One Summer Night

by Emily Bold

  Tim was lost in thought, staring at the Newton’s cradle swinging back and forth on one end of the doctor’s desk, and he bobbed his foot to the rhythm of the metal spheres. This made Lauren feel even more restless, and she put her hand on his upper thigh. ‘Would you mind stopping that?’

  ‘Stopping what?’

  ‘This constant fidgeting. It’s driving me insane.’

  A deep wrinkle had appeared above the bridge of her nose from all the nervous tension.

  Before Tim could reply, Doctor Eckhard entered the room. He swung the door closed behind him, and shook their hands. Even if his handshake was as confidence inspiring as before, he was obviously in a somber mood.

  ‘Good morning. How are you feeling today?’ He turned to Lauren, giving her an inquiring look.

  ‘Fine, thanks. I . . . I’m just a little nervous.’

  Eckhard nodded sympathetically and leaned back in his chair. He opened her patient record and leafed through the pages.

  ‘Understandable. But I’m going to need you to stay calm. I’m now going to explain the results of the scan to you . . . and what course of action we may want to consider.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound encouraging,’ Lauren quipped, but Eckhard’s face remained serious. He placed the palms of his hands together, and looked at her.

  ‘Mrs Parker, the MRI scan shows the presence of tissue that is different from your regular brain tissue.’

  ‘Tissue?’ Tim repeated, leaning forward.

  ‘Yes. A tissue growth. Neoplasia.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Lauren was as white as a sheet, and her lips were trembling. It was as if the world had stopped turning.

  ‘A tumor.’ Doctor Eckhard took a printout of Lauren’s scan from her patient record, and pushed it across the desk.

  ‘Cancer?’ Tim squeezed out, unable to believe his ears. Eckhard placed the tips of his fingers together.

  ‘Cancer is a colloquial term for a malign, that is, the bad kind of tumor. Which is something we cannot rule out at this stage. However, the growth could also be benign. Right now it’s our top priority to determine which kind it is.’

  Lauren could hear him speak, but nothing he said made any sense to her. There was only this one detail, this one point swirling in her mind.

  She had a tumor inside her head.

  It was the only thing she could think about. Like a catchy song that echoed through her brain with such force that it drowned out the rest of the world. She could see the doctor’s lips moving, even smelled the peppermint gum on his breath as he spoke, but what he was saying sounded alien to her. As if he were talking in a foreign language she didn’t speak.

  ‘Mrs Parker? Do you understand what I’m telling you?’ Eckhard asked empathically. He got up. Behind his desk was a tray with a water pitcher and glasses. He poured water into a glass and handed it to Lauren, who took it with trembling fingers but without quite knowing what she was supposed to do with it.

  ‘Take a sip of water. Please try to stay calm so we can discuss the next steps.’

  Lauren forced the cool liquid down her tight throat. A droplet trickled down her chin, and she wiped it away without giving it much thought.

  Calm and composed, Eckhard returned to his seat and motioned toward the grayish-black image of Lauren’s brain.

  ‘This growth is displacing the brain tissue around it, meaning we’re dealing with dislocation. But your brain cannot retreat indefinitely, and so there’s pressure on the brain stem and the fluid circulation. There’s also fluid retention around the area of the tumor.’

  He tapped his pen on a light-gray area that manifested itself in the back of her head.

  ‘Most of your symptoms are caused by this pressure on your brain.’

  ‘So what does this mean?’ Lauren barely recognized her own voice. She cleared her throat and took another sip of water, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t budge.

  ‘A procedure to surgically remove the tumor tissue is unavoidable I’m afraid. We also need to obtain a tissue sample to do a laboratory characterization. This is the best way to allow us to determine what kind of tumor we’re dealing with.’

  Tim nodded silently and took Lauren’s hand.

  His fingers were ice cold, too.

  ‘Brain surgery?’ he asked.

  Eckhard put the tips of his fingers together again and nodded.

  ‘It would be the first step. Surgically reducing the size of the tumor.’

