with her. He looked elated when he said it. He was so happy about his new freedom, and what it meant to them. He could be with her as often as they wanted.
“I can’t. I have to work,” she said tersely, not looking up from her desk. She was afraid to look into his eyes, for fear that he would see the terror there. When she finally did look up, she saw that he looked hurt.
“Are you angry at me?” he asked gently.
“No, of course not,” she said, forcing herself to smile at him. “I’m sorry. I was distracted. I just haven’t been feeling well. This silly stomach bug I picked up, and now I have a mountain of work to do this weekend. End-of-year sales reports to go over.”
“Are you sure?” She could see that he didn’t believe her and he was right.
“Positive. I promise, we’ll play next weekend. I’m sorry to be such a bore.” This would be the second weekend she’d be avoiding him. He didn’t look suspicious, he looked hurt.
“I could come out and read while you work,” he suggested with a hopeful look.
“I’d feel too guilty,” she said, feeling like a monster. She didn’t want him to see her hurting, or know that she had cancer, even if it was “only” stage one. It was her own dirty little secret. And she didn’t want him to see her weak. She wanted him to see her strong, the epitome of the independent woman she thought she was, until the biopsy. He left her office looking sad.
The days until the surgery seemed endless, the night before a nightmare. Peter called and she didn’t pick up her phone. She didn’t trust herself not to beg him to come over and go to the hospital with her for the surgery.
She was at the hospital at six A.M. as they had told her. They ran tests, put in an IV, and at seven-thirty she was being rolled into surgery, with a feeling of total panic. She had never been so terrified in her life. And minutes later she was unconscious.
She woke up in the recovery room, feeling sick to her stomach. She was woozy, and by the time they wheeled her to a room, the pain in her breast was excruciating. They gave her a shot for the pain and the surgeon came in and told her how well it had gone. It had been very small, well contained, and if her lymph nodes proved to be clear in the pathology report, there would be no need for further treatment. All she had to do was get checked every six months to make sure it hadn’t returned. Mammograms would be sufficient.
And then he told her she wouldn’t be able to use her left arm for the next two weeks while it was healing. He had forgotten to mention that before, but fortunately she was right-handed. She stayed in bed at the hospital all day, dizzy from the pain and the medication, and at six o’clock they discharged her. She had arranged for a car and driver to take her back to Bedford. The house was empty when she got home.
And Peter called almost the minute she got in. She had to sit down in a chair she was so dizzy, and she realized she was foolish to be alone in the house. She planned to go straight to bed without dinner. She wasn’t hungry. She felt sick from the pain meds, her breast was aching miserably, and she had a headache.
“Where were you all day?” he asked, sounding anxious. “I’ve been calling you and you didn’t return my calls. Margaret said you didn’t come in.”
“It’s that stupid stomach flu again, I’m feeling rotten.” She sounded it.
“Ohmigod, you sound awful. I’ll come over and take care of you.”
“No, don’t. You’ll catch it. It’s miserable.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you’ve been avoiding me all week?” It had actually been almost two weeks since they found the shadow on her mammogram, and she had been avoiding him since then.
“Because you’re paranoid, and I love you.”
“I love you too. I want to see you.” He sounded worried and insistent, and she wasn’t up to reassuring him.
“I promise, I’ll be fine in a few days. And you’re coming to dinner with the children a week from Monday.”
“I’m not waiting to see you till then.” He sounded horrified at the thought, but the truth was she wanted to give the breast time to heal,