Always (Spiral of Bliss #5) (13 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

OLIVIA

December 8

“HI, LIV.” ALLIE PULLS OPEN THE
door of her and Brent’s little cottage at the base of the mountains. “Come on in.”

My nerves tense as I follow her into the living room. I’d called her this morning asking if I could come over to talk. As my business partner and close friend, she’s the first person outside of the children whom I need to tell.

Last night, Dean and I sat down with Bella and told her in simpler terms exactly what I told Nicholas. Both children understand the phrase
“Mommy is sick,”
but Bella especially doesn’t seem to connect sickness with the fact that I look and act the same as before.

Since they know, however, it’s time to tell everyone else.

I sit on the purple sofa, thinking that the house is a reflection of Allie—bright, cheerful colors, fun paintings, whimsical artwork, shelves stuffed with books.

“The town council set up the time and date for the spring Art Fair,” Allie calls from the kitchen. “They’ll give us our usual spot for the Traveling Wonderland Café. We should put out a few extra tables this year.”

“Good idea.”

“Do you want coffee?” Allie asks. “Or something else?”

“Just water, thanks.” I smooth my skirt over my thighs, plucking at a loose thread on my tights.

Allie comes in with a glass of water and a plate of blueberry muffins, which she puts on the coffee-table.

“So what’s going on?” she asks, sitting beside me on the sofa. “You said you needed to talk to me about something important. Please don’t tell me you’re moving to Bulgaria.”

I shake my head. I wish it were something like that.

“No. I…” My throat constricts. I take a drink of water and force the words out, trying to remain dispassionate so I won’t start crying. “Allie, just before Thanksgiving, I found a lump in my breast.”

Allie blinks. “A lump?”

“Yes.” I gesture vaguely to my left breast. “On the side. I had it checked out, and they did some tests and… well, it turned out to be cancerous.”

All the color drains from Allie’s face. “Wait… what?”

“It’s cancer.” I take a deep breath. “Allie, I have breast cancer.”

She shakes her head, as if that makes no sense.

“It’s early stage,” I say quickly. “I’m going to have a lumpectomy. They won’t know all the details until after the surgery, but hopefully I’ll only need surgery and radiation.”

Only.

Allie sets her cup on the coffee table. Her hand is shaking.

“You’re serious?” she asks.

Well, I wouldn’t joke about something like this.

“Yes. Dean and I have met with several doctors, but we didn’t want to tell anyone until we knew what the plan would be.”

“Wow.” Allie gets to her feet, reaching over to straighten a stack of magazines. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m not going to let it affect my work,” I add. “I mean, I’ll try not to, as much as I can, at least. And I’d like to tell the staff all at the same time so I have a chance to answer everyone’s questions. Maybe we could call a special staff meeting?”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Allie turns to fluff up one of the sofa pillows. “I mean, whatever you want to do. Just let me know.”

A strained silence falls between us. I take another sip of water.

“So, do you have any questions?” I finally ask.

“No. No, I don’t.” Allie stops fussing with the pillows and glances at the clock. “I’m sorry, Liv, but I have to be somewhere at four, so I should go get ready.”

“Oh. Okay, sure.”

I set the glass down and stand, taking a step toward her for a hug because
hugging
is what Allie and I do.

She backs away.
What the…?

Hurt flares through my chest. I take a few steps toward the door.

“So I guess I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” I say.

“Okay.”

I leave her house, blinking back tears as I try to compose myself.
That
was not the reaction from Allie I’d been expecting. But one thing I’ve learned in life is that you can’t control how other people react to what you say or do. So maybe Allie just needs time to process this news. Heaven knows I still am.

Since I know the news of my diagnosis will spread, and since I don’t want to drag out the telling, I make calls and set up times to talk to different people. I’m surprisingly calm as I sit down with my friends and tell them the truth. Every time I say the words, “I have breast cancer,” something solidifies inside me, like I’m adding a brick to my wall of strength.

