by Nina Lane
The technician performs the same procedure with my right breast, then tells me to dress while the radiologist looks over the images. I leaf through a magazine, attempting to suppress the nerves tightening in my belly.
I should text Dean again, but I don’t. Can’t.
“Olivia?” A balding, older man enters the room with my file, extending his hand. “I’m Dr. Martin, the radiologist.”
“Nice to meet you. Thanks for doing this so quickly.”
“Not a problem,” he replies, sitting at the desk and switching on the computer. “So I was looking at your images and you have what are called ‘dense breasts,’ which means your breasts are composed more of connective tissue than fat.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not uncommon,” he continues, gesturing to the computer.
I look at the X-rays of my breasts, which appear like oddly shaped jellyfish on the screen. Dr. Martin waves his hand over the images, explaining that the white areas are breast tissue that can obscure masses, which also appear white.
“So,” Dr. Martin continues, “that means your X-rays are more difficult to read in terms of detecting tumors.”
“So what does that mean?” I ask.
“It means that since you have a palpable lump, we’ll have to do further testing,” he replies. “An ultrasound, at the least. Possibly a biopsy.”
Biopsy?
All the air squeezes from my lungs as I imagine a needle stabbing into my breast.
“Okay.” I grip my phone. “When can I schedule the ultrasound?”
Dr. Martin glances at the clock. “I should be able to fit you in within the hour.”
I nod, trying to convince myself he’s being efficient rather than urgent. After he leaves the room, I stare at my phone and try to work up the courage to call Dean.
But I can’t. Because I have the sick feeling that something is…
Chapter 7
Dean
…Wrong.
Something is wrong. I know it in my bones, feel it the way an animal senses danger before an attack.
Liv has been gone almost all afternoon, and aside from a few texts that she’s “still here,” I don’t know what’s going on.
For Nicholas and Bella’s sakes, I keep their routine the same—after Bella’s gymnastics class, we pick Nicholas up from school, and I explain that Mom had an appointment, so I’m taking over for the afternoon. We head home for a snack, then play outside before I start dinner and the kids settle down to watch cartoons.
Close to six, the front door opens. I drop the spoon I’m holding and go to meet Liv. She’s unwinding the scarf from around her neck. Her face is pale as paper, lines of fatigue bracketing her eyes and mouth.
“Sorry that took so long,” she says.
My heart starts beating too fast. “What happened?”
“Dr. Nolan wanted me to have a mammogram,” Liv explains, shrugging out of her coat. “Then the radiologist wanted me to have an ultrasound.”
“Why?”
“Something about my breasts having a lot of tissue.” She shakes her head and moves past me to the living room. Her voice lightens when she says, “Hey, it’s my two little hedgehogs.”
“Mommy,” Bella yells, pushing to her feet and rushing toward Liv.
Nicholas follows at a more sedate pace to hug her. I smother my burning need to know as Liv asks the kids about their days at school, but when she passes me to go into the kitchen, I grab her arm.
“Tell me,” I say.
“Later,” she whispers, glancing back at the kids.
“Now.”
“Hey, Mom, you have to sign this permission slip for our field trip to see The Wizard of Oz.” Nicholas comes into the kitchen, waving a crumpled piece of paper.
Liv pulls her arm from my grasp and turns to our son. Frustration floods my chest. I struggle to get through the next couple of hours as a flurry of activity follows—Nicholas and Bella both showing Liv their schoolwork, Bella complaining that she doesn’t want to take a bath, Nicholas asking what’s for dessert.
Liv, as usual, handles everything with calm self-assurance, and after a spaghetti dinner, she gives Bella a peach-scented bubble bath while Nicholas and I make brownies from a boxed mix for dessert. The kids eat happily, then run around like monkeys as Liv and I cajole them into bed.
Finally, their lights are out. I follow Liv into the bedroom, my fear spiking anew.
“What?” I ask, more sharply than I’d intended. “Tell me everything.”
“There’s an obvious lump, as you know.” She sits on the bed and sighs. “The radiologist couldn’t read the mammogram results because my breasts are too dense, so he did an ultrasound. Then he said that because of the way the lump looks and feels, he wants to do a biopsy.”
My vision darkens at the edges. A biopsy?
I can’t repeat the word aloud. Liv looks at the floor. Silence stretches between us, brittle and thin.
“He sent the reports to Dr. Nolan, and they’re going to let me know tomorrow when they can schedule it. The radiologist said they’d try to do it quickly, so I don’t have to wait.”
Silence again. I approach her, reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. I hate that she had to spend all afternoon at the doctor’s getting tests that will lead to a fucking biopsy of her breast. And I hate that I wasn’t with her.
“I wish you’d called me,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice even. “I could have gone with you.”
“No. You had the kids, and…well, I’m sure it’s nothing anyway. They’re just doing the tests as a precaution, which I guess is a good thing.”
It doesn’t sound good, though. Nothing about this sounds good.
“Come on.” I tilt my head toward the door. “Let’s go watch a bad TV show and eat all the junk food we hide from the kids.”
