“Well, I have good news and bad news,” Dr. Kreuter announced, once all of the tests – both Lilah’s and Marie’s – had been concluded. “Which would you prefer to hear first?” He gave Mrs. Quinn a pointed look.
She glanced over at her husband. It was well after noon by this point, and rather cloudy and dreary outside. Lilah was back in her hospital crib, sleeping soundly after gulping down her third warmed bottle for the day. Stanley had spent the morning helping the nurse and Sheriff Reid fill out the police report while Marie stayed with the baby during her various examinations – save for a forty-five-minute window where she herself was subjected to several scans and blood tests. She hadn’t mentioned that part to her husband yet, praying that her paranoia was simply born from poor sleep and shared hallucinations.
“We’ll take the good news first, I suppose,” Marie said, squeezing Stanley’s hand tightly in hers.
The doctor pulled up a chair beside them, flipping through his notes. “Well, even though it doesn’t sound like good news, the MRI and EEG findings were in line with your suspicions. Lilah does suffer from seizures. In fact, while she was hooked up to the EEG, we noticed an abrupt spike in brain activity, just enough to confirm that she was, at that moment, having the beginnings of one. We immediately gave her twenty milligrams of phenobarbital intravenously, which successfully warded off the impending seizure, thereby saving Lilah’s little brain the trauma of yet another episode today.”
“Did anything… strange happen when her seizure started?” Stanley asked, glancing at Marie. She was staring straight ahead at the doctor, her face unreadable. But her hand was squeezing Stanley’s so tightly, he couldn’t feel his fingers.
“We were quite expeditious in administering the medication, and it worked miraculously well. If it’s the side effects you’re inquiring about, she didn’t appear to have any, save for some drowsiness. But that’s to be expected and will wear off over time as her body acclimates to the new medication.”
Stanley sighed, half in relief, and half in consternation. He was glad nothing unusual had happened, because the doctor certainly would have mentioned it… But if the doctor and his nurses hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, how in the world was he going to explain to them what had happened to his wife earlier that day? They’d cart him off in a straightjacket! Still, there had to be an explanation for what had happened to Marie, and Stanley was determined to find it, even if the doctor took him for a certified loon.
“Stan, dear, are you listening?” Marie asked.
Her husband started. “Sorry, I guess I wandered off for a minute there.”
Dr. Kreuter smiled – a rare expression on his wizened face. “Mr. Quinn, I was just saying that, thanks to you and your wife, we were able to get this poor child the help she clearly needed. Repeat or prolonged seizures can be extremely detrimental to a developing brain, especially one as young and fragile as hers. How many seizures she may have had before you brought her in, I cannot say. But I can say, with a great deal of certainty, that you have significantly improved the quality of this little girl’s life.”
Stanley felt something wet splash against the back of his hand. He glanced over at Marie; she was beaming, tears streaming freely down her face.
“I do have additional good news as well,” the doctor continued. “I have just provided Sheriff Reid with a signed authorization, per Mrs. Quinn’s request, that will allow you to take the baby home with you once we release her from the hospital. While Sheriff Reid conducts his investigation, it makes far more sense to me to place her in a loving home, rather than contacting social services for foster placement.”
“Thank you so much, Doctor,” Marie said, wiping the tears from her eyes.
The doctor nodded, then cleared his throat. Stanley couldn’t be sure, but he appeared to be looking to Marie for some sort of confirmation.
“Doc, you, uh, had mentioned something about bad news?” Stanley asked, wariness creeping into his voice. He was certainly glad the kid was off the streets, but he didn’t know the first thing about taking care of babies. They didn’t have a crib, or formula, or diapers… And even then, how would he, big and gawky as he was, take care of such a tiny, fragile thing? One wrong move with his clumsy sausage fingers, and – well, he tried not to think of it. Not to mention whatever the hell had happened that morning! Stanley had to find a way to talk to the doctor about that. Shaking his head to clear the image of his ailing, emaciated wife, he turned to the doctor. He was surprised to find him staring at his clipboard, sadness etched in the corners of his eyes.
“Doc?” he asked, taking his wife’s hand in his. What if the baby had some other illness or disease? What if it was life-threatening? Marie’s heart would break.
Doctor Kreuter cleared his throat. “Mrs. Quinn, perhaps you would prefer we discuss this particular topic in—?”
“No,” she interjected, taking a deep breath. “Best we do it here and now.”
Stanley frowned at the two of them. Had he missed something?
“Mrs. Quinn, I’m afraid your instincts appear to have been correct. We detected a large mass in your uterus and all markers indicate that it may be a sarcoma. Further imaging and the results of your blood tests indicate that the cancer has not been confined to the uterus, but has spread throughout your abdomen, affecting several major organs, including your liver, as well as nearby lymph nodes.”
Stanley, all at once feeling like his stomach had lodged itself into his chest cavity, found himself rubbing the goosebumps that had erupted across the back of his neck. He heard the words, understood the words, but somehow his brain seemed unable to process them. The room had fallen into complete silence, save for a series of ragged, gasping breaths that were coming from… Where were they coming from? Were they coming from him?
“What are my options?” Marie asked, her voice shockingly calm.
He faltered a moment before answering. “You’ll need to get a biopsy to be sure…”
“But let’s assume it’s as you suspect – that the mass is a sarcoma. What then?”
