Adam, then turned to Hank and Helen. “What. Is. Going. On?”
“Do you have your dress for the wedding with you? Or anything else to wear?” She eyed my outfit—a pair of khaki pants and a T-shirt from the Kentucky Horse Park.
“It doesn’t matter, Helen,” Hank said.
“Am I speaking Swahili or something?” I snapped. “Why are you in the hospital?”
Helen flashed that gap-toothed grin. “Oh, calm the hell down. I can’t believe you haven’t guessed. We’re getting married, okay? I want you to be there.”
I knew my mouth hung open, but I felt incapable of closing it. There’s more.
“Let’s be fair,” Hank said. “We’re a little silly on relief, but we need to bring Cami up to speed.” He took my hand to pull me down on the bed beside him. Helen sat on the other side, one hand on Hank’s bald head.
“We had a big scare yesterday,” Helen began.
They filled me in. Yesterday, after I’d left, Hank felt a strange weakness on the right side of his body. When he stumbled going up the stairs, he at first attributed his clumsiness to chemo fatigue, but then late last night, he couldn’t lift his right leg at all or hold silverware or a toothbrush with his right hand. They’d gone to the ER, where a CT scan revealed a mass in his brain somehow missed—probably microscopic—at the time of his initial cancer workup. Swelling from this mass caused the neurological symptoms.
I covered my mouth at the words mass in his brain but looked at Hank, who was holding his milk shake with his right hand. “But—” I said, gesturing. “Steroids?”
He nodding, smiling. The beauty of steroids was their immediate effect.
“Everything’s okay for now, but—” He looked at Helen. She kissed his head. “But I’m a candidate for surgery to remove it. It’s a single lesion. The docs feel I’ve done well enough to warrant this surgery.” He chuckled. “They used the phrase ‘the possibility of long-term survival.’ I could have complete remission.”
“But brain surgery?” I whispered.
They nodded.
“We talked to Vijay,” Helen said.
An involuntary zip raced through my pulse.
“He was incredibly helpful,” Helen said. “He wants us to tell him when the surgery is and he’s going to try to be here.”
Because I felt raw and vulnerable—about Hank, about Vijay—I went snarky as a defense. “Did he say anything about his new girlfriend?” I asked, too flip, too glib.
Helen and Hank looked at each other. “No, he did not,” Helen said. “As a matter of fact, he asked about you.”
I didn’t know what to say. I cursed the mottles I felt blooming.
“So,” Helen said, looking at her watch. “We’re not trying to be assholes messing up Olive’s big day, but the surgery might be as early as this week. We could get the chaplain for sure today, so we felt we should just do it.”
“You know how we feel,” Hank said as Helen stroked his head. “This is ‘just in case.’ ”
They looked at each other and smiled, already accepting what that ‘just in case’ contained.
“We love you, and we want you to be here,” Hank said.
There’s more. There’s more.
“Come on,” Helen said, taking my arm. “We need to go. We have another wedding to get to, after this, you know.”
ADAM AND I WERE WITNESSES, HOLLY THE ONLY GUEST. A chaplain met us in a soothing, cavelike chapel at the hospital where the rain tapped on the skylight above us. “I discovered this place when Hank had his first surgery,” Helen said. “I love this room.”
I changed in the restroom in less than five minutes and decided a few wrinkles in my red halter-style bridesmaid dress wouldn’t matter.
The ceremony was simple, quick, and pure. I stood beside my friend as she and her companion of nineteen years vowed to honor, love, and cherish each other in sickness and in health, in good times and hard times, for better and worse, for long as they both should live.
I wished with all my might that that would be for a very long time.
WHEN I MADE IT BACK TO HOLY TRINITY, THE PRE-PICTURES had started and it rained in earnest. Since I didn’t have a raincoat or an umbrella, I took the floor mat from my truck and used it as a shield to protect my spectacular updo.
“Nice of you to be here,” Mimi huffed, not even asking about Hank.
Olive, Gabby, and Aurora asked, though, and I assured them he’d had a scare but was fine. I’d wait until after the ceremony to tell them