ABBY AND JASON SUMMERS AND their ten-year-old son, Lincoln, are driving home from Columbia, Missouri, where they’ve been first to the bookstore and then to Whole Foods. They do this every other Saturday. A good organic grocery store and a bookstore are the only things missing from Mason, as far as they’re concerned. Otherwise, they love living here, and have from the first day they moved in. Jason and Abby are both able to work from home, he as a computer consultant, she as a freelance writer for a natural-foods website, and they moved to Mason from Chicago when the congestion in their Wrigleyville neighborhood finally became too much for them. They considered a move to Evanston or Oak Park, but then decided to find a small town they loved. They drove through Mason once on the way to a wedding and had never forgotten how likeable it seemed, and, in fact, is.
But Columbia is a two-hour drive, and going there and back takes up a whole day, mostly because of the way all three of them like to linger in the bookstore. Today is a beautiful mid-October day, but soon the bad weather will be upon them and the drive will take longer.
Abby is exhausted, as she has been for some time. She’s exhausted, her gums are bleeding, and last night she found a big bruise on her leg she doesn’t remember getting. Today, she stocked up on some herbal medications in Whole Foods that will help. What she minds most is this bone-deep fatigue; she is normally a very energetic person.
She is resting her head against the window, half asleep, when she hears Lincoln say, “I have an idea.”
She turns around to smile at him. “What is it?”
“We should open a bookstore in Mason.”
“That would be lovely,” Abby says. She tightens her coat around her. She’s cold all the time lately, too. When she saw her doctor last week, he took some blood from her to find out what’s going on. Abby thinks she’s probably anemic.
When they get inside the house, Abby says, “I’ll make some dinner.”
“I got it,” Jason says. “You go and rest.”
Abby has just taken off her shoes in preparation for lying on the sofa when her cellphone rings. She grabs her purse from the hook by the kitchen door where she has just hung it, pulls out her phone, and answers it.
Jason is chopping carrots for salad and the noise is loud. She goes back into the living room to take the call. It’s her doctor, telling her that he needs to speak with her. Can she and Jason come in?
“It’s bad news, isn’t it?” she says. And then, “Please tell me now. My husband is here. And I want to be home when you tell me.”
The doctor hesitates. “It’s our normal procedure to have you come in.”
“Please,” she says.
After she agrees to come to the office the next day, he tells her. She sits for a moment on the edge of the sofa and then she goes back into the kitchen. “Where’s Linky?” she asks Jason.
“Up in his room. On his computer, no doubt. He hasn’t used up his hour of free time yet. Why?”
Abby moves to stand in front of Jason and wraps her arms around his waist. She says, “Sweetheart. I have leukemia. I have acute myelogenous leukemia.” The words are blocky in her mouth. “That’s a bad one.”
“Abby,” he says. He closes his eyes, and together they sway. For one moment, she feels that if she can just stay here, nothing will happen.