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  Frances shut her eyes and waited, knowing the exact moment when the nurse started and finished her next task. True to her word, a strange taste flooded her mouth, and she couldn’t help but rub her lips together. She could taste it, smell it. No one had warned her about this during her meetings with doctors or tour of the chemo center. Somehow it had been overlooked. There was never any mention that the medicine would affect her taste buds. Having the chemicals in her body was bad enough; tasting them was even worse.

  “There. It should go away in a little bit, the taste,” she said. “Now, let me get your medicine while the line drips. You just stay there and try to relax.”

  “What’s in that bag?” Frances hadn’t wanted to inquire, hadn’t wanted to know. At least, not on a conscious level. But the question had slipped out before she could stop herself.

  “Benadryl and an antinausea medicine.” That was it. No further explanation was given before the nurse turned and walked away.

  Frances took a deep breath, leaning back and shutting her eyes once again. Instead of thinking about the upcoming slow drip of chemicals that would join her blood to fight her cancer, she focused on images of her children. She remembered Andy as a toddler taking his first steps, refusing her help as he let go of the living room chair and took the three steps necessary to reach the sideboard. His pride in doing something so important alone, without her help but with her applause, made Frances realize then that he needed her to be his constant cheerleader from the sidelines.

  And Carrie had always been independent. Even when she was her most difficult, she still needed to know that her mother was there for her, an invisible wingman to catch her in the unlikely (but inevitable) case that she should fall.

  Frances tried to imagine them as young adults, going to college and getting married, becoming parents and making her a grandmother. Those were the thoughts that she hoped would take her away from the chemotherapy center of Morristown Memorial Hospital.

  She remained like that for a good twenty minutes, willing herself to keep her eyes closed until the nurse returned and fiddled with the apparatus. She must have thought that Frances was sleeping, because she didn’t say a word. It wasn’t until after the nurse left that Frances’s curiosity got the best of her. Opening her eyes, she looked over at the machine. Two large plastic syringes had been pushed into the dispenser, one full of red liquid and the other clear.

  “The red one is the nasty one.”

  Frances glanced to her left and saw that it was Madeline.

  “It’s called Adriamycin. That’s the one that makes everyone sick.”

  Frances lifted both eyebrows. “I thought all of this made everyone sick.”

  The woman laughed, and when she did, her eyes crinkled into half-moons that were supported by a lifetime of wrinkles.

  “That’s true.” There was a long moment of silence. Frances was just about to shut her eyes again when she heard, “I’m Madeline. What’s your name?”

  Inwardly, Frances groaned. Now would come the polite airplane talk that she dreaded. Whenever she flew somewhere, she avoided speaking to the person seated next to her. Just listening to random people who insisted on striking up situational conversation irritated her. Empty dialogue about careers, family, or banal topics that neither person cared about seemed like a waste of time. Even worse was the exchanging of contact information, as if either person had any intention of further communication.

  “Frances,” she heard herself respond in a quiet voice, hoping that the woman would get the hint that she wasn’t interested in trifles. “We met the other day.”

  Madeline tilted her head, appearing to search her memory. And then she smiled. “I remember you, yes! You were touring with Thomas.” She leaned over and, in a hoarse whisper, said, “He’s a real stinker, that guy. I once sat here for over an hour before he unhooked me! More interested in that blond nurse over there than taking care of the patients, if you ask me.”

  Something about the unexpected insight into the social dynamics of the chemotherapy center made Frances smile. No matter where people were, there was always something to gossip about, regardless of how trivial it was.

  Sitting back in her chair, Madeline frowned, the wrinkles around the corners of her eyes deepening as she watched Frances.

  “You should really ask for some ice pops.”

  Ice pops? Vaguely she remembered that Thomas had mentioned them to her during the tour.

  “Why?”

  With a wrinkled finger, Madeline pointed to her mouth, which she proceeded to open, then stuck out her blister-covered tongue. “Mouth sores.”

  None of Frances’s research had mentioned mouth sores. And from the look of Madeline’s tongue, Frances could understand why. There was nothing Frances hated more than canker sores. Whenever she caught a cold, the inevitable canker sores inside her cheeks made talking painful, and she found herself irritable under the best of circumstances.

  “Thanks.”

  She wanted to ask Madeline why she wasn’t sucking on an ice pop. But Frances refrained from prying.

  From the looks of the older woman, she was a chemotherapy veteran, a woman who had such severe cancer, it required multiple sessions a week. Perhaps it had metastasized, spread to her other organs. Whatever type of cancer it was, Frances didn’t really want to know, and she certainly didn’t want to know how advanced it was. The last thing she wanted was to get close to the woman, or anyone else, for that matter. In her mind, the chemotherapy was going to kill her cancer and she wouldn’t need to have the double mastectomy that the doctor had recommended. And if that was the case, she wouldn’t be returning to the Chemo Cocktail Lounge ever again.

  What she needed was one thing and one thing only: distance. Keep your distance. As far as she was concerned, this ugliness would be over in eight weeks, and she would never have to return.

