by Peggy Webb
“Ninety percent chance, that’s what he said.”
When she had called the number Callie gave her and heard the response, “Good afternoon, Women’s Clinic,” Virginia hadn’t panicked; she’d only been curious. Even when the nurse said to hold for Dr. Mason, she had never dreamed she would be hearing news that would rip her entire life apart.
“I’m afraid your mammogram was not good, Virginia,” Dr. Mason had said. “We found a lump growing near the rib cage.”
Virginia had felt as if she were watching a movie, listening to a make-believe doctor tell the awful news to an actress playing the role of a famous writer. The actress, of course, was brave and stalwart. She didn’t have shaking hands and sweaty armpits like Virginia.
“There must be some mistake,” she had said.
“There’s no mistake, Virginia. The radiologist spotted it right away. That’s why she took so many X rays.” A short pause. “The location is not good. There’s a ninety percent chance it’s cancer.”
Women who felt wonderful didn’t have cancer. Women who had just spent two days in the mountains making fabulous love to a magnificent man didn’t have lumps in their breasts.
It couldn’t be happening to her. Not now. Not when she had finally decided to take the greatest risk of all.
“We’re going to hit this thing as soon as possible, Virginia,” Dr. Mason had told her. “I’ve already called a surgeon to arrange for a lumpectomy.”
Virginia felt as if she were caught up in a hurricane that was sucking her out of her house, out of her life, out of her skin. She wanted to rant and rave, to scream at Dr. Mason and the radiologist, to make them take it all back, to insist that they call her and tell her they’d made a horrible mistake. But she was helpless. Nothing she could say or do would change the facts: Something sinister was eating her flesh away; something ugly was destroying her life.
She gripped Jane’s pajama top so hard, her knuckles turned white.
“I’ll be disfigured, Jane.”
“A lumpectomy is not disfiguring. They don’t take any more than necessary.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. Myrtle had one three years ago. Don’t you remember?”
Myrtle. Jane’s cousin in Memphis.
“Didn’t she die?” Virginia said.
“God, I’m sorry. I never should have mentioned her. But she was sixty-nine. You’re young, Virginia. You’ll lick this.”
The specter of death had crept into the room. Virginia stalked to the piano and grabbed a crystal vase. “I’m not going to die!”
Virginia heaved the vase against the fireplace, and then sank to the carpet among the shattered glass.
Bolton had traced her breasts as the sun shone on them. “So beautiful,” he’d whispered.
Had it been only that morning? It seemed a thousand years ago.
Who would want a woman with chunks carved out of her breast? Worse yet, what if the lump turned out to be cancer and they had to do a radical mastectomy? Who would want a woman with only one breast? Who would want a woman who was going to die?
Tears ran down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth, and she never even noticed their salty taste.
“What if they have to take my whole breast?” Virginia lifted a ravaged face to her friend. “Please don’t let them do that to me.”
“I won’t, I promise I won’t,” Jane said, and then she crumpled.
They sat among the broken shards and clung to each other, crying, best friends who had never lied to each other before.
FIFTEEN
Callie slept on Bolton’s couch, and he didn’t sleep at all. He stared at pictures of Virginia until he thought he would go mad. Then he called his dog and the two of them raced along the foot trails through his property. When he was so exhausted he could barely stand, he came back inside and made a pot of strong coffee.
The sky held only a hint of pink, but it was already morning in Mississippi. Would Virginia be up? He didn’t want to wake her. On the other hand, he didn’t want to wait until she was already gone. She was an early riser. Sometimes she took her Arabian on a long morning ride, and sometimes she went outside to watch the sunrise over her lake. If she really wanted to get away from everybody, she packed a picnic lunch and carried her laptop to her favorite spot in the woods.
Bolton was good at his job, and that job had been to interview the famous novelist Virginia Haven. He probably knew more about her than her ex-husband.
He picked up the phone and dialed. Her machine was back on.
“Virginia... if you’re there, please pick up.... Talk to me, Virginia... tell me what’s going on...”
Virginia sat on the edge of her bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, listening to the sound of his voice. She’d hardly slept at all, and every nerve ending in her body was screaming. She longed to pick up the receiver; she longed to cry on his shoulder.
“Oh, Bolton,” she whispered. “Don’t do this to me.”
“I know you love me, Virginia. Why did you run?”
She clenched her hands into fists and tightened her grip on her knees.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I love you, Bolton.”
“Are you there?... Don’t do this to us.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and rocked back and forth on her bed.
“Oh... God... I love you....”
“I don’t believe your note, Virginia... You always have a choice... I’m—”
The answering machine beeped, cutting Bolton off in midsentence. What was he saying? I’m... what? Angry? Hurt? Coming?
For one heady moment she imagined that he would come again and everything would be exactly as it had been before. They would race through the woods on the Arabians and devour each other in the kitchen and cuddle close in her double bed. Time would stand still.
There would be no yesterdays and no tomorrows. Only the moment.
The phone rang again.
