I Gave Him Freedom, He Came Crawling Back in Tears novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Next Chair

The cancer is back; Willa takes her first infusion beside a funny stranger; her mother calls.

My oncologist was a small, precise woman who never wasted a word, and that morning she wasted none.

"It's back," she said. "The biopsy confirms it. Two nodes in the chest and one under the arm."

I sat in the hard chair across from her desk with my hands flat on my knees.

Marla sat beside me with her purse in her lap.

I had asked her to come, and she had said yes before I finished asking.

"What do we do?" I said.

"Chemotherapy first. Six cycles, one every three weeks. If the scans are clear after that, we talk about a stem cell transplant to make sure it stays gone."

"And if the scans aren't clear?"

"Then we change the drugs and try again."

"What are the odds?"

She told me.

They were not bad odds, and they were not good odds.

They were the kind you could live inside if you were stubborn.

I am very stubborn.

"When do I start?"

"Monday. I'd start today if the chair were open."

"What does it cost?"

Marla let out a short, impatient breath beside me.

"With your employer's plan, you'd owe a deductible and a share of each cycle. The billing office will give you a number. Willa, it's manageable."

"Is it manageable if I lose my job?"

"Why would you lose your job?"

"I wouldn't," I said. "I'm only asking."

I had spent ten years of my life being a debt that somebody else paid.

I had sworn that if it ever came back, I would pay it myself.

The doctor looked at me for a long second.

"Is someone at home with you?"

"Marla is with me."

"I meant a spouse. Your chart lists a husband."

"We're divorcing," I said. "He doesn't know about this yet."

She did not blink, which I appreciated.

"You should tell him. For your own sake, if not his."

"I will think about it."

She wrote something on her pad and let it go.

On Monday morning I sat in a recliner in a long room with big windows, and a nurse put a needle in the back of my hand.

There were twelve chairs along the walls.

Marla had to work and I had told her not to come.

Most of the chairs were full, and every person in them had the same pale, patient face.

The man in the chair on my left was reading a paperback with a cracked spine.

He was about my age, big through the shoulders, with a short brown beard and a flannel shirt with the sleeves pushed up.

His forearms were scarred in a dozen small white lines, and one thumbnail was black.

An IV line ran into the crook of his arm.

"If you're going to look at my thumb," he said without lifting his eyes, "you should know I did it with a hammer, and it was not cancer."

"I wasn't looking at your thumb."

"You were looking at the thumb."

"Okay, I was looking at the thumb."

He turned a page.

"Carpenter," he said. "I hit it on a Tuesday. It's been three weeks and the nail is still mad at me."

I laughed.

It came out of me before I could stop it, a short, rusty sound, and the nurse at the end of the row glanced over.

"First time?" he said.

"Second. The first one was ten years ago."

"Then you're a veteran. I'm a rookie at the second round. It's a lot like the first one, except now I know exactly how much I hate the pudding."

"Is there pudding?"

"There's pudding at one o'clock. Don't take it."

He finally looked up from his book.

His eyes were brown and tired and amused, and he had the kind of face that is easier to read than it wants to be.

"I'm Abel," he said.

"Willa."

"Willa. Good. You've got a good name for a chair."

I had no idea what that meant, and I found that I did not mind.

The infusion started.

The drip was cold, and then the cold crawled up my arm, and I shut my eyes and counted breaths.

When I opened them again it was nearly noon, and Abel had gone quiet.

I looked over.

He was holding his phone, face down, against his chest.

His other hand was shut on the book.

He wasn't reading it.

My own phone buzzed on the armrest.

The screen said: Mom.

I had not heard that name on my screen in four months.

I let it ring until it stopped.

It started again at once.

Abel looked at me, and then at the phone, and did not ask.

I picked up.

"Willa Marie," my mother said, in the voice she used for funerals and church. "Dexter's mother just called me. She says you've left him. Is that true?"

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