The Empty Jar(22)

I think it is. In my heart, I know it is. If I can spare Nate, I will. I must. But already the guilt of keeping something like that from him weighs heavily on me. Even the contemplation of such a thing makes me anxious. But I have to contemplate it. I have to consider my husband. He’s a good man. The best man. I might not be able to save him from the pain of my awful death, but I can certainly save him additional pain if that’s how it will end—in another loss. Another death.

To this day, I can still see his face—the hopelessness, the betrayal, the hurt and the sadness—when I told him about my diagnosis. I don’t want to see my amazing husband look that way ever again. I can’t see him look that way ever again. I just can’t.

My anxiety rises to fever pitch.

I need help. Guidance.

I need to talk to someone, but my “someone” is usually Nate. He’s my “someone” in every situation. But he can’t be my someone in this one, and the only other person I’m close to—Nissa—doesn’t even know I’m sick.

That leaves me with no one. Not really.

A face pops into my mind. It’s the face of a woman near my own age, one who looks strikingly similar to the reflection I see when I look in the mirror. I’ve heard all my life that I look just like her.

My mother.

She’s the only other person I can think of. But she’s unacceptable for a dozen or more reasons.

I was very young when I learned to hate being compared to my mother. I was young when I learned to hate her, too. Well, almost hate her. In any case, Patricia Holmes is not someone I’ve ever wanted to be like. Yet she’s the only other person I can think of that I could turn to.

But my mother isn’t really an option.

Not really.

The facial is over, and I’m no closer to finding an answer, a direction. It seems that taking the test is the only certain step forward that I can settle on. The result of that test will either bring to life or obliterate all of the complications and considerations my mind is currently plagued by. Until then, all I can do is worry. And that’s not getting me anywhere.

I figure it’s best not to borrow trouble. I have plenty of my own already. That’s why I try my best to put it out of my mind until I have results.

Then, everything will shift.

One way or the other.

I’m putting my clothes back on when a knock sounds on my dressing room door. My heart leaps in my chest. I hurry to get my shirt over my head, tripping over one of my shoes on my mad dash to the door. I fumble awkwardly to fling it open.

A young woman with long auburn hair and sharp brown eyes stands smiling on the other side of it.

“Mrs. Grant?” Her posture is very similar to that of the concierge. The same stiff spine, the same bland expression. Oddly, I wonder if it’s an Italian thing or a hotel thing.

“Yes. Did Enzo send you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She smiles wider and produces a white paper-wrapped package from behind her back.

With shaking fingers, I take the rectangle. I stare down at it, almost hypnotized by a mixture of dread and excitement, until the girl clears her throat and shakes me from my thrall.

“Will that be all, ma’am?”

“Oh, yes. Thank you.”

The young woman is turning to leave when my manners finally return. “Miss?” At my voice, the girl stops instantly and pivots to face me. Like beautiful, pleasant soldiers, I think to myself.

I reach behind for my purse and take out some Euros, folding them twice before pressing them into the thin hand of the person I feel like has delivered to me either really good or really bad news. “Thank you again.”

Once more, I’m given a calm, polite smile and a nod before the young lady disappears down the hall. The click of the door latch sliding into place is the last thing I hear for several long minutes.

I make my way slowly across the room, back to the plush white chair, hardly aware of the cool wood against my bare feet. Every nerve in my body is focused on my fingertips and what they’re holding, like the box is the Holy Grail and I have to but drink of it to see my dream come true.

But that dream will come at a price. An astronomical one. And it could end as a nightmare.

Gingerly, I sit on the edge of the chair, paying no attention to the way the cushion gives beneath my weight or to the way the room smells of lavender. I simply sit so that I don’t fall.

Now that the moment is at hand, I freeze. I cradle the package, much like I might cradle the baby I suspect might be growing inside me, and I wait.

I wait, and I ponder.

I ponder, and I question.

“Why now? We’ve tried for so long and…nothing,” I explain to the empty room, unaware of how my voice bounces softly off the walls and falls lifelessly to the floor. “Why now?”

There was a time when Nate and I would lie in bed at night, nursing our hopes of conceiving a child like a woman might nurse a baby at her breast. We’ve been disappointed more times than I can count, the ghosts of dozens of negative pregnancy tests haunting every bathroom in our home. This was the year, magical number forty, that would’ve been our final year of trying. We’d agreed that if I wasn’t pregnant by forty, we’d look into adoption. I knew we’d try until forty-one, though. I’d already given myself those few extra months.

But that was before.

B.D.