CHAPTER
Twenty
After a couple of hours of having the elders pray over her, Sylvia told Harry that she felt the peace of mind to make the right decision. She had weighed every possible choice carefully, and she chose a modified radical mastectomy of only one breast, and reconstruction using the expander implant. Once the decision was made, Harry pulled every string he had and finally got a surgery date of the following Wednesday.
On the day of the surgery Brenda, Cathy, and Tory assembled in the waiting room at the hospital with Harry, and waited for word on how things had gone. They prayed and paced and worried until the surgeon finally came back out and took Harry aside.
Harry was silent as he followed his old friend into a consultation room. He sat down, studying the surgeon’s face as he took the chair across from him. “Be straight with me, Sam.”
Sam Jefferson met his eyes. “Harry, the surgery went well. You know I’d tell you if anything had gone wrong. They sent the tissue to the pathologist. We also took out ten lymph nodes and we should know if any of them are positive within the next seventy-two hours. But the surgery went very well. The incision looks good, and Bob did a fabulous job on the reconstruction.”
“How did the tissue look?”
“Like cancer, just as we thought. But there’s no way of telling whether it’s spread until we get the results back.”
Harry had never been particularly good at waiting. “When can I see her?”
“Probably in the next thirty minutes or so. We’ll let you know.”
Harry headed back to the waiting room. All three faces turned to him. “She’s fine,” he said. “Surgery is over. Everything went well.”
“And the cancer?” Tory asked.
Harry shook his head. “We won’t know anything for seventytwo hours or so.”
Cathy got up. “Why so long?”
“It takes a while to get the pathology reports back,” he said. “Meanwhile, we’ll just help her recover from the surgery and not borrow any trouble until it comes.”
“Harry, what’s the best-case scenario?” Brenda asked. “Is it that they got all the cancer and it’s not in the lymph nodes?”
“That would be good news to me. If it is in the lymph nodes we’ll have more to worry about.”
Cathy slapped her hands on her thighs. “Well, it won’t be. I just know it.”
But Brenda and Tory grew quiet as he gathered his things and headed to the recovery room to see his wife.
Sylvia slept peacefully on the bed in the recovery room, and Harry stepped up to her and kissed her forehead. She looked pale and lifeless, but the warmth of her skin reassured him.
He saw the bandage on the left side of her chest and under her arm, the flat place where her breast had been…
His heart sank at the grief he knew she would suffer.
Her eyes fluttered open, and he whispered, “Hello, sweetheart. How do you feel?”
“Fine. Is it over?”
“It’s over. You came through it great.”
Her voice was hoarse from the tube that had been in her throat. “Do they know anything yet?”
“Not yet, honey.”
She brought those tired eyes up to his. “How do I look?”
He leaned over and kissed her dry lips. “You’re still the most beautiful gal in the joint.”
Sylvia didn’t seem to buy that. She looked down at herself, saw the bandage over her incision.
“When did they say we’d know about the lymph nodes?”
“Seventy-two hours. It’s going to be a long wait.”
Sylvia swallowed and closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Then let’s just pretend they got it all, Harry. Let’s pretend that the worst is behind us.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” he whispered against her face. “That’s what we’ll pretend.”
CHAPTER
Twenty-One
When Tory dropped Brenda off, she saw that Leah and Rachel sat on the front steps, playing jacks. The moment they saw her, they launched from the steps and ran toward her.
“Mama!”
Joseph came out the front door and waited on the porch, and Daniel came around from the backyard.
“How is Miss Sylvia?” Leah asked.
“She’s okay. She came through the surgery fine.”
Leah blocked her way up to the front, a dramatic look on her face. “Is she gonna die?”
Brenda sighed and put her arms around her twin girls. “Now why would you ask a thing like that? She had surgery so she wouldn’t die.”
Rachel laid her head against her mother’s shoulder. “We studied about cancer, Mama. It kills people.”
“But not all of them. We have lots of new drugs that can fight it. Lots of people survive the kind that Miss Sylvia has. So don’t you worry.”
She looked at Daniel, who stood near the driveway, and Joseph, who leaned against the post on the porch. Both boys had somber looks on their faces. “Come on into the house, kids,” she said. “Let’s talk.”
David was in the kitchen when she came in, painting mustard on the corn dogs that had just come out of the oven. They sat around the table, and Brenda looked at each face, moved by how seriously they were taking Sylvia’s illness.
“Miss Sylvia’s going to be okay,” she said, “at least for now. They took her breast off hoping to get all the cancer, and we won’t know for a few days if they did or not.”
“Why not?” Leah asked. “Couldn’t they see it and make sure?”
“They can’t always see it. Sometimes it gets into the bloodstream. We’re waiting to see if it has, but we’re hoping for the best.”
Joseph blinked back the mist in his eyes. “We’ve been praying for her, Mama.”
“I know, sweetheart.” She touched Joseph’s flaming red hair, tried to stroke it into place. “You keep praying. The same God who healed you is hearing these prayers, too.”
Satisfied that Sylvia was not in immediate mortal danger, the children took their corn dogs outside to eat them at the picnic table.
