“Is that all, Dr. Martin?” Stacy Derry thrust her head through Jonah’s office doorway, a concerned smile on her face. “If there’s anything else you’d like me to do—”
“No, go on home.” He looked up from the charts he’d been studying and waved the dark-eyed nurse away with an abrupt gesture. “It’s Friday, the week’s over. Get out of here, go home.”
Not easily rebuffed, the nurse dimpled. “I am on my way out, but I wanted to make sure everything was covered, you know, since Jacquelyn wasn’t here today. But if there’s nothing else—”
“Goodbye.” He cut her off, eager for her to go, then snapped his glance back toward her. “Stacy, wait a minute. You and Jacquelyn are good friends, right?”
Interested, the nurse stepped out from behind the wall and leaned against the door frame. “Well, I don’t know that we’re best friends,” she said, “but we’re friends, yes.”
Jonah returned his gaze to the charts in his lap and pretended an offhanded interest. “Has she been in touch with you? It’s not like her to drop out of sight without a word of explanation, is it?”
Stacy shrugged. “She spoke to Lauren when she called in this morning.” Her indifferent expression broke into an open, helpful smile. “But I could check on her this weekend, if you like.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll have Lauren call Monday if Nurse Wilkes hasn’t graced us with her presence by eight o’clock.” He briskly nodded a farewell, then looked back down at his charts.
“Is there anything else?”
Though her smile had frayed slightly, her eyes still shone with eagerness. Jonah shook his head and waved her away again. “No. Go home. We don’t pay overtime.”
Undaunted by his gruffness, she tossed a final smile over her shoulder, then moved down the hallway. Jonah sighed as he returned the chart to his desk. His inner warning systems had been clanging ever since he received his first unusually eager smile from Stacy Derry. He’d met dozens of women like her, and knew enough to steer clear of their pathetically girlish behavior. Stacy was sociable and charming, the perfect public relations nurse, but on more than one occasion he’d noticed her low tolerance for routine. Blood pressure readings, taking blood, recording weights and heights—those things bored her, and that was a pity, for routine was a large part of nursing. Why on earth, he wondered, had she become a nurse in the first place? And why, despite his intentionally frosty manner, did she insist on worming her way into his office?
Alarm bells sounded in his brain whenever he and Stacy were alone together. He found himself making excuses to leave the lab when she leaned in close to hand him a chart or a blood sample, and whenever he had the freedom to choose a nurse to help with a procedure, he usually called for Lauren, who eyed him as if he’d been born and bred among the Mafia, or Jacquelyn, whose rapier wit in the last while was nearly as cutting as it had been before he treated her dog.
He closed the chart on his desk, aware that for the last five minutes he’d been staring at his notes without internalizing a single word. Lately his mind had been altogether too occupied with thoughts of his sharp-tongued, copper-haired nurse. Some deep-seated intuition told him that her absence from the office today did not bode well, and the fact that she hadn’t spoken to Stacy only reinforced his concern. He knew from the nurses’ whispered conversations that she had left early yesterday for an appointment with Dr. Shaw. If she were out today with something as trivial as a cold, surely she would have mentioned it to someone. This silence—so unlike her—was unnerving.
The trilling of the phone broke his concentration, and he glanced at the clock before picking up the receiver. Six o’clock. None of the patients would be calling the clinic at this hour; the answering service automatically picked up all patient calls after five and beeped him for emergencies. The service had transferred this call to his private line.
“Hello?”
The crisp voice on the other end was polite and professional. “Dr. Martin, this is Rita Shaw from the Chambers-Wyatt Women’s Center. I have a patient who presents a malignant nodule in the left breast. Although there is a strong family history, I believe lumpectomy and radiation will take care of the problem, though I expect you will make the final recommendations for treatment after your examination.”
“I’m not sure I understand, Doctor.” Jonah shifted in his chair. He’d heard through the grapevine that he shouldn’t expect referrals from Dr. Rita Shaw. She and Robert Kastner were fast friends, and so far, without exception, her patients had chosen to be supervised by Dr. Kastner.
