Betrayed: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel (Rosato & Associates Book 13) (2 page)

“Okay.” Judy felt a warm rush of love, breathing in his familiar smells of aftershave and mortar dust. Frank was a smart, straight-up Italian hunk who owned a successful specialty masonry company, and they’d lived together for the past few years.

“Let’s go eat, I’m starved.” Frank raked big fingers through his thick, wavy hair, the same espresso-brown as his large, bright eyes.

Mary beamed. “What a guy! Frank, you have to teach Anthony to surprise me sometimes. He’s not exactly spontaneous.”

“Ha! Ditch him at the altar, Mare. I’ll hook you up with one of my boys!”

Mary grinned. “How’s your hand? Did you get the cast off?”

“It’s all good, I only have this thing now.” Frank showed his left hand, and a black cloth brace peeked from his sleeve. He grabbed Judy’s arm. “Babe, let’s get out of here.”

“Okay.” Judy let Frank pull her up, but her gaze fell on her desk clock, which read 10:15, and she remembered something. “Wait, how are you in town this early? Did you drop off the dog at the vet’s? You said you would.”

“Ruh-roh.” Frank’s grin turned sheepish. “Don’t worry about it.”

“What do you mean?” Judy stopped. “She had to get flea-dipped. Did you take her or not?”

“I forgot.” Frank shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Oh, honestly.” Judy felt disappointed, but not completely surprised. She had been trying to figure out whether Frank was marriage material, and she was starting to worry she had an answer. “I just washed the sheets, the comforter, and the towels I put on top of the couch and chairs.”

“It’s not the end of the world.” Frank glanced at Mary, and Judy knew that he hated to fight, especially in front of anyone. “We’ll get her dipped tomorrow.”

“They’re closed on Sunday.”

“No worries, we’ll do it on Monday.”

“That’s too late.” Judy had explained this to him ten times, but she couldn’t seem to make him hear her. “Remember, we have to treat the house and the dog simultaneously? There can’t be any delay.”

“Okay, we’ll treat them both, then. What’s the big deal?”

“But you didn’t drop her off, so that means that I have to wash everything all over again on Sunday night, if we want to drop her off on Monday.”

“Would you rather me go home and try to take the dog in now, instead of taking you to breakfast?”

“Honestly, yes. The dog has to get dipped, and I have to work. I would really appreciate that.”

“Okay, fine.” Frank rolled his eyes and waved a cranky good-bye. “We’ll do it your way. See you later. Bye, Mary.”

Judy and Mary held each other’s gaze for a moment then Judy shrugged. “What am I supposed to do? That was the right decision, wasn’t it? Things have to get done but he wants to play all the time.”

“I think he was trying to do a nice thing, but I totally get where you are coming from.”

Suddenly Judy’s phone started ringing, and she slipped it from her pocket in case it was Linda Adler. But it was her aunt Barb calling, and the phone screen came to life with a candid photo of her adored aunt, her mother’s younger sister. “Excuse me, let me get this, it’s Aunt Barb.”

“Tell her I said hi,” Mary said, because everybody loved Aunt Barb. She lived about an hour away, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and they’d all been out to her house for beer and barbecue. Last year, Judy’s uncle Steve, Barb’s husband, had passed, and the whole office had gone to his funeral.

“Aunt Barb, hi, how are you?” Judy answered the call, realizing that she hadn’t seen her aunt in a few months, though they talked on the phone all the time.

“Hello, honey,” her aunt said, and Judy knew immediately that something was wrong. Her aunt sounded grave, when she was usually so warm and happy.

“What’s the matter?”

“Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“No, why? What’s the matter, Aunt Barb?”

“Didn’t your mom call you?”

“Yes, but I was busy.” Judy’s mind raced. She regretted ignoring that call from her mother. “What’s going on? Is Mom okay?”

“Yes, your mom’s fine. In fact, she’s here at the house with me.”

“What?” Judy asked, surprised. Her parents lived in Santa Barbara, and her mother rarely visited her or Aunt Barb, and never unannounced.

“We’d love it if you could come out today, too, if you’re not busy.”

Judy’s mouth went dry. Something was up. “Sure, okay, but why? What’s the matter?”

“We’ll talk about it when you come, sweetie.”

“Tell me.” Judy swallowed hard. “Please.”

Aunt Barb hesitated. “Are you sitting down?”

Chapter Two

An hour later, Judy reached Kennett Square, a small town in semi-rural Chester County, and she pulled onto the gravel driveway in front of her aunt’s small brick house, cut the ignition, and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were still wet from crying, but her skin wasn’t as mottled as it had been when she’d first heard the horrifying news.

I have breast cancer,
her aunt had said, and Judy hadn’t heard anything else. She sniffled, reached for a crumpled Dunkin’ Donuts napkin, and wiped her eyes one last time. She pulled her key out of the ignition, got her purse, jumped out of the car, and hurried down the driveway past the garage. The sun was high in a cloudless sky, and the October air unseasonably warm, the lovely weather incongruous given the heartbreaking news. Judy couldn’t imagine losing her aunt. Her aunt was too young to die.