Doctor Kreuter leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry to say, Mrs. Quinn, that the five-year survival rate is a mere fifty percent for patients whose tumor is confined to the uterus. Once it spreads beyond the uterus, it becomes an extremely poor prognosis. We could theoretically attempt to remove the tumors surgically, which would require a total abdominal hysterectomy and widespread excision throughout the surrounding organs. But judging by the imaging, the cancer has metastasized far too much to be able to excise completely. Beyond that, there’s chemotherapy and radiation, which may prolong your life somewhat, though the cost – the physical cost, that is – may far outweigh the benefits.”
Stanley felt as though someone had punched him in the gut; he tried to suck a mouthful of air into his lungs, but something heavy was blocking his windpipe. He spun in his seat to stare at his wife. The movement made the entire room churn and he felt as though the contents of his stomach might upend onto the floor.
“I see.” Marie’s eyes were closed. “How much time do I have?”
“Perhaps one year, at most, without surgery. Depending on how much of the cancer is excisable, chemotherapy and radiation might add another year or so on top of that… Now, I am no oncologist, but I have already placed calls to some of the larger hospitals in Helena for an oncology referral and a surgical biopsy. Time is of the essence, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go follow up on those to see if we can’t get someone in here to speak to you this afternoon.”
Marie nodded, her eyes trailing to Lilah, who was awake once more and whimpering softly. “Thank you, Doctor. For everything.”
He rose from his chair with the vigor of a much younger man, then placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder before excusing himself from the room.
Stanley felt numb, as though every nerve in his body had turned to ice. A deep throb ached in his chest, but it was a strange, faraway ache, as though the pain in his body was not his own. In that moment, it was like his own body belonged to someone else, and his mind had somehow disconnected itself from the rest of him.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered, staring at his wife – his young, beautiful, vibrant wife. It made no sense whatsoever. Surely the doctor was mistaken. Perhaps he was looking at the wrong file… Well, wait a minute, he thought, hitting his forehead with his palm. Of course, that was it! That had to be it!
Stanley jumped up from his seat, nearly knocking it over. “I have to tell the doctor there’s been a mistake, I have to—”
“Darling,” Marie whispered, clutching his wrist. “There’s no mistake. I have cancer.”
“But—no! How could you? How can that even—” Stanley’s voice trailed off as his eyes darted to the strange baby cooing in the corner.
“Stan… all of the negative pregnancy tests, the weight I’ve been losing without even trying. And I haven’t even told you about the bleeding, the pain in my abdomen. I blamed it on my diet, my exercise routine, my period, cramps. But the signs have all been there. I’ve just been deluding myself… And you, as well. I’m so sorry for that.”
Stanley’s eyes were wild; he hadn’t yet registered what his wife had been saying. “The baby – that baby did this,” he whispered, his throat suddenly feeling as parched as sand. “You saw what I saw this morning, Marie. That’s why her family gave her up! She made you sick!” Stanley’s chest was heaving up and down. Hot tears streaked across his face and gathered in his whiskers.
Marie rose from her chair, gently placing her hands on Stanley’s chest. “The baby showed me what was yet to come, my love. She showed me my future. And in doing so, she gave me a tremendous gift.”
Stanley’s wild eyes bore into hers, his tears blurring the edges of her soft, lovely face. He raked his hands through his hair, letting out a small sob. “A gift? How could any of this possibly be a gift?”
Marie reached up to brush away a tear dangling from the tip of Stanley’s nose. “Lilah showed me a future where I was fighting. A future where I clearly had opted for surgeries and chemotherapy and radiation. A future of pain and sickness and suffering. Stan, look at me,” she said, cupping his face in her hands. “We both know I’m the second most stubborn person on this planet.”
Stanley scoffed at the floor but didn’t argue.
“If Lilah hadn’t shown me what was to come, it might have been months before I went to see a doctor. By then, things would have been even worse, and I still would have done everything possible to cling to life, believing that that was the right choice, the only choice. But now I know – I’ve seen – that it’s not. Lilah’s gift to me was foresight. And with that foresight, I choose to surrender with dignity rather than fight, kicking and screaming, towards death.”
Stanley gripped his wife’s shoulders with shaking hands. “I can’t live without you, Marie. I just can’t. Please—” Another sob threatened to escape from his lips, but Stanley choked it back. He took a deep breath, doing everything he could to keep his composure. “Please, baby, stay and fight. I’ll fight with you, every minute of every day. We can beat this thing together, I know it.”
Marie wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face against his chest. Her mind was made up, but she didn’t need to harm him further with the truth. So, she squeezed him as tightly as she could, taking comfort in his burly arms and soot-stained shirt. For a moment, she let herself be consoled by her husband’s words, and in that moment, she truly did believe that everything would be just as he said.
The baby’s soft whimpers brought her back to reality. Gently pulling away from Stanley, she approached Lilah’s crib. Jade-and-honey-colored eyes stared back up at her, crinkled by a wide, toothless smile. Marie felt a stab of regret; she finally had the family she’d always wanted, and now, by some cruel twist of fate, she would be forced to leave them soon. Too soon.
“Time is precious,” Marie murmured, gently running a finger across the baby’s belly. “Isn’t it, little one?”