“What part don’t you understand? I have a patient with breast cancer, and she specifically asked that I refer her to you,” Dr. Shaw answered, her voice even more brisk and businesslike than before. “To be honest, I tried to dissuade her. You are new to this hospital—”
“I will do my best to be certain her faith in me is warranted,” Jonah interrupted, his temper flaring. “Now, if you’ll give me the patient’s name, I’ll tell my staff to watch for her file.”
“That leads to another of my objections,” Dr. Shaw said. “The patient is your nurse—Jacquelyn Wilkes. And I don’t think it’s wise to complicate the doctor-patient relationship with a working relationship….”
She went on, but Jonah didn’t hear. The muscles of his forearm hardened beneath his sleeve; his breath seemed to have solidified in his throat. Jacquelyn Wilkes—cancer? He’d known it was a possibility when she mentioned the breast mass, but he had been nearly as certain as she that the mass would prove to be a cyst or even a fibroadenoma. Breast cancer at her age was unusual; seventy-seven percent of women with diagnoses of breast cancer were fifty or older.
His thoughts whirred and lagged; he came back to reality in time to hear the summation of Dr. Shaw’s speech. “So you see why I tried to talk her out of the referral. If you agree, why don’t you refer her to Robert?”
Send Jacquelyn to Robert Kastner? He couldn’t. Kastner would elect the most liberal treatment possible, probably lumpectomy only. And he’d ignore the fact that cancers of younger women were generally more aggressive and very nasty.
“Jacquelyn works for Dr. Kastner, too,” Jonah answered, choosing his words with care. “So I will take her case. Thank you for your call, Dr. Shaw. I’ll look forward to receiving her records from your office.”
“Good night, then, Doctor,” the woman answered, all traces of goodwill gone from her voice.
Jonah heard a click in his ear. He replaced the telephone receiver, then leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin, momentarily lost in a sea of confusing emotions. His behavior with Dr. Shaw could well be described as cocky, but for years he’d been swatting away comments about his sketchy track record and what others perceived as instability. He’d worked in too many hospitals and made too many enemies for a man of thirty, but it couldn’t be helped.
Still, he probably shouldn’t have vented his frustrations with Jacquelyn Wilkes’s physician. Jacquelyn would need two cooperative doctors to see her through the days ahead, and if she would not confide in him—and he sincerely doubted she would—she might open up to Dr. Shaw.
He frowned, suddenly puzzled by a new thought. Despite her obvious contempt for his professional methods and manner, Jacquelyn had asked for him. “When the going gets tough, the tough change their minds, right, Jackie?” he murmured, then he flushed in shame at his words. He had won a tiny battle in the war between them, but he couldn’t rejoice in his victory.
In the coming days, he and Jacquelyn would face cancer together, and Jonah Martin could not imagine a more formidable enemy.
Jacquelyn was happy. She tripped through the house in a contented fog, running her hands over her kitchen table, her sofa, the antique umbrella stand in the foyer. Bailey padded by her side, matching his steps with hers, smiling up at her with soft eyes. She wasn’t aware of any special reason for her happiness, but she swam in it, breathed it in, reveled in the sheer childlike simplicity of the feeling. Things were back the way they were before the dark diagnosis led her across an invisible line and into a new phase of life.
In the midst of her slow-motion dance, Bailey began to whine. The soft sound cut through the embracing folds of sleep and her eyes flew open at Bailey’s call. Though her mind gripped at the dream with terrible longing, light streamed through the slats in the blinds on her windows as reality and the sunrise conspired to shatter her happiness.
She sat up in bed, instantly and irrevocably awake. With cancer.
Woodenly she swung her legs out of the bed, then slipped into her robe and stumbled toward the bedroom door. The automatic motions came easily enough—whistle for the dog, open the front door, let Bailey out into the yard, pick up the newspaper, check to see that no neighbors were staring. She opened the paper, half expecting to see her name emblazoned in the headlines—Nurse Jacquelyn Wilkes Discovers Cancer!—and briefly marveled that one discovery could profoundly rock her existence and yet go unnoticed by everyone else in the world.
“Come back to reality, Jacquelyn,” she told herself, forcing her eyes to skim the front page. “You’ve got to get through this. Call out the troops, send an SOS. What do you tell your patients? Meet it, beat it, defeat it.”
