I Never Thought I'd See You Again: A Novelists Inc. Anthology (14 page)

“And the next thing you’re going to tell me is that I’ve never had cancer, so I can’t possibly understand. So, what comes next, Maggie? You tell me, what comes next?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head, as she slogged to the breakfast table and plopped down on the chair across the table from him. “I really don’t know. But I’ve been wondering if I should pray. Thought about it for hours last night. A lot of people do it regularly, probably even more resort to it when there’s a crisis. Then you get the greedy ones who save their prayers for when they want something. You know, like, if you let me have that new job I promise I’ll make a monthly donation to the homeless. Or give me that yacht, and I’ll think about you every Sunday when I’m out enjoying my leisure time on the high seas.”

David laughed. “So what would you pray for?” he asked.

“I supposed the most logical thing would be that I get through this and come out on the other end cured.”

“Sounds like a good thing.”

“But is it selfish? See, that’s what worries me because I’m not sure God wants to listen to selfish prayers.”

“Well, it’s said he hears all prayers.”

“Yeh, but hearing and listening are two different things. And while he may be hearing, if I were him I’d be separating those prayers into categories. You know, assigning them priorities, like world peace way up there on the list, along with hunger. Yachts way down at the bottom. Then all the personal things like jobs, and relationships, and even cancer somewhere in the middle. I mean, my prayer could conceivably get shuffled behind the person needing the job because he or she supports and elderly mother, three kids, a disabled wife, a couple of rescued dogs . . . ”

“Golden retrievers,” David said. “They have a nice image.”

“So if I prayed, I might come in behind the golden retriever.”

“Maybe. But you might also come before world peace, if you believe that old saying that God moves in mysterious ways.”

“If you believe in God,” Maggie said.

“You must, since you’re thinking about praying. Otherwise, why waste your breath?”

He had a point. After all, there were no atheists in fox holes, were there? Or on the cancer operating table either, she supposed. “So maybe I should pray for a golden retriever,” she said. “You know, go for a bargain like you make me well, get me through the cancer, and I’ll rescue a golden retriever. Give him a very good home.”

“Cancer cure is worthy of two goldens, Mags.”

“That’s a big commitment.”

“Cancer’s a big thing to cure, so you need a better bargaining chip.” David picked up his coffee, took a sip, then nodded. “Definitely, two golden retrievers.”

And someone to take care of her husband, Maggie decided. So maybe praying for herself was a little too sel always wondered if therTo fasfish, but praying for David wasn’t. Because he’d painted her room. Because he’d spent the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Because he hadn’t come to terms with the many ways this could turn out. In his mind, she was strong. Life would go on the way it always had for them. And they’d get two dogs.

Live a good life, be a good person. Maybe, in a way, she’d already prayed.

“Holmes. Maggie Holmes.”

David squeezed her hand as the woman in green scrubs stepped into the waiting room, reading Maggie’s name off the chart.

“Looks like this is it,” Maggie said, as her heart started pounding harder. She’d already checked in, given them her insurance card, had the lovely orange wrist band slipped over her wrist. Now, it was time to face her future. “David, I . . . ”

“Maggie Holmes,” the woman called again.

“We need to talk,” she said to him, holding on to his hand for dear life.

“I think you need to go with her.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be in as soon as they let me.”

The expression weak in the knees didn’t come close to describing what Maggie was feeling as she followed the woman down the hall and through the automatic door marked Authorized Personnel only. So, today she was authorized. “What happens next?” she squeezed out past the big lump in her throat.

“We’ll get you prepped for surgery . . . out of your street clothes, into your lovely surgical ensemble. Then we’ll take your vital signs, the anesthesiologist will be in to talk to you, your surgeon will stop in for a few minutes, and on to surgery.”

On to surgery. “How long will all this take?”

“About an hour.”

What she’d hoped was that they’d knock her out posthaste then in an hour they’d be well into the procedure. Never in her life had she anticipated this incessantly long last hour of waiting. Now she knew what it felt like to be a martyr walking toward a very slow doom.

“And here’s your home away from him until it’s time,” the surgical nurse said, opening the door to a room no larger than Maggie’s master bathroom. Inside were various pieces of equipment, a computer attached to a pull-down wall desk, a knee-hole bathroom, and a chair. Not even a bed.