Brenda and David were left in the kitchen alone.
He took her hand. “You sure you’re okay?”
Renegade tears burst into her eyes. “No, I’m not okay. I hate it when someone I love is suffering.”
“She’s not suffering,” David said. “She’s going to be all right. It may be better than you think. There’s no need to worry.”
Brenda got up and put the pan that had held the corn dogs into the sink. “We’re totally out of control, you know. I feel as helpless as I did when Joseph was sick. It’s completely in God’s hands.” She wiped her tears and came back to the table, her wet eyes fixed on her husband.
“What can I do to help?”
She shook her head. “It would be so great if I could pray with you. Two or more gathered in prayer…”
“Brenda…” The word had that long-suffering sound, like an admonition, and it closed the discussion. He got up and grabbed some napkins and got his glass. “Let’s go out with the kids.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be right there.”
She watched him as he headed out, but she made no move to go. Instead, she cried into her hands for a few minutes, partly for Sylvia, and partly for David…
Then finally, she cleared the evidence from her face, and joined her family outside.
Three gathered that night in prayer—Tory and Brenda and Cathy—sitting on Brenda’s porch where they’d prayed as a foursome so many other times in their lives. They all wept as they prayed, asking God to spare Sylvia’s life.
As they brought the prayer to an end Brenda wiped her face, but the tears kept coming.
Cathy reached for her hand. “Honey, are you okay?”
Brenda shook her head. “Just…seeing Harry and Sylvia’s approach to this disease has made me long for the day when David wakes up…and sees the truth about Jesus.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I’ve prayed for him for years. It seems like it’s never going t
o happen.”
“You have to trust the Lord for it,” Cathy said. “You just have to claim it.”
Brenda rolled her eyes. “Oh, Cathy, trust the Lord for what? I trust him with everything, my life, David’s salvation, everything. But he never said he was going to save David, so I don’t know why people think all I have to do is expect it and it will happen. God’s ways are not our ways. I don’t believe in name-it-claim-it.”
“Well, neither do I,” Cathy said. “But I’m just saying that you need to believe God for it.”
Brenda’s face twisted in anger. “What does that mean, ‘Believe God for it’?”
Tory looked uncomfortable at Brenda’s response and reached out to touch her arm. “Brenda, she didn’t mean anything.”
“No, I’m serious,” Brenda asked. “Cathy, I need to know what you mean by ‘believe God for it.’ That’s like a demand of God, a presumption on him, that he has to keep some bargain he never made.”
Confusion shone on Cathy’s face. “You don’t think God wants to see David saved?”
“Of course he wants to see David saved,” Brenda said, “but he’s not going to force him into it. He doesn’t bang the door down. He just stands at it and knocks. There’s nothing in the Bible that says that I can believe God for anything I want and it will come true.”
“It does say ask and you will receive. That anything you ask in his name will be given.”
“Yes, it does, but that’s according to the will of God and his timing. I can’t order God around with my prayers. I can’t just believe he’s going to do something because I asked him to, and think that it somehow obligates him to do it. Jesus asked God to take the cup of suffering and death from him, but he didn’t. Paul asked him to remove the thorn from his flesh. He said no. They didn’t just ‘believe God for it’ and expect it to come true.”
Cathy leaned forward, her face soft as she looked at Brenda. “I guess you’re right, Brenda. All I meant was that you have to have faith and keep praying.”
Tory nodded. “Jesus said, ‘You have not because you ask not, and when you ask you do it with wrong motives.’ Brenda, the Lord knows your heart, that you’re not asking with wrong motives. And we know that it’s not his will that anyone should perish. So why wouldn’t he eventually answer this prayer? You’re praying right, according to his will, with pure motives. God will hear you and answer you, Brenda.”
Brenda knew she’d never shown this side of herself to her friends before. Even when Joseph was sick, she’d had such strength and faith. But as serious and frightening as that was, she considered David’s eternity to be at much greater risk.
“It’s just that, after all these years of praying, it hasn’t happened yet. And I want it to happen now.” Her voice broke off. She rubbed her hands through her hair and sank back onto her chair. The cool wind from the Smokies blew up, ruffling it into her face.
“I’m sorry, Cathy. I’m sorry, Tory. I just want so much to have the kind of intimacy with David that Sylvia and Harry have. And you, Tory, and Barry. And Cathy and Steve. To be able to hold his hand and pray with him and know that we are agreeing in prayer and that God’s hearing us.”
“He hears you anyway,” Cathy said. “He hears when you pray alone, and he hears when you pray with us.”
“I know he does, but sometimes I just need that support, you know? I need a spiritual leader. Up until now it feels like it’s been Sylvia. My mentor. My spiritual mother. But what if something happens to her?” Brenda wiped her face. “Oh, that’s so selfish. I can’t believe I’m saying these things. She’s up in that hospital fighting for her life, and I’m sitting here worried about me.”
“We’re all worried about us.” Tory put her arm around Brenda, leaned her head against hers. “We’ve all wondered what it would be like without Sylvia. Even when she was in Nicaragua, we still had her. We could e-mail her anytime, pick up the phone if we wanted to.”
