felt sick as she listened, and he sent them directly to the hospital. Two hours later, both tests were administered with Bethanie under anesthesia. It was Coco’s worst nightmare come true. She called Ian at the house, and he was waiting for them when they got home, looking shell-shocked. He looked worse than Coco.
The oncologist called her back the next day, after the longest night of Coco’s life. She had acute myelogenous leukemia, AML, supposedly the easiest to cure, and she needed to start chemotherapy as soon as possible. “We caught it early,” he reassured her. “I’d like to get her started on chemo by the end of this week.” Coco couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her perfect little girl who laughed and played all the time had leukemia, and if they didn’t win the fight, she could die. She couldn’t bear the thought of it. She asked him a blunt question then.
“How good is treatment here? Should I take her back to the States?”
“You could,” he said, without taking offense. It was a reasonable question, since they had the option to do that, as Americans.
“They do great work with kids in Boston, and so does Sloan Kettering in New York. The French are very strong too, better than we are in some areas.”
“Can we wait till tomorrow to make a decision?” she asked him, and he nodded. “I’d like to call some people in New York. I’ll call you back tomorrow.”
“You have some time. We can’t drag our feet, but you certainly have the time to explore your options. Call me anytime.” He gave her his cellphone number, and she thanked him and hung up. Her head was spinning, Ian was at the gym, and she called Sam as soon as she hung up. She sounded terrible when he answered. Her voice was shaking and she sounded sick.
“What’s wrong?” He was still her go-to person for every disaster that happened to her. She closed her office door before she answered him, and then started to cry at last.
“Bethanie has leukemia. They ran tests on her. I just got the results. She has something called AML. They said she needs chemo. Do you know any outstanding pediatric oncologists in New York?” She expected him to say he’d research it, and she knew he would. She didn’t expect the answer she got.
“Yes, I do. Don’t do anything until I talk to him. What’s your doctor’s name?” She gave him the name of the oncologist so Sam could check him out. “I have a client, I do his taxes. He’s supposedly the best in New York. I’ll find out if he can see you, or recommend a doctor to consult with your oncologist there. I’ll call you back as soon as I get him.” She waited in her office with her head in her hands. Sam called her back ten minutes later. “He said the guy you saw is very good, one of the best, but he’d prefer for you to bring her to New York for an evaluation. Then you can decide if you want to proceed with treatment in New York, or go back to London. Coco, I would put my children’s lives in this guy’s hands. I trust everything he says. He’s a star in his field.” That was good enough for her. “He can see you day after tomorrow.”
“I’ll fly in tomorrow,” she said, her mind going in a thousand directions at once.
“He wants you to email him the results of all the bloodwork they did, and the diagnosis. That way his team and he can consult on it before you get here.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“I’ll text you his email address and name. He’s not the warmest guy, just to warn you, but he’s the best there is.”
“I don’t care if he’s Frankenstein’s nephew, if he can cure her.” She started to cry again then. “Oh God, Sam, I don’t want her to die.”
Listening to her tore at his heart. “We won’t let that happen. The first thing he told me when I described it to him was that kids with AML do really well and often have full recovery, particularly at Bethanie’s age. Just hang in there. I’ll see you tomorrow. Text me your flight number. I’ll pick you up.”
“You don’t have to do that. You can come to the apartment.”
“Fuck you,” he said, and she smiled. Same old Sam. Same old godsend in every crisis for her entire life. He even