I Gave Him Freedom, He Came Crawling Back in Tears novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Marla's Spare Room

Marla saw the clinic folder and asks nothing; Dexter texts to hurry her out; the doctor's call changes everything.

Marla drove me to her house that night without asking one question.

She lived in a brick bungalow on the east side, with a porch light that she left on for nobody.

She put me in the spare room, where a quilt covered the bed and a stack of crossword books sat on the dresser.

"There's soup," she said. "There's also whiskey. Pick one or both."

"Soup, please."

She brought it on a tray, which nobody had done for me in years.

I ate half of it and thanked her three times.

"Stop thanking me," Marla said. "I typed a document. That's my job."

"You typed it in twenty minutes without telling me I was crazy."

"You're not crazy. You looked like somebody who had already thought about it."

She stood in the doorway with her glasses pushed up into her gray hair.

"I saw the folder, Willa."

I set the spoon down.

"The one you carried in with you and wouldn't put down," she said. "I'm not going to ask what's in it. I buried my sister from the same kind of folder, and I know you tell people when you can."

"I don't know when that is."

"Then you don't know. Eat your soup."

She turned off the hall light and left the door open a crack.

At eleven my phone buzzed.

It was Dexter.

Can you be out by Friday? Tatum's lease ends and it would be easier. Thanks again for being so mature about this.

I read it twice.

Then I wrote back: Friday is fine.

I didn't write anything else, because there was nothing in me to write.

In the morning, while Dexter was at work, I went back to the house.

It was a two-story colonial on a street of other colonials, and Dexter and I had painted every room ourselves.

I had a duffel bag and a roll of trash bags.

I walked through the kitchen and did not look at the pot rack I had bought with my first paycheck.

I went upstairs and opened the closet.

His shirts hung on the left side and mine on the right.

I took my side, all of it, in under ten minutes.

On the dresser there was a framed photo of the two of us on the lake dock, the summer before we were married.

His father's cabin was behind us in the picture.

I left the photo where it was.

In the bathroom cabinet, behind the dental floss, there was a pink hairbrush that was not mine.

It had long blonde hairs in it.

I put it in the trash bag and then took it out again and set it on the sink, so he would find it in plain sight.

On the kitchen counter I put down my wedding ring, next to the key.

It left a pale line on my finger.

Then my phone rang in my bag.

It was a number I knew by heart.

"Willa Draper?" said a woman's voice. "This is the nurse at your oncologist's office."

I held on to the counter.

"The doctor asked me to call you personally. She tried you yesterday, and she doesn't want you to read the report alone. She'd like you in tomorrow at nine."

"Is it what I think it is?"

"She'll go over everything with you in the morning."

"Please. Just tell me."

There was a pause on the line.

"I'm not allowed to read the report, honey," the nurse said gently. "But I wouldn't ask you to come in this fast if it were good news."

I thanked her and hung up.

I loaded the car with two bags and a box of books.

I drove back to Marla's and sat in the driveway with the engine off.

Marla opened her front door and watched me through the window for a full minute.

Then she came down the steps and tapped on the glass.

I rolled it down.

"I haven't opened it yet," I said.

My voice came out thin.

"The folder. I've been carrying it since yesterday morning and I haven't opened it. I picked it up at the front desk, and the girl there looked at me like she was sorry."

Marla said nothing.

She came around, opened my door, and held out her hand.

We went inside and sat at her kitchen table, under the lamp.

I took the folder out of my bag and put it between us.

Marla did not touch it.

I opened the cover.

The first page said Pathology Report, Lymph Node Biopsy, and the third line down said: Classical Hodgkin lymphoma. Recurrent.

I read the word again.

Recurrent.

I had been in remission for ten years, and a man had sold his father's cabin to give me every one of them.

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