When they’d moved to Nova Scotia, Jake and Abby Tunnel had rented an apartment near the Halifax Shopping Centre. It was close to shopping and bus routes that took them right downtown. But there were a lot of people and the roads were busy with traffic, so when they were expecting their first child they bought a house. Now they lived in upscale Perry Lake Estates in Fall River, a suburb just north of Bedford and Lower Sackville. The house, a mixture of brick and dark red siding with white shutters on the windows, was a two-storey rectangular home with a gable roof. It was Abby’s dream house. The driveway was paved and the one-acre lot was carpeted with a beautiful lawn and plenty of trees. They’d been there for eight years.
On Thursday evening, Jake sat in the finished basement watching tv. Wyatt played with Legos on the floor in front of him. Jake could hear Emily playing with her wooden Victorian dollhouse somewhere behind him. Abby was doing something upstairs — probably making supper.
“Wanna play Lego with me?” Wyatt offered.
“In a minute,” Jake responded without looking at his son. Sometimes it was hard to look at Wyatt without feeling a knot of panic in his gut. Wyatt’s headaches, dizzy spells, and occasional blurry vision terrified Jake. Every day when he got home he asked Abby how Wyatt was. He hated hearing that he’d had another spell.
The spells had started a month and a half ago. Last week they had taken Wyatt to the Izaak Walton Killam Children’s Hospital, where doctors had performed a series of tests. Jake knew they would get the results sometime on Saturday but had avoided looking at the calendar to find the exact time of their appointment. Abby always wrote appointments on the calendar in the kitchen, but Jake felt sick when he saw the red-ink reminder.
He felt worn and tired. He wished for an easy solution to his son’s headaches — Wyatt needed glasses or had an ear infection. The alternatives were too scary.
Tumor.
Cancer.
No. He shook his head. He wouldn’t let himself think it. He glanced down at his son. Jake wondered if Wyatt was worried. The boy never let on if he was. Jake smiled.
“Jake!” Abby shouted from upstairs.
“Mom’s calling,” Emily announced without looking up from her dolls.
Jake laughed. “Thanks, I hadn’t heard her,” he said, smiling.
Emily gave one of her Oh, Daddy! looks.
“Coming, dear,” Jake yelled toward the ceiling.
“What about Lego, Dad?” Wyatt asked plaintively.
Jake shook his head and stood. “Not right now, buddy, I’ve gotta go check on Mom and see about supper.”
Wyatt turned to his Lego ship and lifted it into the air. With a whoosh the spaceship crashed down into a pile of Legos — a horrendously failed landing. Pieces skidded across the floor in all directions.
“You’d better clean all that crap up,” Jake warned as he retreated up the stairs. “I don’t want to find any under the tv.” He didn’t know if he was saying it because it bothered him or because he knew Abby would freak out if she saw toys scattered everywhere.
“You said ‘crap,’” Emily informed him.
Jake continued up the stairs.
Something smelled good as he headed to the kitchen. He found Abby stirring something in a skillet. She’d recently taken to making very different kinds of dishes. Exotic things he didn’t even know she could cook. He knew people dealt with stress in different ways. He hoped her cooking helped Abby stop worrying.
“Liver and onions?” he asked, smiling.
Abby didn’t laugh. “It’s called Imam Bayildi — basically just eggplant and tomato. There’s also some chicken in the oven. Hope that’s okay.”
“Sounds good to me. What are the kids eating?” Wyatt and Emily were notoriously difficult to please.
“I don’t know. Maybe throw some fries in the oven with the chicken.”
Jake tapped at the convection oven. “I’ll have to increase the temp to four-fifty. That okay?”
“Sure. By the way, there’s a circus at the Metro Centre in a few weeks. Should we take the kids?”
“Did they say they wanted to go?”
“They don’t know about it,” Abby told him. “I thought I’d better run it past you first.”
“Yeah, sure. Want me to get tickets?”
She nodded but didn’t look at him, just listlessly stirred the food in the skillet.
Jake paused at the oven, a pan of french fries in his hand. “What’s wrong?”
She turned. Her eyes were full of tears. “I think it’s getting worse. He was watching tv with Em today and then all of a sudden he was just sitting there, staring. His eyes weren’t focused on anything.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said he was fine. He’s trying to be so tough now because he knows how scared we are. He doesn’t want to admit anything anymore. He’s so brave.” Her voice started to crack.
Jake set the fries on the counter, went over to his wife and put an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll sort this out. We’ve done everything we can. We saw our family doctor. We had Wyatt in emergency twice and we had the hospital tests. He’s going to be fine.” He wished he believed it.
She turned toward him and put her face onto his shoulder. He could feel her sobs.
“Promise?” she asked.
“Promise,” he said confidently.