She shakes her head. “I’m really tired. I’m just going to read for a while and go to bed.”
She pushes to her feet and goes into the bathroom. I pace from one end of the room to the other. When she comes out, my gaze goes to her breasts beneath her purple nightgown, their gorgeous weight and fullness rounding the thin fabric, the valley of her cleavage revealed by the V neckline.
A biopsy? A needle sticking into her breast to draw out…what?
I drag my eyes up to Liv’s face. She’s watching me, as if she noticed me looking. She pulls on her robe.
“Are you going to do some work?” she asks with forced casualness.
“Uh, yeah. Sure.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.
I back toward the door as Liv takes the quilt off the bed and starts to fluff up the pillows.
“I guess I’ll go up to my office,” I finally say.
“Okay. I’ll be asleep by the time you come to bed.”
I walk toward her, reaching out to grasp her shoulders. Whatever the hell is going on right now, I’m not giving up our good-night kiss. I lower my head and press my lips against hers, feeling her fingers curl around my arms as she leans into me. For an instant, the tightness in my chest eases, but then Liv pulls away.
“Goodnight,” she says, sliding her hand across my jaw. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Get a good night’s sleep.”
She settles into bed as I leave the bedroom. Though I’m not sure it’s a good idea, I go to my office and do some internet searching about breast lumps. Some of what I read is reassuring—most lumps are not cause for concern—but the word cancer appears in every article.
I turn away from the screen, my chest tight. There’s no way. Liv is young, healthy, low risk. There’s just no fucking way she could—
I stop that thought. It’s a black, suffocating pit I can’t even look at.
I force my mind to my latest paper about the construction of medieval cathedrals. Work has always been a way for me to stop thinking about everything else, to focus on architectural plans and building structures.
But this time, t
he words on the screen swim in front of my eyes, and I can’t make my brain grasp a coherent idea. It seems so useless, so stupid, to be studying thousand-year-old cathedrals when my wife just spent the afternoon getting diagnostic testing done.
Fear cuts through me, so fast it almost catches me off guard. Like it’s been waiting to attack.
Nothing. It’s nothing. Liv is right—the doctors are doing the tests as a precaution. Not because they think something is wrong.
And I hate myself for thinking there is.
Chapter 8
Dean
November 18
Two days ago, I was reviewing the new World Heritage departmental criteria as if it were important. The day before that, I’d chaired a meeting about the new curriculum, the admissions criteria, the field study programs. And the day before that, I’d turned in the final draft of an article for the Medieval Journal of Archeology. I’d talked to students, read their papers, lectured about Latin paleography.
Suddenly, forty-eight hours later, the only really important parts of my life are my wife and children. The only meeting that matters is the one with the doctor. The only research I care about is the report that will tell me Liv is fine. The only lecture I want to hear is the doctor telling us to have a good weekend as she walks us to the door.
Liv is in the kitchen the morning after the tests, her head bent as she checks her cell phone.
“Morning.” I brush my lips across her forehead. “Kids still sleeping?”
She nods, pushing a tumble of hair away from her face. “I’ve been up since three. Couldn’t sleep. I emailed Dr. Nolan twice about the biopsy, but she probably won’t get back to me until the office opens. She told me yesterday that even if this is a benign tumor, I should see a specialist anyway.”
Cold spreads through me. It takes me a second to realize why. Liv just said, “Even if this is a benign tumor…”
Which implies it might not be. I don’t want her admitting that. I don’t want her even knowing it.
“Liv.”
She looks up from her phone. Shadows smudge the area under her eyes. I put my hands on the sides of her warm neck. Her pulse beats against my palm.
“Don’t be…” I stop and start again. “Try not to be scared.”
Her lips compress. “How can I not be scared, Dean? One minute you’re fondling my breasts, and the next minute I’m getting them flattened between plates and scheduling a biopsy.”
She pulls away from me, tossing her phone onto the counter. Tension laces her shoulders.
“I’ve been wishing you hadn’t even found the damned thing,” she snaps. “How stupid is that? As if you not finding it would somehow make it not real.”
An irrational surge of guilt hits me. “I just wish it wasn’t there.”
She turns, lifting her hands. “But it is.”
There’s nothing I can say. It’s there. I felt it. I fucking found it. Something alien invading my wife.
Liv’s cell phone rings. She grabs it, her skin draining of color at the sight of the number. She lifts the phone to her ear. “Dr. Nolan?”
Apprehension grips me. I move closer and put my hand on Liv’s shoulder.
Her knuckles whiten as she clutches the phone. “Okay. Yes, I can. What time?” She pauses to listen. “No, I’d rather just get it over with. Thank you. I’ll be there.”
She ends the call and lets out a long, shuddering breath. “Biopsy at ten this morning. But Dr. Nolan said that because it’s Friday, we won’t get the results until Monday or Tuesday. She said I could wait until Monday for the biopsy, but I don’t want to. I have to…have to call Allie and tell her I can’t make my shift today.”
She’s shaking. I wrap my arms around her and pull her into me. She relaxes against me for a minute, pressing her face into my chest. I lower my head and press my lips against her ear.
