*“You crazy kid.” Stella put her hands to her hips. “Of course, you can have time off to go to the doctor. Your mother put off getting medical help too long, for the same nutty reason. She didn’t want to take time off work. I felt like throttling her when she admitted that.”
Hadley tossed her apron into the laundry bag. They’d closed the diner fifteen minutes ago and it had taken her this long to work up the nerve to ask for time off tomorrow. It hadn’t taken Stella nearly that long to pry the reason out of her.
“My mom worked for you forever. I’ve barely been here a month.”
“Jesus, kid. This is a diner. The world will keep spinning if I’m short a pair of hands for a day.”
“Thanks Stella. But if I’m honest, the real reason I put off making an appointment is because I’m scared. I know this is cancer and I know it’s going to kill me. I’m just not ready to hear the doctors tell me that. Or worse, give me false hope. And I sure don’t want Madison riding that wave of hope and despair with me.”
“Oh Hadley.” Stella crossed the diner to give her a big, hard hug. “Two things you got to know. Not all tumors are cancerous. Not all cancers are incurable. You’re giving up too easy.”
Hadley wished she could take comfort from Stella’s words. She knew both statements were true.
But she also knew what had been true for her family. Her grandmother, dead at age fifty from ovarian cancer. Her mother, dead at age fifty-seven from ovarian cancer. If only she’d had her ovaries removed after Madison was born. But she’d thought she had time, at least a decade, to make that decision.
“My appointment’s at nine.” She patted her back pocket to make sure she had her phone. “I’m not sure how long it will be, but I hope to be at work no later than eleven thirty.”
“Like I said, no rush. Take the day if you want.”
“Thanks.” But she hoped she wouldn’t need it. Stella might think she was being helpful, but Hadley needed her weekly paycheck.
*
Hadley’s shoulders were tight as she walked toward the daycare to pick up her daughter. Her worries about the tumor had preoccupied her weekend but now she was thinking about the letter from the lab. Jesse had already sent a text asking if she’d heard back. She wished she knew what the right thing to do was for all concerned. Should she reveal the truth…or conceal it?
She passed a group of teenagers with ice cream cones, their conversation punctuated with bursts of laughter. If only she could step back to that July when she was seventeen, before she met Luke, when she was still in love with Jesse, and Fallon was her best friend, and her biggest problems were minor friendship dramas and the daily chore list her mother left her every morning.
Her life had been paradise back then and she hadn’t even known it.
But she felt better today than she had in long while. Bobbie had come over early that morning and given her the number of a good doctor and then she’d waited to make sure Hadley booked an appointment. More importantly she’d given Hadley the name of a lawyer. Hadley was meeting with her tomorrow too. She’d make a proper will, name Bobbie as guardian, and then track down Luke and get him to sign whatever papers were necessary to keep him out of the picture.
She didn’t anticipate it would be a hard sell.
The relief she felt knowing that whatever happened with her, Madison would be okay, was profound.
The kids at the daycare were splashing in and out of a series of kiddy pools that Fallon had placed all over the yard. Madison, the youngest, the smallest, was clearly having a blast. Still, when she saw her mother, she came running.
Oh, these hugs. She would fight like hell to stay alive if only for these hugs.
Fallon’s smile seemed a bit warmer today. “On Wednesday I’m planning to take the kids to visit my in-laws’ ranch. We’ll pet the horses and feed the chickens and pick strawberries in the garden. If you’re okay with it, I need you to sign this form.”
“Would you like to visit the ranch?” Hadley asked her daughter.
“Yes please! Fallon says there are kittens!”
“That’s right. I forgot to mention them. I may also have forgotten to mention that my in-laws are hoping a few of those kittens will find new homes.”
“How devious.” Hadley scrawled her name on the permission form, then thought, why not a kitten? It might prove a welcome distraction for whatever hard times lay ahead. She turned to her daughter. “If you find a kitten you really love we can think about adopting it. I’d have to meet the kitten first.”
There was quite possibly nothing she could have said to make Madison happier. As her daughter skipped and danced ahead, Hadley handed the form back to Fallon. “Do I bring her here at the usual time?”
“Yes. Jesse and I will drive the kids to the ranch and my parents and Angie are going to help supervise and keep everyone safe. And at the end of the day, you’ll pick Madison up here, as usual. And I promise there won’t be any kittens.”
“Thanks. This will be exciting for Madison. She’s never been to a ranch before.”
Fallon’s face softened as she watched the little girl happy dancing on her front lawn. “She’s a real sweetheart.”
“Remember when we were teenagers and we talked about the kind of families we hoped to have? You wanted daughters. I wanted sons.”
Hadley waited for Fallon to freeze her out again. But to her surprise Fallon laughed softly.
“We had no idea, did we? How much you love your children. How they seem perfect exactly as they are.”
“So true.” For the first time since she had moved home, Hadley felt she was glimpsing the old Fallon. It gave her hope that the two of them could become friends again. In time.
She thought again about the letter which she’d shoved to the bottom of her underwear drawer. Why could nothing in her life ever be simple?