“I’m not going to let it end like this, Virginia. I’m coming, and I’m not going to leave until I get some answers.”
There was a click as he hung up. Bolton always did what he said he was going to do. He was coming to Mississippi. But it wouldn’t be the way it had been the first time. Instead of discovering a successful, vital woman he would discover a total wreck. She was on the brink of losing her breast, her mind, her very life. Even her career was in jeopardy. What publisher in his right mind would risk signing a multiple book contract with a woman who might never even make the first deadline?
Virginia went into the bathroom and vomited. Jane appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed and frazzled.
“I heard you up,” she said. She wrung out a washcloth and held it to Virginia’s forehead. “Was that the phone?”
“Yes... Bolton.”
“Do you want me to call him?”
“No... yes... God, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been run over by a freight train.”
“It must have been the same train that hit me.”
Virginia managed a pale grin. Then she saw herself in the mirror.
“Tell me that old woman is not me,” she said.
“That old woman is not you. I promise.”
“He said he was coming.” Jane rolled her eyes. “I can’t let that happen, Jane. What am I going to do?”
“Look, Virginia. I know I said some things about the age difference and all that, but who am I to make that kind of judgment? Miss Old Maid of the Century. Maybe that was envy talking, or jealousy.”
“Hush, Jane.”
“I think he really loves you, Virginia.”
“What difference does that make now?”
“It might be a very good thing if he comes. You need all the support you can get right now.”
“I have you and I have Candace. No... he can’t come.”
For a few blessed moments, Virginia forgot about the thing growing in her breast as she pawed in her bedside table drawer for her cell phone.
�
�What are you doing?” Jane plopped down beside her.
“I’m going to send him a text.”
“Do you think that will stop him?”
“It has to.”
o0o
Bolton was packing his bags when the text arrived.
“The answer is simple. I don’t love you. Don’t come. I don’t want to see you. It’s over.”
He read the words three times, his alarm mounting with each reading. Something was terribly wrong. His instincts had been screaming at him since the day Virginia left him on the mountain. He had to find out why.
Did she think a text would stop him?
Bolton called Glenda Williams who answered on the first ring.
“Glenda, this is Bolton.”
“Great. Are you packing your bags?”
“Yes, but not to fly to California. I can’t do the interview with Brad and Angelina.”
“What do you mean, you can’t do the interview with Brad Pitt? Bolton, you’re the only one who can do this right. You can’t let me down.”
“Sorry, Glenda, there’s something very important that I have to do.”
“This had better be a matter of life or death, or I’ll never forgive you.”
“It’s a matter of life, Glenda... my life.”
SIXTEEN
The room was filled with flowers. If Virginia hadn’t known better she might have thought she was merely stopping for the night in a small-town motel. She loved promoting her books in small towns. The people went all out, showering her with gifts and flowers and special attention. There were framed resolutions and keys to the city plastered all over her office walls back home.
Back home.
Virginia looked at the plastic band on her arm. Virginia Haven, room 335, North Mississippi Medical Center.
She wasn’t promoting a book; she was in the hospital. And no matter how many bouquets Jane and Candace dragged into the room, nothing was going to change. She felt the lump of fear rising in her chest. Automatically, she reached for her cup on the bedside table, but nothing was there.
“Patients scheduled for surgery can’t have water,” the nurse had told her.
She was a patient. She was going to be put to sleep then carried into a room where doctors would carve her like a Thanksgiving turkey.
“Hi,” Jane said. “We’re back.”
Jane and Candace came into the room, almost hidden behind the enormous bouquets they carried.
“That was your mysterious errand?” Virginia said. “More flowers?”
“There’s a bare spot over by the closet door that needs a homey touch,” Jane said.
She kept her back to the hospital bed, fussing with the flowers as if she were an expert in floral arrangement. Until the moment she had helped check Virginia into the hospital, Jane had been a brick. But the sight of her friend in the narrow white bed had been more than she could bear. She was constantly inventing errands—running to the cafeteria to get Virginia a candy bar to have when she got out of the recovery room, haunting the gift shop for crystal animals, buying every pink rose in town. The glass menagerie sat on the windowsill where it could catch the sun and make rainbows on the wall.
“What do you think, Candace?” Jane said.
“It looks fine,” Candace said.
She sat in the chair farthest from the bed, her expression forlorn. Virginia knew that Candace needed comfort and reassurance, but she had nothing left to give, not to her daughter, not to anybody.
“No, I think there’s still a bit of tacky white wall showing,” Jane said as she barreled toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Virginia said.
“Just down to the corner to see if they have any more pink roses,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
Even her best friend couldn’t stand to be around her. Something inside Virginia snapped.
“I don’t want pink roses,” Virginia said, her voice rising on every word. “I’m not in my coffin yet!”
Jane crumpled to the chair beside the door. Tears the size of marbles stood in her eyes.
“I never thought that flowers would remind you of a funeral.”
“Well, they do.”