“It’ll be okay,” I whisper roughly, but it’s the most inadequate and useless thing I’ve ever said to her.
The morning passes in a haze of unreality. We get through our usual routine and drop the kids off at school. I don’t have classes on Friday mornings, but I call the university to let them know I won’t be at my office.
We drive to Forest Grove. The sky is a robin’s-egg blue, the sun acting like it’s just another ordinary day.
Even though it’s anything but.
I stop at a red light.
“Dean.”
“Right here.”
“What if it’s not nothing?”
I look at my wife. She’s gazing out the window, her profile reflected against the glass. Everything inside me tenses with the need to tell her not to think about that because no fucking way can something evil grow inside her.
Not her. Not Liv. It would be a massive cosmic fuck-up if this turned out to be something.
“We’re not going to think about that right now,” I say—again, so goddamned useless. “Or try not to.”
We can’t.
“But—”
“Liv, baby.” I swallow past the tightness in my throat as I turn toward the hospital. “If it’s not nothing, we’ll deal with it together. But we need to take this one step at a time.”
Needless to say, tension thickens the air as we walk to the radiology department. The radiologist explains the what, where, and why of the procedure—and the why is the part that scares me the most.
Because the lump in Liv’s breast is “suspicious.”
“It’s important for you to know that about eighty percent of breast lumps are benign,” the radiologist explains. “So keep that in mind.”
Liv glances at me. Neither one of us knows if that’s supposed to be a reassuring statistic. Because that means twenty percent of results are not benign.
I want to be with Liv while she’s getting the biopsy done, but because of “procedure,” I’m told to return to the waiting room. Before she goes in, I pull her into my arms.
“I love you like salt loves pepper,” I say.
She gives me a faint smile. “That’s why we’re so good and spicy together.”
She kisses my cheek and goes into the exam room. I return to the reception area to wait, twisting a loop of string around my fingers and trying not to think of what my wife is enduring alone.
Chapter 9
Dean
The weekend stretches in front of us like a desert. There’s a persistent knot in my chest. A purplish black bruise stains Liv’s breast around the site of the needle puncture. I hate the sight of it—the ugly evidence of diagnostic testing and pain. I’m worried that if I hug her too close, I’ll hurt her.
“Should we tell anyone?” Liv asks me on Sunday night, after we’ve gotten through a determinedly busy weekend of taking the kids to karate classes, swimming, an impromptu movie and dinner out, and a lot of time spent at Wizard’s Park.
“It’s your call,” I say. “Do you want Kelsey or Allie to know?”
“Kelsey’s not even home,” Liv says. “She and a few of her students drove down to Colorado for a conference. I think she said she’d be back later this week.”
“Allie?”
“No. There’s no sense worrying other people right now.”
She moves closer to me. I extend my arms and pull her against my chest.
“Still hurting?” I ask.
“No, it’s fine. Just a little sore.” Her body heaves with a shuddering sigh. “God, Dean. A week ago, I—”
“Yeah.” I press my lips against her forehead. “I know.”
Monday morning dawns with a strange combination of dread and hope. Liv, not wanting to sit around waiting for the phone to ring, takes Bella to preschool and goes to the café. I leave Nicholas at school and head to campus. If we get the results today, it likely won’t be until later this afternoon.
The familiar bustle of the university is comforting. There are no black clouds threatening the horizon. In fact, the weather is almost strangely warm for mid-November, the sun heating the air enough that people are sheddin
g their coats. I spend the morning talking to students, answering administrative emails, and preparing for my classes.
At eleven, I gather my notes for a seminar course and manage to focus for an hour and a half on discussing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with my students. Afterward, I stop at the main office to check my department mailbox.
“Hi, Dean.” Grace, the administrative assistant, gestures to a package on her desk. “That just came from your publisher. Looks like it might be edits for your book.”
“Great, thanks.” I pick up the package and take a few envelopes from my mailbox.
I tuck the mail under my arm and switch my phone back on to check my messages. There’s a voicemail from Liv.
My heart stutters. She never calls me when she knows I’m in a lecture or seminar.
I access the message. My heart pounds harder.
“Hi, it’s me.” Her voice is calm, but tense. “I just wanted to tell you that Dr. Nolan called and asked me to come in to her office. The appointment is at one. I know you have a lecture at one-thirty, but…well, I wanted to let you know. I’m heading over there now. I love you.”
I hit the call button with a shaking hand. Liv’s phone goes to voicemail, which probably means she’s driving. I look at the clock. It’s twenty to one.
“Dean?” Grace is looking at me with concern. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I shove the mail back into the box and cross the room to Frances’s office. “Is she in?”
Grace nods. I knock on the closed door and push it open when Frances calls for me to come in. She’s at her computer, and she pauses to peer at me over the tops of her glasses.
“Frances.” I’m gripping the phone so hard my fingers hurt. I don’t even know what to tell her. No one knows about this. “I’m…uh, I need to go.”
She blinks. “Go? Don’t you have a lecture?”