I will not give it power over me. I will not fear saying its name.

People’s reactions range from shock to painful understanding and sympathy. One of Bella’s teachers tells me about her mother’s successful battle with breast cancer, and a sobering number of friends have their own personal stories of different kinds of cancer.

“Oh, Liv.” Despite the static-filled phone line, the heaviness in North’s voice sinks right into my heart. “Not you.”

“I’ll be okay.” I manage to maintain my positive tone.

“I’m on my way back.” His voice breaks up, ragged and hoarse. “I’m in Pondicherry, en route to Mumbai. I can catch a flight back from there.”

“No.”

As much as I want to see North, the thought of him cutting short his years-long walkabout because of me feels wrong.
It
will not change North’s direction.

“I need to know you’re out in the world,” I tell him, picturing him with his long gray hair; warm, crinkled brown eyes, and the little red ribbon nestled into his bushy beard. “I need your postcards about temples and sunrises. I want to hear about the friends you’re making, and the foods you’ve never tried before. Don’t come home. Not yet.”

He’s quiet for a long time. “Only if you promise to do something.”

“Of course.”

“Draw.”

I’d been expecting something like, “Don’t be a turtle, be an eagle,” from my philosopher friend, so for a second I’m not sure I heard him right.

“Draw?” I repeat.

“You always had a talent for drawing. In Paris you told me you hadn’t done it for years. So get a notebook, some good pencils, and start drawing.”

“What should I draw?”

“Whatever’s in your heart. Whatever makes you happy.”

I smile. “I promise.”

We talk for another hour, and when I hang up the phone I’m strengthened anew by my enduring friendship with North. Once upon a time, he encouraged me to leave Twelve Oaks, to take flight, to find my way in the world. Without him, I don’t know that I would have found this life, the one that will always be a blessing.

The same evening I talk to North, Dean asks Archer to come over for dinner, followed by ice-cream sundaes and board games with the kids. Kelsey is away for the week, so we’ve decided to tell Archer before he hears the news from someone else.

Leaving Dean to talk to his brother alone, I get Nicholas and Bella into bed before returning to the living room.

Archer is standing by the fireplace, his hands at his sides and his face ashen. He turns his gaze to me, and the shock and grief in his eyes fills me with unexpected gratitude.

“It’ll be okay.” I cross the room to embrace him, suddenly feeling as if he’s the one who needs comfort.

“Jesus, Liv, I’m so sorry.” Archer folds me into his arms. “I don’t get it… I mean, you’re too young, right? How could this happen?”

Ah, the question to which there will never be an answer.

“Archer, it’ll be okay,” I repeat. “We won’t have the full pathology report until after the surgery, but it seems to be entirely treatable. It’s not a fight anyone would choose, but it’s fallen on us, and we have to deal with it.”

My matter-of-fact tone seems to alleviate some of his distress, which in turn makes me feel better.

“What do you need me to do?” he asks, looking from me to Dean and back again. “Name it. Anything.”

“You’re already doing it,” Dean assures him. “Just by offering.”

I ease away from Archer and squeeze his hands. “Thank you.”

“You need me to take care of the kids, do work around the house, give you a ride somewhere, whatever, you call me, okay?” he says, tightening his hands on mine. “Who else knows?”

“I’ve been telling my closest friends,” I say. “Allie and Brent, of course.”

Archer shakes his head, still in disbelief. “Kelsey.”

My stomach knots at the thought of having to tell Kelsey. “When does she get back?”

“Wednesday.” Archer looks at me, a crease appearing between his eyebrows. “I’m going to pick her up at the warehouse where they’re leaving the equipment. Do you want me to tell her?”

I glance at Dean. I don’t know if Kelsey would handle the news better coming from Archer or us.

“Can I go with you to pick her up?” Dean asks his brother. “You and I can tell her together. That okay with you, Liv?”