  And no one would be any wiser about this unfortunate blip in her life.

  No one.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Can I get you anything?”

  Frances hung her head over the toilet bowl, wishing more than anything that Nicholas would just go away.

  “I’m fine,” she managed to say, but only seconds later she began vomiting again.

  The previous day, when she’d left the hospital, she felt fine. One of the nurses had handed her several slips of blue paper, prescriptions for medicine that Frances needed to get filled, with a warning to watch for fever. But Frances had merely shoved the papers into her purse and hurried out the door to get as far away from the chemotherapy center and the hospital as possible.

  Instead of stopping at the pharmacy on her way, she headed straight for home. She tackled her afternoon as she normally did: doing a load of laundry, preparing the evening meal, and making certain that everything was tidied up before anyone came home. By the time Carrie and Andy descended upon the kitchen for dinner, she still felt fine. In fact, Frances had silently laughed at cancer and all the people who complained about the toll it took on their bodies.

  However, all of that changed when she sat down for dinner. The food tasted bland, and her stomach started to react. She had to push away her plate and lean back in the chair. Carrie merely glanced at her once, but Andy eyed her suspiciously.

  “You all right, Momma?”

  She winced. “I hate when you call me that,” she mumbled.

  He laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes!”

  But she shook her head. “It just hit me,” she said. “I’m going to excuse myself and ask the two of you to clean up when you’re done.”

  As usual, Carrie made a face but Andy nodded, watching as Frances left the table, her arm clutching her stomach. She retired to the bedroom and, for once, was thankful that Nicholas was working late. When he finally got home, well after ten, she pretended to be asleep.

  He never tried to wake her.

  Throughout the night, the pains and cramping continued. It wasn’t until after two o’clock in the morning that she finally
conceded defeat and raced to the bathroom. When she hovered over the toilet, vomiting what little she’d eaten, she knew that karma had just called her out for having mocked the power of chemotherapy.

  From two o’clock until six that morning, she slept sporadically, occasionally getting up to sneak into the bathroom and, as quietly as she could, hang her head over the toilet. The last thing she wanted was to wake up Nicholas. But as usual, he slept soundly and noticed nothing peculiar about her absence, if he noticed anything at all.

  In the morning, however, he heard her retching from the other side of the bathroom door.

  “Frances?”

  She managed to flush the toilet before he opened the door. The sound of the rushing water hurt her head.

  “I’m fine,” she mumbled, although she knew she looked anything but fine, especially when she stood up and peered into the mirror. She appeared worn-out. How long have I been in here? There were ridges in her right cheek that felt oddly like the pattern of the tile on the bathroom floor, which led her to believe that she must have fallen asleep in between bouts of nausea.

  Nicholas stepped forward and touched her shoulder, but she pushed his hand away. She hadn’t meant to react so sharply, and for a brief moment she caught his eyes in the reflection of the mirror.

  Nicholas stared at her as if burning a hole into her soul. Not only was he seething that she’d pushed him away, but he was most likely angry that she was sick to begin with.

  “I know, I know.” She reached for the faucet and turned it on so that she could splash water on her cheeks. “You need the bathroom to get ready for work.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  She contemplated telling him. It was the perfect opportunity. She envisioned his response to her blurting out I have cancer, Nicholas, and yesterday I had my first chemotherapy treatment, but you’ve been too busy, as usual, for me to even tell you. He’d be silent for a minute as he digested her words, and then he’d realize how distant he had become in the past few years. How work had replaced his focus on the family . . . on her.

  But when she assumed that he hadn’t asked her that question—What’s wrong with you?—out of concern, which she so desperately wanted to hear, but anger from her having shoved his hand away, she realized that she couldn’t tell him. Not now. Not like this. Besides, he was leaving for Chicago in a couple of days, and she knew how important that work trip was.

  “It’s just a bug, I’m sure.” She reached for a towel and covered her cheeks, the pressure from her fingers helping her focus on the here and now, not on the what-should-have-been. “It’s that time of year, and the kids probably brought something home.” She lowered the towel from her face and stared at him in the reflection of the mirror, half hoping that he would call her out on the lie. But he didn’t.

  “A bug,” he repeated skeptically.

  When she heard his terse tone, she realized the truth. He hadn’t been concerned that she was sick; rather, he had thought she might be pregnant. Again. She felt her chest tighten as another wave of nausea overcame her. He was, yet again, oblivious to her needs. Only this time it wasn’t a second child. This time it was simply the loving arms of her husband, reaching out to comfort her. A husband who would, without complaint, push aside meetings and obligations to tend to his wife during a time of distress.

  But that was not the husband who stood before her now, watching her with suspicious curiosity.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated again.

  “Well, let me get you some water at least,” he offered.

  It was the last thing she wanted, but she nodded anyway. She would have agreed to anything to make him go away. She didn’t need to resurrect the past. Instead, what she needed were those antinausea pills that the nurse had prescribed. Why had she been too stubborn to fill the prescription? Now it was the one and only thing that she wanted. She would take anything to make the nausea go away.

  When Nicholas returned, he handed her a glass of water and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched her.