Bailey came trotting up the front sidewalk, a loopy grin on his face, but this morning Jacquelyn found it hard to return the dog’s affection. She led him back inside the house, poured his morning meal into a dog bowl as wide as Texas, then sat at the kitchen table, the newspaper spread before her, the phone securely in her peripheral vision.
Surely Craig would call. He just needed time to adjust. After all, he’d been about to propose on Labor Day, and a man who is ready and willing to get married would not walk out on his intended bride. The news of her cancer had rattled him just as it had her, but he would come back. And he always called on Saturday morning, always. At nine o’clock sharp, after he’d gotten up and read the business section, after he’d checked his answering machine for any calls he’d missed on Friday night. Saturdays were their sacrosanct time, the only full day they could really spend together.
She automatically opened the paper and tried to read as the digital clock on the microwave soundlessly advanced. Eight-thirty—still too early. She took a deep breath and turned another page. War in the Middle East had erupted again, riots destroyed a remote Sudanese city, and a tragic fire on a ferry in the Baltic Sea had taken ninety-eight lives in the night. Troubles worlds away.
She glanced up. Eight forty-seven. Craig would still be on the phone, checking in with any prospective customers, setting up appointments for Sunday afternoon. She turned to the comics and read her favorites: Peanuts, For Better or For Worse, and Jump Start. None of them today struck her as the least bit funny.
Eight fifty-nine. She folded the sections of newspaper, stacked them on an empty chair, then linked her fingers together and stared at the phone. Craig had probably passed a restless night, burdened by thoughts of how he’d abandoned her. Maybe he had overslept.
Nine o’clock. She waited a full sixty seconds in silence, then forced a smile to her lips. He must have just landed a really big deal—no, he hadn’t, he always told her nobody did business on Saturday morning—or maybe his clock had stopped, or some family emergency had come up.
Her eyes fell upon the bright flowers in the center of the table. Why was she fooling herself? She could wait here until noon and Craig Bishop would not call. In his logical, unyielding way, he had already decided what was best for each of them. He had freed her to look for someone more supportive while allowing himself to keep moving toward his bright ambitions.
She knew she ought to be furious, but she couldn’t summon the energy to be angry at someone as dispassionate as Craig. He had been a friend, as solid as a rock and as dull as a dog biscuit… Stacy’s mocking words filtered back through her memory, and despite her misery, Jacquelyn felt her mouth twist in a lopsided smile. She couldn’t be angry. She was too afraid.
She lowered her hand to Bailey’s warm ears. “It’s okay,” she whispered, looking into the dog’s soulful eyes. “We don’t need Craig Bishop, do we? When a girl’s in trouble, she needs—family.”
Swallowing the despair in her throat, she leaned toward the phone, then hesitated. Was there a standard operating procedure for telling family members about cancer? In her years of nursing she had often been present when doctors gave bad news to patients, but she had no idea how those patients told their families. She couldn’t even remember how she’d learned that her mother had cancer. Jacquelyn had been nine or ten when they discovered the first lump, and after that her mother was never well….
She leaned back, her thoughts scampering vaguely around. Maybe the blunt approach was best: “Excuse me, Daddy, but I thought you might like to know that I have cancer.” Or “Hi, Dad, having a nice Saturday? I know we haven’t spoken in a couple of months, but I just thought you’d like to know that the family genes have corrupted again. I’ve got cancer, too.”
A heaviness centered in her chest. It wasn’t fair; children shouldn’t have to bring their parents news like this. Something was drastically wrong with the world when a daughter had to tell her father that the disease he feared most had returned to haunt him.
But sooner or later he’d have to know. And right now Jacquelyn thought he was the only person in the world who would care.
Leaning forward, she punched in her dad’s number, then rested her head on her hand as the phone buzzed in her ear. Finally, her father’s robust baritone rang over the line. “Hello?”
“Hi, Dad.” Her traitorous throat closed suddenly as emotion bubbled up and stopped her words. Why were her emotions erupting now? She’d received the news calmly; she’d had a rational, sane discussion with Dr. Shaw. Why couldn’t she, a medical professional, talk to her father about the disease she knew best?