“What? No Jacuzzi?” Maggie asked.

“Only in the doctors’ lounge,” the nurse said. “Along with the big screen TV and the popcorn cart.”

“With what they’re charging me for this surgery, maybe I should be insisting on waiting there.”

“Just think of this room as the most luxurious penthouse you’ve ever seen, because that’s about what it’s costing you.”

“And that’s meant to make me feel better going for a few minutesd fas into surgery?”

The nurse laughed. “It’s meant to get your mind off the fact that you’re going into surgery. Which, by the way, is even more expensive than this room.”

“When can my husband come in?” Maggie asked, then managed a smile. “Unless you’re charging extra for him.”

“Spouses and significant others are free of charge. They even get free coffee, tea and soft drinks.”

“Doesn’t seem fair,” Maggie said, kicking off her shoes.

“Hey, he’ll be awake the next few hours while you’re snoozing. The least we can do is give the poor man a cup of coffee. Oh, and I’ll call him in after we get you undressed and the anesthesiologist give you your la-la- land juice.”

“Can I order a margarita instead?”

“You and me both,” the nurse said, handing Maggie a neat stack with a hospital gown, a shower cap, booties, and panties that looked to be made of the crating materials she saw wrapped around exotic pears in the grocery store.

It took about fifteen minutes to get her ready for the anesthesiologist, who turned out to be a fresh-faced young man who looked to be all of twelve. Her first inclination, as he prepped her for her IV was that he was lowering his voice on purpose to make himself seem older. Then she really wanted to ask him if his mother had given him permission to work in the grown-up hospital. Naturally she didn’t, but it took every bit of concentration she could muster to keep the wise-ass remarks in. They weren’t like her anyway, and she wondered if this was some kind of giddy reaction to it being T minus thirty minutes, and counting.
If I could save time in a bottle . . .

“So, do you have any questions?” the anesthesiologist asked her after he’d explained his part of the procedure.

She shook her head, because the questions she had couldn’t be answered by someone who hadn’t started living his life yet. Youth was good, but youth was also naive and while she wouldn’t have minded having a little of her youth back, she didn’t want the naivety. Never again the naivety.

“You look lovely,” David said, stepping into the room a few minutes later. “That green’s a good color on you. We might want to try it out on your office walls.”

“My office walls are fine peach,” she said.

“Today,” David said. “But who knows about tomorrow.”

“Which is what I want to talk about,” she told him.

“Your office walls again?”

“No, not my walls. But . . . the obvious. We haven’t talked about that yet, David, and we need to.”

“We’ve done nothing but talk.” He sat down on a chrome stooland scooted in closer to her.

“About stuff, David. We’ve talked about stuff, but not this. And what comes after.”

“What comes after is that you’ll be here a few days, then you’ll come home and recover.”

Not to be daunted by her husband’s own brand of naivety, or aversion, Maggie continued.

“Look, I left you lists about what you need to do until I come home. But what if . . . ”

“Don’t go there, Maggie,” he snapped, thrusting out his hand to stop her.

“But I need to go there, David. I need to know that you’ll be able to do what has to be done once everything on the lists is completed.”

“You’ll make me more lists. That’s what’s going to be done.”

She shook her head, batted at a tear. “But if I don’t make it out of surgery . . . ”

“Stop that!” he snapped. “You’ll make it out of surgery.”

“But if I don’t. And even if I do, and they’ve discovered that the cancer is more than what the tests have indicated . . . ”

David shook his head. Refused to listen.

“We should have done this before,” she said, suddenly realizing where David was. He was stuck at the very beginning, at the denial phase where she’d been stuck for so many weeks. She’d moved on past it, gotten angry, gone through the bargaining phase, entering right now the place where she was finally just, plain sad. But not for her as much as for David. Which surprised her. Sure, she’d cried over the things she’d never done yet, cried over the unknown, cried because she couldn’t yet face removing the towel from her mirror. Even cried because she hated the color of her office walls in spite of what she’d just told him.

But David . . . he hadn’t done any of this, hadn’t faced any of it. “What’s going to happen to you if I don’t come through this?” she asked him, as she became aware of the cool chill of the IV solution dripping into her vein.”