I nod, thinking I still have to tell the café staff, the teachers and aides at Nicholas’s school, and several of my other mom friends. It might be okay to let Archer and Dean be the ones to tell Kelsey.

As I explain the situation to people over the next few days, most everyone immediately offers their help, which is heartening and welcome. While we’re still doing fine on our own, I know a time will come when we will need help.

I just hope we don’t need too much of it, since that would mean—

No.

Just… no.

By Wednesday evening, I’ve told everyone who needs to know. I’m proud of the way I’ve handled every conversation, with a calm dignity and the assurance that I believe everything will turn out fine. I’m sure my friends know I’m scared, but acting brave helps me feel that way inside.

On Wednesday night, Nicholas and Bella are asleep, and I’m finishing cleaning the kitchen when I hear Archer’s truck rumble up the drive. My chest constricts. I have to be strong for Kelsey too.

I hang the dishtowel on a hook and walk outside to where Archer is pulling the truck into a space by the garage. It’s a cold evening, the lights of Avalon Street glowing through the grayish dark.

The passenger side door opens. Dean gets out, holding the door open for Kelsey. She jumps down, her gaze landing on me with the precision of an arrow. She straightens her shoulders and comes toward me, her stride long and determined. Her body is sleek and lithe in fitted jeans and a black sweatshirt. The navy streak in her blond hair glows like a flame.

Kelsey March. My fierce, warrior-queen friend who confronts storms and looks as if she could banish the cancer from my body with one sweep of her hand.

She stops in front of me, her blue eyes glittering behind her glasses. Without a word, she grabs my shoulders and hauls me against her in a powerful, unbreakable embrace.

All the courage I’ve clung to for the past week drains out of me. My throat closes over. I press my face into Kelsey’s shoulder.

“I’m going to cry,” I warn her.

“That’s okay.” Her voice is gruff. She tightens her arms around me. “So am I.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DEAN

December 9

THE NIGHTMARES CREEP IN, SLOW AND
insidious. Bella is screaming for me, but I can’t find her in the dark, slimy cave. Nicholas is in the ICU, almost unrecognizable attached to machines with tubes snaking down his throat. Liv is on the edge of a cliff, ghostly pale, her hair whipping in the wind. I’m running toward her, my muscles aching and lungs bursting with the effort.

Just when I reach out to grab her, she stumbles backward, off the edge of the cliff. I watch helplessly as my wife falls through the gray mist, her scream stabbing me in the heart. Then I step off after her.

I wake sweaty and shaking. I crawl out of bed, away from Liv’s warm body, and climb the stairs to my tower office. It feels like the safest place right now, locked above the world. I plunge into work, welcoming the reprieve of emailing people about conservation techniques and ancient monuments.

To avoid the nightmares, I stay awake more often than not. I get through my lectures and office hours on auto pilot, trying not to think about the fact that I’m shortchanging my students, that they deserve more than a professor who is only half there. If that.

I call my parents and sister to tell them about Liv, getting through the conversations by sticking to the medical facts. Though Liv and I aren’t close to my family, we’ve stayed in touch with them since Nicholas was born, exchanging emails and photos. Over the years, they’ve come to like Liv, and they’re shocked and saddened to hear of her diagnosis.

I’d learned at a young age how to keep my private life private. My parents were rigorous about maintaining a specific public image, which meant hiding all our flaws beneath a veneer of perfection. That brittle perfection was the reason Archer and I fought, the reason I isolated myself when my grandfather was dying. And it took me a long time to understand, with bone-deep shame, that it was also the reason I’d kept my first marriage from Liv.

Admitting failure, much less my
worst
failure, to anyone was an intolerable weakness. Admitting it to Liv was unthinkable. I hated the gut-wrenching fear of how she would react, that she might look at me differently, that it would change anything between us. In the end, it did, but in an ultimately good way, a way that made me love her beyond what I could ever have imagined. And then even more than that.