  ‘A reduction?’

  Eckhard coughed into his fist.

  ‘Yes, a reduction, because the brain especially only allows us to do so much. Naturally, we strive to remove all of the affected tissue, but this is something that’s rarely possible in my experience.’

  Lauren wondered how vast his wealth of experience could be, given his age. Could someone as young as him really know what he was talking about? But he seemed confident enough.

  ‘And then? What happens then?’ Lauren wanted to know. Eckhard leaned back.

  ‘There are different ways of treating a tumor, depending on the type. We usually use radiation to destroy undetected tumor tissue, which might have infiltrated the tissue surrounding it.’

  ‘And . . . and chemotherapy?’ Lauren didn’t even want to think about that, never mind talk about it – but she needed to know.

  ‘That’s another option. But I think we should keep our focus on the surgery for now. I would like to explain the risks and tell you exactly how we’re going to proceed.’

  ‘Shouldn’t . . .’ Lauren clenched her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. ‘Shouldn’t we get a second opinion first?’ She looked at Tim, feeling lost. ‘I mean . . . before we cut a hole in my skull?’

  ‘Of course, you have every right to, given the circumstance,’ Eckhard agreed and handed her a large brown envelope. ‘These are for you – a copy of the diagnosis and a duplicate of the MRI scan. However, you shouldn’t waste any time, because the swelling in your brain is quite dangerous. I’ve discussed my diagnosis with Professor Ahrens, one of the most experienced physicians we have in this area, and he’d be happy to oversee the surgery. You’re in good hands here, Mrs Parker. I give you my word.’

  * * *

  Lauren looked at her friends and forced herself to a smile. It was strange, but tonight, on this evening, it felt as if the worst was now behind her. This horrible time of uncertainty, of not knowing . . .

  She reached for Tim’s hand and felt how much he loved her just by the way he interwove his fingers with hers. His touch gave her the strength to carry on speaking, in spite of the increasing pain. It felt good, talking about everything. Talking about her hopes – and also about her fears.

  A log in the fire burst with a loud crackle, and a droplet of resin sizzled in a golden explosion. Lauren turned her eyes back to the flames.

  ‘It was like being paralyzed. The next few days went by in a terrible nightmare. As if I was only an observer to my own life, you know? Seeing another doctor, having the diagnosis confirmed, waiting for the surgery. I wasn’t myself anymore.’

  What Now?

  Lauren stood in front of her bathroom mirror, weeping. She looked at her reflection – and wondered why this was happening to her. Over and over she shook her head in disbelief, chewing on her lower lip until it bled. She wanted to leave her body, wanted to claw her skin and her flesh from her bones. Her body had betrayed her!

  To help herself calm down, she clenched her trembling hands into fists and carefully scrutinized her reflection in the mirror. What she saw was foreign to her. Her hair seemed to have lost all color, her freckles had disappeared below ashen-pale skin and her shoulders were slumped as if she were carrying an enormous weight.

  Her lips were blue, and she wondered if it was from the shock. Didn’t a shock cause blood to flow to only the vital organs?

  Lauren raised her ice-cold hands to her lips and ran a finger over them. It hurt, right there where her teeth had dug
into her flesh.

  She massaged her grayish cheeks, her sunken eyes and her throat that felt so tight that she felt as though air could no longer pass through it to her lungs.

  It was beyond a doubt. There was a tumor inside her head, and it needed to be removed as soon as possible.

  She shaped her hair into a braid on the top of her head and slowly ran a hand over her skull. There, only a couple of inches beneath her fingertips, sat the enemy. The demon inside her body.

  The tumor was pressing against her brain and causing those nightmarish symptoms. She knew she had no choice but to agree to the surgery, but she was afraid of the risks associated with it.

  Through a veil of tears she stared at herself in the mirror, wondering if she’d ever be the same again after an operation. What if there were complications? What if her brain was injured as a result? Before her mind’s eye, she could already picture herself being confined to a wheelchair. And this wasn’t even the worst possible outcome.