The two friends couldn’t bear to look at each other, not because of anger but because of love that overwhelmed them both. Friends since the day they shared the same table at kindergarten, they had shared everything—dating, marriage, birth, divorce, careers. But this one thing, they could not share—the specter of death. Jane had walked as far as she could with her friend, but Virginia had to make the rest of the journey alone.
“I’m sorry, Virginia. I just didn’t think.”
Anger boiled and tumbled through Virginia taking away everything in its path. She reveled in the blessed respite.
“It’s high time for you to start thinking, Jane. I may not always be here to do it for you.”
“Mother!” Candace bolted toward the door.
“Candace,” Virginia called.
Candace turned around. “I can’t stand this. It’s bad enough without the two of you yelling at each other.”
Three days ago Virginia would have handled a situation like this with ease. That was before she became a major player in the drama.
“That’s all right, Candace.” Jane put her arm around Virginia’s daughter. “You go on down to the cafeteria and get a cup of coffee. I’ll stay here.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Go on, now. I’ll let you know as soon as your mother is out of surgery.”
After Candace left, Jane leaned against the wall, fatigue etched in every line of her body. Virginia wadded the sheets in her fists, pressed them smooth, and wadded them again. A cart rattled down the hall, and from the room next door came a cheerful voice describing lunch.
“We have some delicious chicken broth for you today, Mrs. Mackey.” More rattling as the cover was lifted from the dish. “Here, let me help you with that bed.”
Jane quietly closed Virginia’s door, shutting out the sounds.
“Thanks,” Virginia said.
“Don’t mention it.”
Jane picked up a magazine and sank into her chair. Agonizing minutes crept by.
“What time is it?” Virginia asked.
Jane glanced at her watch. “Half past one.”
“What’s taking so long?”
“They never get to you on time. Dr. Mason said you might have to wait.”
“I’m sick of waiting. I want to get it over with and get out of here.” Virginia looked down at herself. The pink gown she had worn that morning was gone, and in its place was a blue cotton hospital gown, a stark reminder that she would soon be in surgery.
“I’m sick of it all,” she said.
They started crying at the same time. Jane bolted out of her chair and collapsed on the bed with her arms wrapped around Virginia.
“What would I ever do without you?” Virginia whispered.
“Don’t you dare try to find out. Do you hear me, Virginia Haven? Don’t you dare even think about leaving me.”
“I won’t. I promise, I won’t.”
The door opened and Dr. Mason came inside. With his wild white hair and his wire-framed glasses, he looked more like a mad scientist than the genial OB- GYN who had delivered more babies than anyone else in Tupelo.
He took one look at them, got the tissue box off the dressing table, and handed it to Jane. She ripped off a piece and handed it to Virginia.
“It will just be a little while, now, Virginia.”
“Good.” She wiped her face and blew her nose. “I’m tired of waiting. I just want to get it over with.”
“The surgeon will be in to talk with you, but I wanted to see you first. There will be a pathologist in surgery. If he thinks this thing is malignant, I want your permission to go ahead and do a radical.”
Wasn’t it enough that they wanted to cut chunks out of her? Now they were talking about cutting off her breast... and they wanted her
permission.
“Can he tell by looking?” she asked.
“Not with a hundred percent accuracy. It takes lab tests to do that.”
“How long will the tests take?”
“Three days. Three days that could be very important to you, Virginia.”
Three more days of waiting, three more days of the agony of not knowing. But waiting was preferable to the alternative, waking with her breast gone.
“No,” she said. “I won’t sign.”
“Virginia, it would be easier for you to do everything while you’re still under anesthesia. Dr. Wayne is a very good pathologist. He’ll know as soon as he sees this thing.”
“What if he’s wrong? What if he makes a mistake? Has he ever made a mistake?”
“We’re all human, Virginia.”
“I’m not going to sign. Three days won’t make that much difference, and if they do, that’s a risk I’ll just have to take.”
“All right, Virginia. We’ll do a frozen section. I know you too well to argue with you.” Dr. Mason smiled. “Nobody would be that foolhardy.”
Suddenly Virginia thought of the one man who was—Bolton Gray Wolf. Call him foolhardy, call him stubborn, call him courageous. He had stood up to her, argued with her, fought for the right to love her.
Where was he now? If he knew what was happening, would he still fight for her?
Foolish question. Foolish hope. Virginia forced thoughts of Bolton aside. She needed every ounce of her energy, both mental and physical, to deal with what lay ahead.
“No,” she said. “Nobody would be that foolhardy.”
Dr. Mason patted the sheet that covered her arm. “I’ll see you back here in a few hours.”
“Couldn’t we meet somewhere else, Doc? Paris? London?”
“Atta girl, Virginia. Chin up.”
No sooner had he left than they heard the gurney being wheeled toward her room. A strange calm settled over Virginia.
“This is it, kid,” she said to Jane.
“I know.” Jane squeezed her hand.
“I don’t want you worrying.”
“I won’t,” Jane said, her voice muffled by the tissue she held to her nose.
“You never could lie worth a flip.”