Brenda’s face twisted. “But if anything happens to her…”
“It can’t,” Cathy cut in. “Nothing is going to happen to her. God wouldn’t do that. She’s too important to his kingdom. Trust me. He’s going to keep her alive.”
Brenda turned her sad eyes to Cathy. “Honey, God takes people all the time. Death is a part of life. It’s a part that is hard for us to accept, but it is. And sometimes he takes them when they’re young, and sometimes he takes them with disease. And sometimes we don’t know the reason.”
Cathy’s eyes flashed. “He’s not going to take Sylvia, and that’s all there is to it. You mark my word. He cherishes her.”
“All the more reason to take her home,” Brenda whispered.
CHAPTER
Twenty-Two
Harry, sit down,” Sylvia said two days later as Harry ran around the room arranging the flowers that had been sent. “You haven’t gotten a moment’s rest since my surgery. Please sit down. You’re wearing me out just watching you.”
“Well, what else am I going to do?” Harry asked. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“You’re not here to wait on me hand and foot. You’re here to hold my hand. That’s all I want from you, Harry.”
He came to the bed and leaned over her, took her hand. “You look beautiful, you know.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to appease me with compliments, Harry. Nobody looks beautiful two days after surgery.”
“I know. You’re an enigma. I’m thinking about writing you up for a medical journal. It’s probably a first or something.”
A knock sounded on the door and they both turned to it. It cracked open and their daughter, Sarah, stepped inside. “Mom?”
“Sarah!” Sylvia sat up in bed. “Oh, honey.” She reached her good arm out for her, and Sarah came to her and gave her a careful hug. “How are you, Mom?”
“I’m great, now that you’re here. Where’s that baby?”
“They wouldn’t let her come up.”
Sylvia gasped. “So you left her alone?”
Sarah laughed. “Right. She’s fourteen months old, and I left her toddling around in the lobby. What kind of mother do you think I am?”
“Well, where is she then?”
“She’s with her daddy, downstairs.”
Another knock turned her attention to the door, and her son ducked in.
“Jeff! I didn’t think you were coming until tomorrow! Come in! Oh, sweetheart, you didn’t have to take off work on a Friday. You could have just come for the weekend.”
“Like I’d just go on with things and forget that my mother is laid up in the hospital?” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She recognized the way he avoided looking at her chest. “How you feeling, Mom?”
“Better than I expected.” She reached up to hug him, and winced as the incision on her left side pulled.
They both went to their father and hugged him tight and hard. Neither of them had seen him in over a year, not since the baby had been born. Sylvia saw the emotion on his face.
“Okay, that’s it. I’m going to get my grandchild,” he said. “I need to see her, and your mother needs to see her.”
“Oh, can you, Harry?”
“Of course I can. I know people. I can pull strings.”
He rushed out, looking for his son-in-law and grandchild.
Sarah watched her father go, then turned her serious face back to her mother. “Are you sure you’re all right, Mom? You look a little pale.”
Sylvia tried to look shocked. “And your father told me I looked beautiful.”
“Pale in a good way,” Jeff said. “Like one of those porcelain-looking women in those antique paintings.”
“Antique?” Sylvia swung at him. “Give me a break.” Again, the incision pulled, but she wouldn’t let herself wince.
“So have you heard anything yet?” Sarah asked.
“No, not yet.” She took her daughter’s hand. “We don’t expect any news until tomorrow. But since tomorrow’s Saturday, it might have to wa
it until Monday. Until then, we just assume that the cancer hasn’t spread, that they got every bit of it in the surgery, and that I’ve already been through the worst part of this.”
“Okay, Mom,” Sarah said, but Sylvia didn’t miss the look that passed between her children.
CHAPTER
Twenty-Three
Sylvia hated eating in front of an audience, but the next morning as she ate her breakfast, Harry, Sarah, and Jeff watched. Dr. Jefferson came in before she’d even finished her yogurt.
She set her spoon down and stared up at him. His face was somber, and she didn’t like it. Harry introduced him to their children, then asked him point-blank, “You have the results?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Maybe we should talk alone…”
Jeff started to get up, but Sarah was more stubborn. She stood her ground, wanting to hear.
“That’s okay.” Sylvia held out a hand to stop Jeff from leaving. “I want them to stay. You can talk to me in front of them.”
With all her heart, she hoped she was doing the right thing. They couldn’t be sheltered from this. They were adults, after all. And they needed to know the truth. Keeping it from them would serve no purpose.
“Very well.” He pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. Harry stood up, jingling the change in his pocket. He didn’t even know he was doing it.
Sarah and Jeff didn’t move a muscle. They didn’t even seem to breathe.
Sylvia was glad she’d taken the time to put on makeup and fix her hair this morning. She didn’t want to look sick when the verdict came down.
“Let’s go ahead,” she said. “Be blunt. I want the truth.”
He shifted in his seat and opened her chart, as if seeing the results for the first time. Sylvia knew better. “It turns out that six of your lymph nodes are positive for tumor cells.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if it held no particular significance. It was the way surgeons had of cushioning the blow.
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