The Perfect Marriage(17)

6

Dr. Goldman had a small office. It was crammed with textbooks that Jessica assumed he had not opened in years and suspected he might have kept from his medical school days. His diplomas hung on the wall, which she always thought was tacky, suggestive of some type of intellectual insecurity. But perhaps for doctors it was different.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Owen’s cancer has returned,” Dr. Goldman said without emotion. “The blood tests we did last week came back positive. We’re doing a new set today, but we expect the same result.”

Even though Jessica had known this was coming in the waiting room, she was still floored by the news.

At the beginning of Owen’s ordeal, she had steeled herself against the possibility that the chemo wasn’t going to work. Not completely, of course, because no one could truly mentally prepare for losing their child, but she at least considered the possibility of a bad outcome. Once Dr. Goldman declared the treatment a success, however, and then when he later used the term remission and ultimately proclaimed Owen cancer-free, she had cast away all negative thoughts.

Of course, Dr. Goldman always hedged Owen’s prognosis, telling her about recurrences and five-year survival rates, the obvious implication being that there were those who survived two, or three, or even four years, but not five. But that was more information than Jessica could absorb. To her way of thinking, you either had cancer or you did not. Owen had it. He might die. Then he didn’t. Which meant he would live. For Jessica, there was no in-between. There couldn’t be.

Dr. Goldman had stopped speaking, apparently expecting Jessica to say something. Or at least to respond to what he’d said by crying.

That was how she had responded the first time he had given her this same news. Even before he told her the type of leukemia, she was sobbing. Wayne had been sitting beside her. She buried her face in Wayne’s chest, wanting only for the doctor to stop talking. As if his words were the cancer eating away at her son.

This time, however, was different. Jessica sat there alone, and when she heard the diagnosis, she remained mute and still, as if in a catatonic trance. The words reverberated in her head. She understood their urgency, of course. Yet at the same time, she knew that the moment she acknowledged them, Owen would, once again, be dying.

“I know that this is not the news you were expecting,” Dr. Goldman continued, “but you shouldn’t lose hope that Owen can still go into remission again. There is an experimental treatment in Manhattan, at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and I think he’d be a very suitable candidate. They’ve been having great success over there.”

If hearing the word cancer made Jessica sick to her stomach, experimental treatment made her want to vomit. Still, this was some sliver of hope. She grasped it with all her might, like it was a branch overhanging a raging river, knowing it was the only thing preventing her from going over the falls.

“Okay,” Jessica said, surprised at the sound of her own voice, almost as if she were hovering above the office, watching the scene unfold. “When can that start?”

Dr. Goldman pursed his lips. Jessica could not imagine that there was still bad news to come, but she recognized this tell. Even the slim branch he had extended would not keep her from the plunge ahead.

“It’s a process, I’m afraid. First we’ll need to do some more tests to confirm that Owen is a viable candidate. I think he will be, but I can’t be sure without the lab results to back it up. But the greater hurdle, I’m sorry to say, will be the cost. Because it’s an experimental protocol, insurance won’t cover the treatment.”

“What’s the cost?”

“It’s significant. I don’t know precisely how much, but at a minimum, it will be in the low– to mid–six figures to complete the entire protocol.”

Jessica found it pretentious to talk about money this way, like dropping foreign words into a conversation. Everyone in the real estate world did it, though, and even James sprinkled his art talk with the same lingo. It always forced Jessica to translate the amount in her head. If six figures meant it cost at least $100,000, then low– to mid–six figures meant anything between $100,000 and . . . what? Half a million?

Jessica understood why Dr. Goldman was using such imprecise language. He was saying that no matter what the final tally ended up being, it was beyond her means.



Haley was late for her 10:00 a.m. appointment with Dr. Rubenstein. She had no excuse for her tardiness, of course. She had no job and no other place she had to be.

As always, when she arrived after ten, Haley immediately apologized. And as was his custom, Dr. Rubenstein told her that she should seek not his forgiveness, but her own.

“I get paid for the full session whether you use it or not. You’re only hurting yourself by being late.”

Dr. Rubenstein was a hard-core Freudian. He insisted that these sessions take place with Haley supine on the couch. Insisted was strong, as he said it was her choice, but he made it clear that he thought his approach was better. “To block out anything that might interfere with our work,” he’d explained.

So that morning, Haley did what she did each Monday at 10:00 a.m. (or a few minutes after). She removed her shoes, lay on his sofa, and stared up at the ceiling tiles.

She had been under Dr. Rubenstein’s care for almost a year. Oddly enough, it wasn’t James’s leaving her that sent her to therapy, but a work crisis.