The Mother's Promise(2)

There was a short silence.

“No, Alice, I’m afraid it’s not,” Dr. Brookes said. His eyes were incredulous. “A salpingo-oophorectomy is major surgery where we take out the ovaries and fallopian tubes. You’ll have to stay in the hospital for at least a few nights. Maybe up to a week, depending on what we find.”

Something hardened in the back of Alice’s throat. “A … week?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She stopped, swallowed. Tried again. “Well, uh, when can you do it?”

“As soon as possible. Monday, if I can arrange it.”

Alice felt a strange jolt, a lurch, into awareness. Kate’s hand finally touched hers, and maybe it was the shock, or maybe their earlier moment of camaraderie, but Alice allowed it.

“Maybe your daughter should be here,” Kate said. “If she is going to be your primary support she probably needs to—”

“No,” Alice said, pulling her hands back into her lap.

“This will be hard for her,” Dr. Brookes said thoughtfully, “and we will be mindful of that. But at fifteen, she might be able to handle more than you—”

“No,” Alice repeated. “Zoe doesn’t need to be involved in this. She can’t handle this. She isn’t like a normal teenager.”

Dr. Brookes raised his eyebrows, but Alice didn’t bother explaining further. Doctors always turned it around on her, making it seem like the whole thing was her fault—or, worse, Zoe’s.

“Zoe won’t be my support person,” Alice said, with finality. “She doesn’t need to know about any of this.”

Dr. Brookes sighed. “Alice, I don’t think you fully understand—”

“Maybe there’s someone else, Alice?” Kate interrupted. “A friend? Even an acquaintance? Someone to drive you home from surgery, to be at these kinds of appointments?”

Alice shook her head. Dr. Brookes and Kate conferred with their eyes.

“We can get a social worker to contact you,” Kate said, finally. “They’ll be able to attend appointments with you, they might be able to organize meals, or even get access to special funding to help with out-of-pocket costs.” To Kate’s credit, she wasn’t reeling off a speech; she appeared genuinely engaged in what she was saying. “The thing is, Alice, you are going to need someone. We need to do more tests, but the current information we have indicates that your condition is very serious. You have a mass in your ovaries, your CA 125 levels are up in the thousands, and you have a buildup of fluid in the abdomen, indicating the cancer may have already spread. Even in the best-case scenario, if everything goes well in the surgery you will most likely have to have chemotherapy. We will do everything we can, but I promise you … you are going to need someone.”

If she’d felt a jolt earlier, this was a cannon, blowing a giant hole right through her. “Cancer.” Had they used that word earlier? She didn’t remember it.

Apparently appeased by her expression—finally the reaction they’d been waiting for—the doctor began to explain it all again, a third or maybe fourth time. Once again, Alice zoned out. Because … she couldn’t have cancer. She was barely forty, she ate well, exercised occasionally. More importantly, she couldn’t have cancer. She had Zoe.

Dr. Brookes finished his spiel and asked her if she had any questions. Alice opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She thought again about what Kate had said. You are going to need someone. Alice wanted to tell her she was wrong. Because if what she was saying was true, Alice wasn’t going to need someone. Zoe was.





2

As cancer-care coordinator, Kate Littleton delivered bad news for a living. In five years at the job she’d given hundreds of people what was, arguably, the worst news of their lives, and in five years it hadn’t got any easier. Today’s appointment was no exception. When the doctor explained to Alice Stanhope that she had cancer, it was almost as though she didn’t hear. A severe case of denial, most likely, which was why they asked patients to bring a support person to appointments—so they could hear what the patient could not.

There wasn’t anyone, Alice had said. Was that possible? In five years at Stanford Health Care, Kate had never heard this. Most patients were surrounded by people, in chemotherapy, in post-op; usually Kate’s problem was getting them all to leave so the patient could rest. The ideal scenario, in Kate’s experience, was for patients to have one primary support person. There was something about pairs—the yin and the yang of it. When one fell apart, the other was strong; when one zoned out, the other would listen. Yet Alice Stanhope didn’t have a single person she felt she could nominate to walk beside her in what was going to be the hardest journey of her life. Which meant that Kate would have to do her job a little better than usual.

Kate knew there was one thing that a patient needed more than a doctor, more than a nurse, even more than medicine, and that was a mother. Someone to reassure them, to fluff their pillows, to give them that look of certainty that said they were in good hands. Someone to fight for them. At the age of nine, after an emergency appendectomy, Kate had learned this firsthand. Her father, widowed when Kate was just a toddler, had visited her every night, but it was Ann, Kate’s nurse with the short brown hair and thick ankles, who’d cuddled her before she fell asleep. It was Ann who shooed the younger nurses out of her room and wheeled in the old TV and VCR along with kids’ movies she’d rented at Blockbuster on her way to her shift. It was Ann who’d told her that under no circumstances was she to eat her vegetables. For those two weeks, Kate had had a mother. Now Kate strived to be that mother for her patients.