheeks.

“Yes . . . I’m fi—” A sob comes up, and Mary gathers her in her arms as Steffi continues to cry.

“You go and show your sister how much you love her,” she says. “Go and look after her. Don’t worry about cooking for me, and I’ll let Amy know you won’t be cooking at the moment. You have more important things to do.”

 

Callie is asleep when Steffi gets there. She puts the bags down softly, slips off her boots and lowers herself, very gently, on the bed next to Callie. Callie opens her eyes and smiles when she sees Steffi, and Steffi scooches down and lays her head on Callie’s shoulder as the tears start to drip again.

“Oh God,” she says after a few minutes, while Callie rubs her back. “As always, you’re the one looking after me. I’m supposed to be here to look after you.”

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job,” Callie says.

“I know.” Steffi smiles. “Call—” Steffi’s voice suddenly breaks. Damn. This isn’t what she had intended. “Oh God. I’m sorry.” She wipes her face. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Callie says softly. “Of course you can cry. I can’t stop.”

“Oh Jesus.” Steffi sniffs. “You can’t go anywhere. What am I going to do without my big sister?”

“What am
I
going to do without my little sister?” Callie frowns. “Oh . . . wait.
You’re
not going anywhere. Oh God. I never expected this.”

They sit, both girls in silence, and Steffi’s tears continue to fall.

“Will you leave white feathers for me?” she whispers. They both smile as they remember Honor telling them that whenever they found a white feather it was a message from their guardian angels telling them they were looking after them.

“I’ll leave you enough for a million pillows.” They lapse into silence again, until Callie eventually asks, “Do you think there is a heaven?”

Steffi rolls onto her side to look Callie in the eye. “Well, I don’t think death is the end, you know? I once did a Ouija board and I got Uncle Edgar.”