That evening, Abby asked all the adults to meet her in a remote restaurant-bar at the back of the ship, Finnegan’s. She had no idea how her friends would react. Or how she might react. But a secluded spot with dim lighting seemed the best place to reveal her secret. Earlier in the cruise, she and Sam had stumbled onto the cozy bar with supple leather seats and glass jars filled with peanuts. Every time they’d gone, a crotchety older man stood behind the bar, taking people’s orders as if he’d rather not. It made them laugh to have found such a malcontent on a ship where everyone else practically hummed with enthusiasm. The walls were paneled in dark oak, the tables a polished cherry, a fitting spot for the news she was about to deliver.
Earlier, she’d felt nauseous, though she couldn’t say whether it was nerves or the events of the last few days. Or her medicine. There were too many factors rolling around in her head. She knew she had to tell her roommates, and yet a part of her still wanted to guard her secret. To put it out in the open, to actually speak the words to her best friends, would make it all real. For the past eight days, Abby had been able to pretend she was perfectly fine, albeit a bit tired.
Sam sat next to her, a whiskey at his elbow. Abby sipped her iced tea. They’d talked it over, and they’d both agreed: short and sweet was best. No sense in prolonging the conversation. Abby would deliver the news and tell her friends not to worry. Just that it was the luck of the draw and Abby would ride it out, however her body saw fit. She might still outlive them all, who knew? They’d decided not to include the boys or Lacey tonight. Lee could tell Lacey on her own time, and she and Sam agreed that the twins could wait until they were back home, in a familiar setting with their friends.
Caroline and Javier were the first to arrive. Caroline, her skin bronzed the color of copper, glowed as she clasped Javier’s hand. With her hair swept up in a loose ponytail, she looked twenty again, a beaming bride-to-be. Abby realized that marriage already suited her friend—Caroline was a natural.
“So, is this where you tell us that we’ve won an extended cruise, a whole extra loop to Bermuda and back?” Caroline teased.
“Ha, I wish.” Abby played along. Just then, Lee arrived and pulled up a seat.
“Hi, sorry I’m late.”
“No worries,” said Abby. “You’re not late at all.” She rested her elbows on the table and knitted her fingers together.
“So, what’s the big news now?” Lee inquired. “I’m not sure my heart can handle much more on this cruise.” Abby understood that Lee had been fighting her own battles with Lacey, but that the pregnancy scare had been just that, a scare.
“Well,” Abby began. “As it turns out, Sam and I do have some news for you.” She glanced at Sam, who nodded. “So, it turns out.” She hesitated. “It turns out,” she tried again, “that I have leukemia.”
Lee fell back in her chair, and a small sucking sound escaped from Caroline. “Oh, no,” she said.
“I know.” Abby gave it a moment to sink in. “It stinks. I found out a couple of weeks before the cruise, and I didn’t want to spoil everyone’s fun. But I thought you both should know.”
Sam stepped in. “We haven’t even told the boys yet. We will, of course, when we get back to Boston. But Abby wanted you two to know.”
Lee grabbed a cocktail napkin and dabbed at her eyes. “Jesus, Abby, I knew something was up. But this? I had no idea.”
“Yeah, I figured you guys would pick up on the fact that I wasn’t drinking much. Doctor’s orders,” she explained. “But I wanted to enjoy our trip. Celebrate twenty years of marriage. Of friendship.”
Caroline’s face was drawn and pale. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe it.” She eyed Sam’s tumbler of whiskey. “May I?” She took a long sip and set down the glass. “I’m so sorry, Abs.” She reached across the table to take her friend’s hand. “Well, one thing’s for sure: you know we’re here to help you fight this however you need to.”
Abby swallowed hard.
“Leukemia is one of the curable ones, right?” Lee leaned forward, her eyes flashing. “We’ll kill that bastard. Wring its little neck,” she said, prompting a laugh from Abby.
“Right now I’m on all sorts of pills that are my chemotherapy.”
Caroline’s eyes widened. “You mean to tell us that you’ve been undergoing chemotherapy this whole time?”
“Yep. Tiny little pills. The miracle of modern medicine.” Abby held her forefinger and thumb a centimeter apart to approximate the size of the pills she’d been swallowing over the last few weeks.