Which is why I don’t know how to react when word of Liv’s illness spreads like wildfire around the history department. Within a few days my colleagues and students either don’t know what to say to me or are kindly but overly solicitous.

The worst times are when well-meaning people ask me too many questions about her treatment or prognosis, and I give the same speech repeatedly, or when someone wants to tell me about their aunt’s or mother’s battle with breast cancer.

I can’t muster up appreciation for anything. Not the stories of success. Not the sympathy. Not the questions. Not even the offers of help.

Because everything people are saying reinforces the fucking nightmarish truth of what is happening to my wife.

My
wife.

“You’re reading
Pride and Prejudice
?”

I look up at the sound of Kelsey’s voice. She’s standing at the door of my university office, dressed in a tailored gray suit with a folder in her hand. She walks to my desk and reaches over to pick up the paperback.

“Uh, yeah.” It takes me a second to process her question. “I mean, I was. I haven’t read any of it for a while. It’s one of Liv’s favorite books, and she got all bent out of shape because I hadn’t read it. So I was… I was going to surprise her.”

“Nice.” Kelsey sets the book back on my desk. “You still can.”

I shrug. In the time since I first opened the book to now, the idea of reading a book for my wife has become meaningless. It sure as hell won’t help her in any way.

Kelsey puts the folder on my desk and opens it to reveal a letter on university stationery.

“I can take over your seat on the Admissions Committee,” she says. “The provost already approved it, so you’ll have at least one less commitment.”

I scan the paper, my jaw tightening. “I didn’t ask you to do this.”

“I know.” Kelsey rests her hands on her hips, eyeing me with that all-knowing stare of hers. “But the last thing you need right now is to deal with more committee meetings.”

I crumple the letter into a ball and toss it in the trash. “What I need is for you to leave me the hell alone.”

“Whoa.” Kelsey holds up her hands, unfazed by my snapping. “You really think I’m going to leave you and Liv alone right now? You don’t have to be nice to me, but you do have to realize you can’t do it all, no matter how much you tell yourself otherwise.”

Goddammit. I don’t want to hear this.

“Thanks for the concern,” I tell Kelsey evenly. “But I can handle it.”

“By throwing yourself into work and research, I know,” Kelsey replies. “And you really think that’s the best thing you can do? Not only for yourself, but for Liv and your children?”

“Kelsey, get the fuck out of my office.”

The order fires out of me, harsher than I’d intended. Kelsey blinks and takes a step backward. Guilt slams me like a steamroller, but before I can say anything else, she turns and strides out, closing the door behind her.

I drag a hand down my face. There’s a cold, hard knot right in the middle of my chest. I know I should go after Kelsey and apologize, but instead I turn back to my computer.

A framed black-and-white picture of Liv sits right beside my computer—and the sight of her is both a torture and a comfort. Because she looks like she always does—soft, pretty smile, warm brown eyes, and tumble of dark hair spilling over a white, button-down shirt—but only I know that the shirt is mine and that Liv is naked underneath.

Only I know what happened right before I took the picture.

Only I know that Liv had been gasping and writhing underneath me, that she’d wrapped her legs around my hips and bitten down on my shoulder when an orgasm shuddered through her beautiful body.

Only I know how she’d arched her back and stretched against me when I slid my palms over her thighs, her torso, her breasts…

Only I know the jagged fear of how different things are between then and now. Back then, I’d never have imagined anything evil could ever happen to the beauty on the other side of my camera lens.

And if it did, I’d battle heaven and earth to protect her.

But now? I don’t know how. I don’t have a single weapon I can use to defend my wife. The realization runs through my head like a sick refrain:
Nothing you can do, nothing you can do.

What the hell do I do when there’s
nothing I can do
?

More goddamned research.

Even if I don’t come up with any answers, at least I know how to look for them. And I’m still not convinced Dr. David Anderson is “the best” doctor we could find for Liv—he’s definitely not the most experienced—but she’s adamant he’s the one she wants.