  She took deep breaths, but her throat would not relax.

  A tumor.

  It sounded so permanent, so much like a death warrant, even if Doctor Eckhard had tried his best to reassure her. Without a detailed analysis of the tumor tissue it was impossible to know whether the growth was even malign.

  She would need to trust him. Which she found impossibly hard to do, especially now that she had lost all faith in her own body.

  A million thoughts were roiling in her head. Fear, anxiety, and premonitions of things that would hopefully never come true. She was a mother, after all. She had children. They needed her . . .

  Sapped of all strength, she lowered her hands and tried to straighten herself up. She heard voices downstairs. Tim and the kids had returned from the supermarket with the weekly shopping. She should go downstairs and help them put the groceries away. But even this simple act seemed impossibly hard to do in her current state of mind. Not wanting her kids to worry too much, she had not yet discussed her results with them. Mia only knew what friends and family knew: that Lauren needed surgery to alleviate her migraine symptoms. Which was why she would need to hold her head up high. Another thing that was impossibly hard to do!

  Desperately trying to hide the fact that she had spent the last hour crying in the bathroom, she washed her red, puffy eyes and smoothed down her T-shirt. She’d lost some weight – and for the first time in her life she was not in the least bit happy about it.

  From the top of the stairs she watched her family down below. Tim had dark circles under his eyes, just like her. He seemed lost in thought as he opened the fridge to put the vegetables away. His lips were tightly pressed together, and the way he moved was erratic. She was sure he was worrying about the same things she was. Her older daughter was chewing gum, constantly blowing pink bubbles between her lips, which then burst with a soft pop. She was wearing headphones, and her head bobbed along to the rhythm of the music she was listening to. And, as always, she looked irritated. It was the same facial expression she’d been wearing for weeks. A phase, obviously. The I-hate-everything phase.

  Alyssa had a stuffed toy animal under her arm and climbed one of the chairs so she could gobble up one of the bananas they’d bought.

  Taking a deep breath, Lauren tried to keep the fear that perhaps one day soon she would not be part of this family anymore at bay. She pushed herself off the handrail and forced herself to a smile.

  ‘Hi, Mom!’ Alyssa said, smacking her lips and waving a half-eaten banana in front of her.

  ‘Careful!’ Lauren turned her little girl around so that the piece of fruit would land on the table should she drop it, and planted a kiss on her inexplicably sticky cheek.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Lauren asked, wiping over her lips with the back of her hand.

  ‘Daddy bought us ice cream.’

  ‘And you ate it using your entire face?’

  Alyssa shrugged her shoulders and munched away at her banana. Lauren grabbed a kitchen cloth and, accompanied by heavy protests, started cleaning the little girl’s face before she could break free and run.

  ‘Let me go,’ the blonde head of curls resisted.

  ‘No way, young lady! You’re as filthy as a chimney sweep, let me clean you up first.’

  Once Alyssa’s cheeks were shiny and clean again, she bolted up the flight of stairs with her stuffed toy clutched in her hand.

  ‘Mia? Will you play house with me?’ she called down to her sister who rolled her eyes in irritation.

  ‘Go on,’ Lauren asked. ‘Spend some time with her.’

  ‘But I don’t want to!’

  Mia turned away and collapsed onto the sofa, where she sulkily hid behind her cell phone.

  Tim snorted, put down a can of chopped tomatoes, and walked over to the teenager. He snatched her phone away and put his hands on his hips.

  ‘Why don’t you go play with her until dinner is ready?’

  ‘But, Dad! She’s an annoying little toadhead!’

  ‘That’s enough! You heard me.’

  ‘Wow, seriously! You’re all so . . .’

  ‘Mia, I suggest you think twice about how you want to behave right now.’

  Mia’s eyes shot poison darts. Furious, she stormed upstairs and slammed her bedroom door shut behind her.

  Lauren put an appeasing hand on Tim’s shoulder and leaned against him.

  ‘Leave her be. She’s going to calm down by herself.’

