bed as I leave the bedroom. Though I’m not sure it’s a good idea, I go to my office and do some internet searching about breast lumps. Some of what I read is reassuring—most lumps are not cause for concern—but the word cancer appears in every article.
I turn away from the screen, my chest tight. There’s no way. Liv is young, healthy, low risk. There’s just no fucking way she could—
I stop that thought. It’s a black, suffocating pit I can’t even look at.
I force my mind to my latest paper about the construction of medieval cathedrals. Work has always been a way for me to stop thinking about everything else, to focus on architectural plans and building structures.
But this time, the words on the screen swim in front of my eyes, and I can’t make my brain grasp a coherent idea. It seems so useless, so stupid, to be studying thousand-year-old cathedrals when my wife just spent the afternoon getting diagnostic testing done.
Fear cuts through me, so fast it almost catches me off guard. Like it’s been waiting to attack.
Nothing. It’s nothing. Liv is right—the doctors are doing the tests as a precaution. Not because they think something is wrong.
And I hate myself for thinking there is.
Chapter 8
Dean
November 18
Two days ago, I was reviewing the new World Heritage departmental criteria as if it were important. The day before that, I’d chaired a meeting about the new curriculum, the admissions criteria, the field study programs. And the day before that, I’d turned in the final draft of an article for the Medieval Journal of Archeology. I’d talked to students, read their papers, lectured about Latin paleography.
Suddenly, forty-eight hours later, the only really important parts of my life are my wife and children. The only meeting that matters is the one with the doctor. The only research I care about is the report that will tell me Liv is fine. The only lecture I want to hear is the doctor telling us to have a good weekend as she walks us to the door.
Liv is in the kitchen the morning after the tests, her head bent as she checks her cell phone.
“Morning.” I brush my lips across her forehead. “Kids still sleeping?”
She nods, pushing a tumble of hair away from her face. “I’ve been up since three. Couldn’t sleep. I emailed Dr. Nolan twice about the biopsy, but she probably won’t get back to me until the office opens. She told me yesterday that even if this is a benign tumor, I should see a specialist anyway.”
Cold spreads through me. It takes me a second to realize why. Liv just said, “Even if this is a benign tumor…”
Which implies it might not be. I don’t want her admitting that. I don’t want her even knowing it.
“Liv.”
She looks up from her phone. Shadows smudge the area under her eyes. I put my hands on the sides of her warm neck. Her pulse beats against my palm.
“Don’t be…” I stop and start again. “Try not to be scared.”
Her lips compress. “How can I not be scared, Dean? One minute you’re fondling my breasts, and the next minute I’m getting them flattened between plates and scheduling a biopsy.”
She pulls away from me, tossing her phone onto the counter. Tension laces her shoulders.
“I’ve been wishing you hadn’t even found the damned thing,” she snaps. “How stupid is that? As if you not finding it would somehow make it not real.”
An irrational surge of guilt hits me. “I just wish it wasn’t there.”
She turns, lifting her hands. “But it is.”
There’s nothing I can say. It’s there. I felt it. I fucking found it. Something alien invading my wife.
Liv’s cell phone rings. She grabs it, her skin draining of color at the sight of the number. She lifts the phone to her ear. “Dr. Nolan?”
Apprehension grips me. I move closer and put my hand on Liv’s shoulder.
Her knuckles whiten as she clutches the phone. “Okay. Yes, I can. What time?” She pauses to listen. “No, I’d rather just get it over with. Thank you. I’ll be there.”
She ends the call and lets out a long, shuddering breath. “Biopsy at ten this morning. But Dr. Nolan said that because it’s Friday, we won’t get the results until Monday or Tuesday. She said I could wait until Monday for the biopsy, but I don’t want to. I have to…have to call Allie and tell her I can’t make my shift today.”
She’s shaking. I wrap my arms around her and