MONDAY, MAY 15

TWO THINGS ON THE SCHEDULE for today: my scan at nine A.M. and then on to Chan’s hospital, just to be with her, to make stupid jokes that don’t make us laugh anymore.

As I slide under the machine I think about my prognosis and Chan’s. “Wake up and smell the coffee”—that’s what they call this feeling. That’s how it feels to see your friend hanging over the toilet after you’ve been floating on air for a few months.

“Hey, look who it is!” In the hospital, Esther snaps shut the file she’s working on and grabs mine, which is about a foot thick.

“Love your hair like this.”

“Cool, right? All my own, with a little help from L’Oréal,” I tell her. I decided to dye my short coupe blond and to leave my wigs home. She asks after all the new gossip. I smile and give her the rundown of the latest developments in my life as a single girl and debuting author.

Dr. L approaches, but not to join in our conversation. He’s here to check up on my body, not my hair. Like a real doctor, Dr. L isn’t easily distracted.

“How do you feel?” he asks me.

“Good.”

“No complaints? Stabbing pains, tingling?”

“No.”

“Are you having your scan now?” Dr. L might make my appointments, but I keep track of them.

“No, just had it. So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Let’s not put that off. I’ll fit you in.”

“Great.”

“I like your hair like that.”

“Thanks.”

*   *   *

On my way to Chantal’s room I pass by the morgue.

Scary, huh? That I’ll be down here someday? Chantal’s words still give me goose bumps. What idiotic architect planned this hospital, anyway?

In the chemo ward all the women have short hair, I fit in perfectly. There are some baldies and here and there a wig or a head scarf. Chantal has the thickest and longest hair of them all; cancer has a very good sense for irony. She’s on the fourth floor, wing C, room 1. The card slipped into her door reads EMERGENCY.

She is lying in bed. Her friend Ellen sits next to her. I imagine the loneliness she must be feeling because she’ll be the first to go. She punctuates my thoughts by puking up her breakfast.

“Show Sophie the magazine,” she says to Ellen.

Her friend hands me a glossy magazine. “Page sixty-four,” she says.

I turn the pages. A glowing Chantal, with the headline I HAVE TO LIVE THIS LIFE TO THE FULLEST. Chan and her life philosophy in the spotlights. Cancer really does sell.

Chantal Smithuis (34) is terminally ill. She is expected to die from breast cancer within two years. She wants to give a voice to all those women who don’t make it. And to tell us how, to her own surprise, she is happier than ever.

I look past the magazine pages to the sick girl lying in bed, drugged up with morphine and dexamethasone. Some happiness. I speak to her in a soft voice. She answers in a slow, rasping whisper.

“This is what I was afraid of. Being admitted to this hospital.” She’s in the serious-cancer-patient hospital now. Although Chantal has been undergoing treatment at this hospital for a while, she has never been admitted overnight. “The beginning of the end,” she mumbles.

I stay quiet, robbed of all my words. Ellen goes to get some fresh air. The room smells of chicken broth from the plastic cup that sits next to her hospital bed. She can’t keep it down. A continuous cycle of swallowing, heaving, and vomiting. Bile and exhaust fumes from the helicopter flying around in her head for the past three days. Thank God she has a room to herself.

When the curtain opens we look up. A worried-looking face appears; wrinkled forehead, middle-aged. On his name tag is written a name and “neurologist.” A nurse behind him. The neurologist shakes our hands one at a time. Then his hand moves to Chantal’s shoulder, where it stays.

“It’s not good news, I’m afraid. Metastases of the tumor have spread to your brain.” Doctors really don’t mince words around here. I swallow and look at Chan, the braver of the two of us.

She’s pissed off. “Thirty-four,” she says. “I’m fucking thirty-four.” Her middle finger goes up. It’s the first time I’ve seen her cry.

“We’ll have to start you on radiation straightaway.”

“And then what? Will that get rid of it?”

“It’s worth a try.”

“Will it make me go bald again?”

“Yes.”

“How many metastases are we talking about?” she asks.

“They’ve spread all throughout the head.”

“Shit. That’s the third time it’s come back. I can’t believe how fast it comes. I was feeling so good these few months without chemo and now bam! It’s in my head.” She looks at me.

“Where’s your notebook, Sophie? I thought you wanted to write a book about cancer.” Bam.

I give Chan a kiss and tell her I’ll be back soon. The tram is already waiting at the stop and I run as fast as I can. During the whole ride I look outside the window and cry, cry, cry.