“Stop it, Maggie. This isn’t what you should be thinking about on your way into surgery.”

“Then tell me, what
should
I be thinking about?”

“How about the vacation we’re going to take when you’re up to it? Or going out to dinner every night until you’re up to cooking again. Or think about expanding our business once we get through this mess.”

“But what happens if we don’t get through this mess?”

“No!” He held his hands up in surrender. “Not now, Maggie. Not . . . now!”

She wondered when? Wondered if ever? “Okay, then we won’t talk about it. But just in case that thing we won’t talk about happens, all my life insurance information is in my top left drawer. And I wrote down some instructions, and wishes . . . ”

“No,” he whispered.

“ . . . for you to go over. With phone numbers, and due dates . . . oh, and the checking account . . . don’t forget we have two. Make sure you keep an eye on both of them so they don’t . . . ”

“Maggie,” Doctor Snider said, stepping into the room. “Any questions before we go do this?” the twenty-first centuryle and he

Maggie shook her head. Drew in a deep, albeit wobbly breath, and smiled. “I’m just ready to get this over with.”

“Then give your husband a hug, and I’ll send in the nurse who’ll get you ready to transport to the OR. See you there in a few minutes.”

Maggie stood up, pulled the back of her gaping gown closed, not that it mattered, and simply stood there, looking at David, who stood up, and simply stood there looking back at her. Was it a minute that passed? Or an hour? Time really was bottled up just then. At least it seemed that way. Then finally, David opened his arms to Maggie and she fell into them. And as his arms closed around her she knew. Felt it as keenly as she’d ever felt anything in her whole life. David was as afraid as she was. This was his cancer, too. Not just hers, but theirs.

Sighing, Maggie took a sip of her tea and looked out over her back yard as the setting sun cast it in shades of gold. In the distance, somewhere near her little maple grove, just past the clump of giant rhododendrons, a mother deer was emerging from the protective cover with her fawn. They came around every day about this time, but it was a wary relationship Maggie had with them. The deer knew of Maggie’s existence the way Maggie knew of the deer, but they kept a respectful distance as they co-existed for those few moments in the evening. That’s the way nature meant for it to be.

It had been three weeks since surgery, and she’d gone back earlier today for her first post-operative checkup. She would have preferred to keep a wary distance from that, too, but that’s not the way nature had meant for it to be.

“Looking good, Maggie,” Dr. Snider said. “You’re healing nicely, your blood tests are normal . . . you’re doing as well as can be expected.”

Doing as well as could be expected for someone who’d come through cancer, Maggie had thought to herself. “So, when do I start phase two?” Chemo or radiation. She’d prepared herself for either or both. Weakness, nausea, bald head . . .

Dr. Snider shook her head. “We don’t need to put you through that. Surgery accomplished everything we needed. You’ll still have to come in for your check-ups every few months, but apart from that, we’re done.”

Over. Done. The rumors of her death greatly exaggerated. Thank God!

“I can’t believe it’s finally over,” David said, settling in next to her on the deck. He was drinking a martini, which Maggie wouldn’t be allowed for a little while longer. “You’re done.”

“Not done,” Maggie said. “The cancer may be out of me, but I’m not done.” And she couldn’t explain it to him, because she really couldn’t explain it to herself. She was a cancer survivor now, and that was good place to be. But the cancer had invaded more than her body. It had invaded her soul, which was something only someone else who’d had cancer could understand. It was a life changer, a future changer, in spite of its early cure. So while the cancer cells themselves might no longer be inside her in the physical s the twenty-first centuryle and heense, they were hanging on to her psyche for dear life. Probably not to be shaken for a very long time. If ever.

“When you say you’re not done, you mean with your follow-up appointments, right?” he asked her.

“Yes, my follow-up appointments,” she lied. There was no point in trying to explain how she was more vulnerable now, and not so much in the physical sense as in the emotional. That so many of her certainties had disappeared, that her very core was no longer as solid as it had been. The unshakeable had been shaken because the unspeakable had happened. She’d walked through the dreaded disease no one ever wants to think about, or talk about and she’d come out on the other side. But with a different sense. “I have to go back for two years, every four months.”