“And they’re not making you sick?” Caroline pressed. “I mean, you’ve been acting perfectly healthy. Maybe a little tired, but healthy.”
“Not really. At least I don’t think so. Just a little queasy sometimes, but it’s hard to know if that’s the boat or the medication.”
“So, Abby.” It was Javier, the first time he’d spoken. She was grateful now that she’d told him earlier, a calm presence to help her steer her friends through the shock of her news. “What can we do to help?”
“Yes,” Caroline chimed in. “Tell us. Anything we can do. I can fly to Boston on a moment’s notice. I can go to your doctor’s appointments with you. Or maybe we can help with the boys. Do you like your doctor? I know Boston has great clinics, but I can ask around about top oncologists in New York.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I really do,” Abby said now. “But I think we’re all set for the moment. I have Sam, and my doctor is supposedly one of the best. My prognosis is pretty good, as long as I keep taking my pills. The doctor says I could live another twenty years. Of course, it might be closer to ten or five, but who knows?”
Caroline pulled her lips into a tight line. For once, Abby’s roommates had nothing to say.
“Anyway,” Abby pushed ahead, “it turns out only four in one million Americans get this particular kind of leukemia each year. So, there’s that.” She flushed. It was a stupid thing to say, but she was still struck by the infinitesimal odds.
Lee slammed her hand down on the table. “Damn it, Abby. It’s just like you to go and get something that only three other people have.” She shook her head. “I don’t care how rare it is, we’re going to beat this.” And there it was, the collective we. Just like that, her friends had taken her disease on as their own. It was no longer only Abby and Sam fighting this battle. She’d almost forgotten: she had her forever sisters. Through thick and thin.
“When will you know if the chemo works?” Caroline asked quietly.
“That’s the thing. With this type of leukemia, there’s no cure, per se. You just keep taking a low dosage of chemo for the rest of your life. My doctor called it a chronic condition, not a terminal one.”
“Huh,” said Caroline. Abby watched while her friends processed the information.
“I know, it sounds screwy to me, too, but apparently lots of people live with this for quite a while. Up to twenty years,” she repeated.
“Well.” Sam leaned forward. “Abby’s not mentioning the one other possibility.” Abby shook her head. “What?” he asked. “I think your friends would want to know.” He paused, then forged ahead. “A bone marrow transplant. If Abby can find a match, then she’ll be considered cured.”
“Seriously?” cried Caroline. “Well, then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll find you a match. How hard can it be?”
“Whoa, whoa.” Abby held up her hand. “Not so fast. What Sam didn’t mention is that my odds of finding a match are extremely slim, especially since I don’t have any siblings.”
“But isn’t there a national database of some kind that can match you to a potential donor?” Lee persisted.
“I think so.” Abby hadn’t actually checked, assuming it would be a shot in the dark. “But again, the odds are pretty slim. And, well, you know, it’s not the easiest procedure. There are no guarantees. I figure why bother with that if I still have a good stretch of years ahead of me.”
Caroline shook her head as if she couldn’t comprehend what Abby was saying. “Um, because you’d be cured?”
“Look, I appreciate your can-do attitude,” said Abby. “But I don’t want to get your hopes up. This is something I can live with. As my doctor says, it’s not the end of the world.”
She caught Caroline and Lee exchanging glances and could see the wheels already beginning to turn in their heads.
“Okay,” Caroline said cautiously now. “It’s your thing, Abby, and you can deal with it however you want, but please tell us that at the very least you’re going to put your name in that database to see if there’s a match.”
Abby hesitated and looked to Sam for guidance. The truth was, she hadn’t considered searching for a match because she’d assumed the search would be futile. What’s more, she’d convinced herself that she wasn’t up for the procedure, that a transplant would be more than her body could handle. It wasn’t as if she was signing up to get her tonsils removed.
“I can think about it,” she said now deliberately, carefully. “I can do that much.”
“Good.” Caroline clasped her hands together. “Then it’s settled.”
Lee nodded across the table with an almost conspiratorial gleam in her eye, while Abby wondered what exactly she had just agreed to. One thing she knew for certain: it felt good to finally let her friends in on her secret.