We meet with him again to discuss the possible outcomes after surgery, and he supports Liv’s decision to have a lumpectomy. I watch my wife say something to the doctor, her hair falling over her shoulders to her breasts, which look soft and round beneath her sweater. My throat burns.

We don’t yet have a surgery date, but I want it over and done with. Not until the tumor is taken out will we get the complete pathology report telling us the exact kind of cancer, the size of the tumor, if it’s invasive and aggressive, if it’s spread to her lymph nodes, if she needs chemo, if… if… fucking
if.

The comment from another doctor slithers into the back of my mind.

“If we discover the cancer has spread…

I rip the thought apart, crush it to pieces. Can’t go there. Won’t.

…the game changes.”

A bolt of remembered anger fires through me, a welcome relief to the terror. The
game.

As if my wife is a pawn on a chessboard. To that fucker of a doctor, she obviously would have been.

I can’t yet tell what she is to Dr. Anderson, except a patient he wants to help. He doesn’t know how important she is—not only to me and our children, but to her friends, her co-workers, her employees, her customers. Hell, to the whole town.

He doesn’t know she can make a perfect meringue and roll fondant like a French pastry chef. He doesn’t know she once cooked and served a flawless five-course gourmet dinner to a group of European diplomats and scholars. He doesn’t know she’s a great artist, that Mr. Darcy is her favorite fictional hero, that she alphabetizes the cereal boxes in our cupboard and likes to put potato chips inside her peanut-butter sandwiches.

He doesn’t know she paints green leprechaun footprints on the kitchen floor the night before St. Patrick’s Day, or that she made me go outside at eleven on a freezing Christmas Eve to ring sleigh bells so the kids would know Santa was on his way, or that she spends the month of October hand-making Nicholas and Bella’s Halloween costumes.

This doctor doesn’t know
Liv.
And he doesn’t know that saving her life also means saving…
everything
.

Liv laughs suddenly. The sound is startling in the hushed atmosphere of a doctor’s office. A doctor who treats cancer
.
A doctor who is trying to kill the cancer inside my wife.

I blink, attempting to focus on why Liv would be laughing—now of all times—at something Dr. Anderson said. He’s still speaking, also looking amused, before he reaches across the desk to pat her hand.

“It’s a good plan, Liv,” he says. “Every case is different, and yours will be unique to you, but I’m optimistic. Once we get the surgery scheduled, we can move forward.”

“What… what’s so funny?” I ask.

Liv and Dr. Anderson both look at me.

“Funny?” Liv repeats.

“Yeah.” My tie suddenly feels too tight around my neck. “You were just laughing.”

“Haven’t you been listening?” Liv eases the mild reprimand by putting her hand on my knee. “I was asking Dr. Anderson about chemotherapy and losing my hair. He said it was likely I would, so I said I could start a new career as Sinead O’Conner. And he said, ‘Or a bowling ball.’”

I stare at her. My insides twist.

“You’re joking about losing your hair?” I ask.

Liv shrugs, the lingering amusement fading from her expression. “It was funny. I mean, obviously I don’t want chemo, and Dr. Anderson doesn’t know if I’ll need it yet, but… why are you so mad?”

“I’m not mad.” My fists clench and unclench.

“You sound mad,” Liv says. “You look mad.”

“I don’t think joking about cancer and chemotherapy is
funny.
Especially not with the doctor who’s treating you.”

I shoot Anderson an accusing look. He pales, looking aghast at the thought that he’d behaved unprofessionally.

“Dean, I apologize,” he says quickly. “I really didn’t mean to be offensive.”

“Well, you fucking were,” I snap.

“Dean!” Liv glares at me and turns toward the desk. “Dr. Anderson, you don’t have to apologize. I would much rather have a doctor with a sense of humor than one who acts like he’s sending me to the gallows. And Dean isn’t going to swear at you again.”