In Five Years(36)

Bella was smart in school, but disinterested. She floated through English and history with the ease of someone who knows it doesn’t really matter. And it didn’t. She was a great writer—still is. But it was art where she really found her stride. We went to a public school and funding was nonexistent, but the parent participation was hefty, and we were granted a studio with oil paints, canvases, and an instructor dedicated to our creative achievement.

Bella would always draw when we were kids, and her sketches were good—preternaturally good. But in studio she started producing work that was extraordinary. Students and teachers would come from different classrooms just to see. A landscape, a self-portrait, a bowl of rotting fruit on the counter. Once she did a painting of Irving, the nerdy sophomore from Cherry Hill. After she drew him, his entire reputation changed. He was elusive, compelling. People saw him as she sketched him. It was like she had this ability to uncork whatever was inside and let it spill out joyfully, excessively, messily.

Her father, Frederick, called me Saturday afternoon, from Paris. I told him what we knew: Bella had thought she was pregnant, she went in for an ultrasound to confirm, they did some tests, and she left with an ovarian cancer diagnosis.

I was met with stunned silence. And then a call to arms.

“I’ll call Dr. Finky,” he said. “I’ll tell him we need an appointment first thing Monday. Stand by.”

“Thank you,” I said, which felt natural but shouldn’t have.

“Will you call her mother?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I said.

Bella’s mother started sobbing instantly on the phone, I knew she would. Jill has always had a flair for the dramatic.

“I’m getting on the next flight,” she said, even though, presumably, she was in Philadelphia and could drive here in just under double the time it would take to get to the airport.

“We’re getting an appointment for Monday morning,” I said. “Would you like me to send you the details?”

“I’m calling Bella,” she said, and hung up.

Last I heard Jill had a boyfriend our age. She was married once more, after Bella’s father, to a Greek shipping heir who cheated on her rampantly and publicly. She’s never made good choices. If I’m honest, she’s modeled Bella’s romantic history—but hopefully not anymore, not with Aaron.

Monday morning, sitting in the office filling out papers, I don’t ask about Jill because I don’t have to. I know what happened. She lost the paper with the time, or she had a massage she couldn’t cancel, or she forgot to buy a train ticket and figured she’d come tomorrow. It’s always a million different reasons that all say the same thing.

Bella makes her way through the paperwork, and Aaron and I sit stonily, flanking her. I see him pop his foot over his leg, jiggling it nervously. He rubs a hand over his forehead.

Bella is wearing jeans and an orange sweater even though it’s too hot outside for either of those things. Summer will not quit, even though we’re now nearing the end of September.

“Ms. Gold?”

A young male nurse or doctor’s assistant wearing wire-rimmed glasses appears in front of a glass door.

Bella shifts the paperwork nervously in her lap. “I didn’t finish,” she says.

Brenda at the desk smiles. “It’s okay. We can get to it after.” She looks from me to Aaron. “Are both of you headed back?”

“Yes,” Aaron answers.

The nurse, Benji, chats happily to us as we move down the hallway. Again, with the cheer. You would think we were walking to an ice cream parlor or waiting in line for the Ferris wheel.

“Right this way.”

He holds his arm across a doorway to a white room, and the three of us enter in the same formation: me, Bella, Aaron. There are two seats in the corner and an examining chair. I stand.

“We’ll just do some quick stats while we wait for Dr. Finky.”

Benji takes Bella’s vitals—her pulse, her temperature—and looks inside her throat and ears. He has her get on the scale and takes her weight and height. Aaron doesn’t sit either and. with the two chairs and us standing, the room seems small, almost claustrophobic. I’m not sure how we’re going to fit another person in there.

Finally, the door opens.

“Bella, I haven’t seen you since you were ten years old. Hello.”

Dr. Finky is a short man—round and plump—who moves with a precise and almost dart-like speed.

“Hi,” Bella says. She extends her hand, and he takes it.

“Who are these people?”

“This is my boyfriend, Greg.” Aaron extends his hand. Finky shakes it. “And my best friend, Dannie.” We do the same.

“You have a good support system; that’s nice,” he says. I feel my stomach clench and release. He shouldn’t have said that. I don’t like it.

“So you came to the doctor thinking you were pregnant? How about you explain how you arrived in my office today?”

Finky puts on his glasses, takes out his notebook, and starts nodding and writing. Bella explains it all, again: The missed period. The bloating. The false positive on the pregnancy test. Going to the doctor. The CT scan. The blood test results.

“We need to run some additional tests,” he says. “I don’t want to say anything yet.”