  She felt as if she were under a microscope. She knew that he was waiting for her to drink the water. Despite having no idea whether her stomach would tolerate it, she took a long sip from the glass.

  In their eighteen years of marriage, she’d been ill only one time. It was during a business trip to Mexico soon after Nicholas had started working for the firm. She hadn’t listened to everyone’s advice about avoiding the drinking water, although she hadn’t realized it at the time. One salad, with lettuce that presumably had been washed in tap water, became her Kryptonite. She spent three of the five days in the hotel room, and Nicholas had shown her no compassion.

  “How could you have eaten a salad? What were you thinking?” he yelled at her. “These meetings and dinners are important. It’s for both of us; that’s why you were invited, Frances. It could impact my promotion, you know? We are being judged to see if we fit in with these executives and their wives!”

  She hadn’t responded. Instead, she lay in bed with a cool cloth on her forehead. The last thing on her mind was fitting in with executives and their wives. Silently, she prayed that he’d just go away and do whatever he needed to do. Anything as long as he stopped talking and left her alone.

  Which he’d done.

  After that experience, she remained healthy and strong, at least on the surface. If she ever felt poorly or knew a cold was coming on, she kept it hidden from him. Clearly, illness was something outside of his purview for compassion.

  Now, she tried to push away the memory of Mexico. At least he wasn’t yelling at her. She didn’t know if she would be able to handle that. Not this time.

  “I take it you weren’t able to pick up my dry cleaning yesterday,” he said.

  Frances fought the urge to yell at him. Here she was, sick to her stomach, and his main concern was his dry cleaning? “It must have slipped my mind, Nicholas. I’m sorry.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “That’s rather inconvenient, Frances.”

  She wanted to throw the glass of water at his head. And yet, because of her, he wasn’t aware of the true depths of her sickness. She couldn’t blame him for thinking this was just another passing bug. So instead of snapping at him, she merely gestured toward his closet. “You still have clean shirts from last week.”

  “Will you be able to pick them up today?”

  This time, she hesitated before answering him. She felt a flash of anger and fought to quickly compress it, to tuck it away into the recesses of her mind, along with the other moments of anger that she too often felt.

  “Yes, of course, Nicholas.” She didn’t know how she would do it, but she would. “Thank you for the water. That helped.” Forcing a smile, she handed him the half-empty glass.

  When he took it from her, he held it without retracting his arm. His face darkened as he studied her face, and she could see the wheels of his mind moving at a hundred miles per hour. He put the glass down on the bathroom counter.

  “Change in seasons, I suppose. Or maybe I ate something that doesn’t agree with me.”

  “Food poisoning?” he said, with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “I had seafood for lunch yesterday.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Food poisoning usually hits fast and furious, Frances.”

  “It was a late lunch,” she snapped at last, irritated at the inquisition. “Don’t worry, Nicholas. It’s nothing.”

  In order to avoid his dark gaze, she leaned over the sink and splashed some water on her face. It felt cool against her warm skin. With her stomach empty, she knew she wouldn’t vomit again anytime soon. If she could just get back to bed and sleep, she’d hopefully feel fine by midafternoon.

  When she turned off the water, Nicholas handed her a fresh towel. She took it and covered her face, patting her cheeks as well as hiding her eyes. If only she’d told him. The moment had been there, presenting itself once again. But the irritated look on his face had angered her,
and now the moment was gone.

  She’d have to find another one. But when?

  She shut her eyes and leaned against the sink. The deception had gone on far too long to simply confess the truth. It reminded her of the weeks after she’d learned about another life change: her second pregnancy. His reaction, her cover-up. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

  “I . . . I just need to catch up on my sleep,” she said. Dropping the towel, she looked at him, thankful to see the shadow of distrust dissolve from his face. “Maybe you could make sure the kids get to school this morning? Oh, and Carrie needs money for that school trip.”

  Nicholas gave her a look, out of either concern or irritation. Truth be told, at the present moment she didn’t really care.

  “Well.” Nicholas glanced at his watch. “I’m sure I can get the kids to the bus.”

  Frances was certain that he was suppressing irritation.

  “Don’t forget that money for her field trip,” she managed to say as she shuffled past him and crawled back into bed. Without him there, it felt warm and welcoming. She snuggled into the down comforter, pulled it up under her chin. She could hear him getting ready for work and knew he wasn’t going to question her further, his focus most likely having shifted to work, the more important of his two problems. That left Frances the freedom to shut her eyes and slip into her zone once again. In those moments she could shut out the rest of the world and simply exist, as if she were suspended in air and floating through life with no worries or cares.

  If only . . .

  For the rest of the morning she remained in bed except for an occasional trip to the bathroom to hover over the toilet. She slept as much as she could and thanked God more than once that the children were at school and not home to witness her condition.

  Perhaps it was time to figure out how, exactly, to tell Nicholas. She’d have to wait until he returned from his trip. Then she could sit down with him, explain what was going on, and answer his questions. She would know enough to be able to answer his questions without feeling ignorant. She would be facing her second treatment.