She felt sorry for her friend as she stared at a mark on the wall in the doctor’s consulting room. After everything that Dawn had gone through, and despite all the ‘complications’, as she’d decided to call them, with Rex – which were partly her fault, she realised. She was still her best friend. Suzie realised that she hadn’t been much fun for nearly a year now; first the surrogacy, then a new baby. Obsessing over a tiny tot, the sleepless nights, waking Rex endlessly to ask if he thought the baby was all right, was alive, for goodness’ sake.
The final straw had been asking Ramone to take Pixie to a dog psychologist because he was barking at Jacob. For fuck’s sake, Suzie, you need to get a grip – he’s a DOG, said Rex. He’d been furious that morning. She could see her behaviour was, well, as Dawn had hinted at times, just a little neurotic. Now that she was here, at the doctor’s with her dear friend who might have cancer, who must be terrified; it really had put things into perspective.
She had talked to Dawn a lot in the last twenty-four hours. No wonder Rex had turned to Dawn for a bit of TLC. But nothing had actually happened, had it? She didn’t really want to know. Very little, at least. She shook her head. All these thoughts were tumbling around her head as she stared at Dawn, her ‘rock’. After all the years of IVF hell, Dawn had always been there for her, for chats at midnight, for ‘park runs’ in the park some Saturdays when, she now realised, Dawn would have preferred to be anywhere else than a muddy park, but she’d never said no. She’d chummed her to the gym. It had been Suzie’s suggestion to start Zumba all those years ago when she was pregnant with Felix, and she’d said yes, she’d give it a go, waddled along to classes and been a good sport.
It had been Dawn she’d turned to after each and every miscarriage, after each failed IVF attempt. Suzie had never appreciated how hard it must have been to drop all the commitments she had as a wife and mother and come running. Suzie could barely cope with feeding one baby, never mind two, never mind adding school runs and after school clubs, being on committees and, God forbid, the laundry. She had Ramone; Dawn had nobody. After all these years, Dawn needed her now. And she was determined to help her through this.
The doctor was examining Dawn’s breasts in a very matter-of-fact way. But then he started to frown.
‘Well?’ Dawn whispered.
‘Right, Mrs Hughes, you can pop your top half back on. You’re correct, there is a lump. I think we need to see a specialist.’
A specialist. It must be serious. ‘Why?’ Suzie asked. ‘Could it be anything else?’
‘It could be a cyst, but I want to be sure. But we need you to have more investigations. I am concerned about this, but there are many reasons for lumps in the breasts, and they are most certainly not all cancerous.’ The man in the sky-blue shirt smiled reassuringly at Dawn. He reminded Suzie of all the IVF specialists they’d seen – smiling their ‘doctor’ smiles. How many patients had he reassured like this when, in fact, nobody knew?
‘Yes, all right; what happens then?’ Dawn asked quietly.
‘I’ll refer you and it will take up to two weeks to get a letter,’ he said, typing some notes on his computer.
‘Two weeks?’ Suzie found herself saying. ‘We’ll go private.’ He turned around in his chair and looked at both of them. ‘Very well. You’ll get an ultrasound, and a biopsy, then we will take it from there.’ He stood up.
‘Just tell me the best consultant and I will sort it out.’ There was no way Dawn was going to wait.
The doctor nodded. ‘Right. If you see Angela at reception, I will write this up now and send it through. You can probably be seen in the next couple of days.’