“Jacquelyn? Is that you?”
She heard a trace of panic in his voice, but she could only gasp in response. She waved her hand, a foolish gesture he couldn’t see, but it gave her something to do as she struggled to collect her scattered emotions.
“Honey, are you okay? Do you need us to call the police? Triple A? What’s wrong?”
“No,” she finally whispered in a strangled voice. Pressing her hand over her face, she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Dad, but I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“Merciful heavens. Nothing’s happened to Roger, has it?” Jacquelyn thought of her brother, living far away with his family in Oregon. She hadn’t spoken to him in months; how would she know if Roger had problems? But Dad would naturally think about Roger; they had always been close. She had been closer to her mother.
“No, Dad, it’s me.” She caught sight of her reflection in the polished chrome toaster on the counter. Hurt and longing lay naked in her red-rimmed eyes, and she stared, fascinated, as her lips formed the dreaded words, “I’ve got breast cancer.”
The words seemed to resonate in the air.
“Dad?”
No answer.
“Daddy, are you there? Did you hear me?”
“It’s not true. You’re too young.”
A new anguish seared her heart. Did he think she’d make this up? “It is true. There’s a malignant lump. I had it aspirated.”
“Impossible.”
“Dad, I’m a nurse. I know it’s possible. With Mom’s history, it was actually probable that I’d develop a malignancy—”
“Get a second opinion, Jacquelyn. And then get a third. You’re too young to have breast cancer—don’t go listening to those knife-happy doctors you work with. Here, talk to Helen. Let her tell you I’m right.”
“Daddy?”
He was gone. She heard the clunk of the receiver as he dropped it on the table, then his voice, far away, calling for his wife. Jacquelyn clutched the phone to her chest as a flash of loneliness stabbed at her. He wasn’t going to help. He didn’t even want to believe her. The knowledge sliced like a knife through her heart.
“Jacquelyn?” Helen’s tinny voice echoed from the receiver. “Jackie, are you there?”
Jacquelyn’s mouth felt like old paper, dry and dusty, but she lifted the receiver and managed a reply. “I’m here, Helen.” Sweet, simple Helen wouldn’t want to handle this. She and Jacquelyn had never talked about anything more significant than whether Helen should plant day lilies or coleus at the front of the condo. She wouldn’t want to talk about Jacquelyn’s cancer—and Dad knew it.
“Jackie, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Helen. But I have to have…an operation, and Dad’s a little upset.”
“But you’ll be okay?”
“Sure. Hey, I work for the best hospital in the state. How could anything go wrong?”
Jacquelyn listened to Helen’s sigh of relief, then asked a few questions about their plans for the weekend. When the conversation had run out like sand in an hourglass, Jacquelyn said goodbye and hung up.
She should have known. Her father did not have the stamina or the will to participate in a second bout with breast cancer. As cleanly as a surgeon, he had separated himself from Mom’s house, her daughter, even her disease. Jacquelyn knew he loved her, but he didn’t have the strength to fight another battle.
Her heart squeezed in anguish as she realized she had no one to turn to. Dr. Shaw had advised finding a personal advocate, but Jacquelyn had no relatives or close friends who could serve in such a role. Stacy was a friend, but highly unsuited for what might be a long-term commitment. Years ago Jacquelyn had close friends at church who would have been willing to help, but she hadn’t been to church regularly since before her college days. Jacquelyn’s brother, Roger, was far too busy. Roger’s wife, Karen, was kind and sympathetic, but she could not function as an advocate or even a confidante living in Oregon. Jacquelyn would need someone to drive her to the hospital, to look after Bailey, to oversee her medications. Someone to talk to….
“God, there’s no one but You.” She lowered her head into her hands. “Why have You let this happen to me? Why? I know I haven’t been as close to You as I should be, but I’ve been doing my best to do the work You called me to do. So why did You let me get cancer?”
For a wild, insane moment she wondered if cancer might be contagious after all; perhaps she’d caught it from one of her patients. But such an idea was laughable. Her frantic brain was desperately grasping at straws, looking for someone to blame.
A suffocating sensation tightened her throat, and Jacquelyn lowered her head to the kitchen table and wept.