  ‘I know. It’s just that I have no patience today, least of all for that kind of nonsense.’

  He wrapped his arms around her and brushed a curl from her temple.

  ‘How are you feeling? How’s your head?’

  Lauren curled up her lips into a lopsided smile.

  ‘It’s throbbing. But not as badly as yesterday.’

  ‘Did you take your pills?’

  ‘Yes. But they’re making me so tired. It’s like I could sleep all the time.’

  ‘Then why don’t you go and lie down for a little bit until dinner is ready?’ Tim offered, but Lauren shook her head.

  ‘No, it’s fine. I . . . I don’t want to miss anything. I’m afraid that . . .’

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘Well, that this goddamn tumor is going to kill me! Tim, I am so fucking scared that I might die. How long do you think I have left if this thing is malign? Ten years? Less?’ She chewed on her lip again until she could taste blood. ‘It’s not enough, Tim. Not enough by a long shot. What about the kids? What about us? Was . . . was this it, then? Is my life over?’

  Tim pulled her against his chest and stroked her hair.

  ‘Shush, don’t be afraid. It’s perfectly normal that you’re having such thoughts, but you’re just driving yourself crazy.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘If it should turn out that the tumor is malign, which right now we have no reason to believe it will be, we will get you every therapy possible until you’re healthy again.’

  ‘Do you really believe what you’re saying, or are you just trying to comfort me?’

  Lauren was desperate. How she would have loved to trust Tim’s words and stay positive, but waiting for her operation was wearing on her nerves.

  Tomorrow she would have her preparatory appointment at the clinic, and the day after tomorrow was D-day. Not that she was particularly keen on having her skull opened, but this whole procedure was taking way too long. She could almost feel the tumor growing in size while they waited. She was worried the pressure on her brain would get too much, and . . .

  She clung to Tim and remembered their first night together at the lake house. She’d felt so safe in his arms back then. She’d believed so strongly that he’d always be able to protect the woman he loved. That feeling of being safe had never left her in all these years, but today she felt lost. Even in the arms of the man she loved more than anything in the world.

  * * *

  Tim sat in silence. He, too, was staring into empty space. There it was again, that feeling o
f helplessness. That feeling of being inadequate. Of having failed. He was holding the woman he loved, the mother of his children, and the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with in his arms – and still he could not protect her. What kind of man was unable to keep his family from harm?

  Days before the operation he’d been putting on a strong front. Had tried to give her strength and courage.

  ‘I did not believe there could be a happy ending,’ Lauren remembered with a bitter smile.

  Her friends understood only too well. Not one of them would want to be in her shoes.

  ‘I know. I was scared, too, but I didn’t want to give up hope,’ Tim muttered, resting his chin on Lauren’s shoulder. Her familiar scent, mixed with the smoke from the fire, made his eyes well up. He wiped the tears away surreptitiously. Lauren needed him today. Once more she needed his strength – even if he felt just as helpless now as he did back then.

  Waking Up

  Lauren opened her eyes. Bright.

  Jesus, it was bright in here. She wanted to lick her lips, which felt cracked and chapped, but her mouth was too dry. She blinked her eyes until the room around her slowly came into focus. Tim was sitting at the foot of her bed, with his face resting in his hands as if he were crying.

  Lauren tried to speak, but no sound would come out. Relief washed over her, and suddenly only one thing mattered. That she was alive. She had really woken up. As much as the neurosurgeons had tried to reassure her before the procedure, it didn’t lessen her fear. Residual risk . . .

  It felt like a gift from the heavens to hear her heart beat, accompanied by a faint beep. Tears filled her eyes, and a sob started rising in her raw throat. Her mouth was way too dry to even swallow, and so she coughed and wheezed and gasped for breath.

  Tim was by her side instantly and took her hand.

  ‘Lauren, honey! Oh God, you’re awake! Do you need anything? Can you speak?’

  He pressed the button to call the doctor.

  Tenderly he caressed her hand, trying not to touch the tubes and wires going into her veins.