She broke into a jog as soon as she saw her aunt, who looked so different from the last time she had seen her, only five months ago. Barbara Elizabeth Moyer was a tall, strong woman and had always been on the huggably beamy side, but no longer. Her fisherman’s sweater and jeans drooped on a much thinner frame, and her long, thick silvery hair had vanished, replaced by a red bandanna knotted at her nape, over a newly bald head. She was only in her early fifties, but her face had acquired the gauntness of an older person, emphasizing the prominence of her cheekbones and her large, deep-set blue eyes. She sat alone at her wrought-iron table with a glass top, surrounded by the fading reds, pinks, and yellows of her beloved roses, now past their season.

“Aunt Barb!” Judy called out, tears returning to her eyes. She threw open her arms just as her aunt stood up and gave her a hug.

“Honey, don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.”

“No it’s not!” Judy blurted out, burying her head in her aunt’s bony shoulder, knowing that she was saying the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time.

“Yes, it will, you’ll see.” Her aunt clucked softly, patting her back. “Don’t worry.”

“What happened?” Judy sobbed. “When did this … happen?”

“About nine months ago. Don’t cry, really, sweetie.” Aunt Barb gave her a final pat on the back. “I’m going to be well again, you’ll see.”

“You will be, I
know
you will be,” Judy said, her words slightly blubby, but her tears subsiding. She let her aunt go and wiped her cheeks with her hand. “So, I mean, can you explain? How did I not know? I mean, what’s going on? And where’s Mom?”

“In the kitchen. Here, sit down and I’ll catch you up.” Aunt Barb pressed Judy into the wrought-iron chair opposite her, her eyes glinting in the bright sun. “So … I found a lump in my left breast, a puckering, kind of. Turns out, it was stage II breast cancer.”

“Oh my.” Judy swallowed hard, trying not to cry again. Stage II sounded terrifying, though she wasn’t about to ask what was the highest stage. She would look it up later online.

“We thought we could get it with chemo, and it melted the tumor considerably, but they still found abnormal cells in my left breast, in my ducts.” Aunt Barb paused but didn’t tear up, strong and in control. “My cancer isn’t encapsulated, which means it’s not contained in one tumor, but throughout the tissue.”

Judy tried to stay calm. She knew she was about to become familiar with terms like
encapsulated,
which she would look up later, too. She noticed for the first time that her aunt no longer had eyebrows and that her fair skin had a grayish tinge.

“The good news is it’s not in my lymph nodes, including my sentinel node, so my prognosis is good. Everybody’s cancer is different, that’s what I’m learning. My doctor expects the mastectomy will do the trick, and I might not even need radiation.”

Judy knew radiation was a cancer treatment, but it horrified her to think about irradiating a human being, especially one she loved so much.

“The mastectomy is scheduled for Monday.”

“
This
Monday? In, like, two days?”

“Yes, but don’t let it scare you. It doesn’t scare me. Frankly, after seeing what your uncle went through with blood cancer, I feel lucky to have a surgical solution.” Aunt Barb paused, her forehead etched with grief that was still fresh. “So I try to look on the bright side. I have to lose my breasts, but what I really care about is my life. And after all, every plant needs pruning, so that it can thrive as a whole. I’m just getting pruned, that’s all.”

“There you go,” Judy said, pained. “You’re a rose, Aunt Barb.”

“Exactly.” Aunt Barb smiled. “Besides, I know a lot of women who have had mastectomies, so there’s no mystery. It should last about a few hours, and they’ll discharge me on Wednesday, with a few drains.”

Judy hid her fear. She didn’t know a person could have a drain. Showers should have drains, not people.

“A lot of people have reconstruction, implants, or have expanders put in, but I decided not to.” Aunt Barb set her mouth, a Cupid’s bow, albeit determined. “I don’t want to put myself through that. I hate the idea of more surgeries, or longer recovery, or spending more money. I mean, what’s the point? I’m already so flat, and I can deal with padded bras.”

“I see that,” Judy said, meaning it. She couldn’t imagine a more personal decision, and she didn’t know what she would do, but she knew it was so like her aunt. “Why didn’t you tell me, or Mom?”

“I didn’t want you to worry.” Aunt Barb frowned with regret. “That’s why I canceled dinner on you, last month. Sorry.”

“But on the phone, you never said anything.” Judy talked to her aunt at least twice a week, checking in.

“I hid it.”

Judy tried to think back in time, bewildered, as if understanding the chronology would lend her any comfort. “But I saw you on my birthday. You looked fine. You looked great.”

“I was just starting chemo, and I didn’t tell you then because I didn’t want you to associate your birthday with news like that.”

“Oh no.” Judy almost burst into new tears, at the memory. They had celebrated in this very backyard, sharing a double-cheese pizza and a few cold Miller Lites among the lovely roses, in full bloom. Her aunt was an expert rosarian, and her heirloom Gallica rosebushes drooped now with the last of their massive crimson blooms, shaped more like a peony to the untrained eye.

“Right before I saw you, I had my first treatment. I hadn’t lost my hair yet, that happened on day seventeen, just when they said it would. Chemo was awful, I felt tired and foggy. Chemo brain, they call it. It made my nails weird, dried my skin, and obviously, I’m prematurely bald. I’m going for a Pirate Queen look.” Aunt Barb patted her bandanna. “Not bad, huh?”

“Very Gilbert and Sullivan.” Judy managed a smile, because they both loved G&S operettas.

“My friend gained weight during chemo, but I lost twenty-five pounds. So there’s the good news.” Aunt Barb chuckled ruefully. Then she sighed, tilting her face to the sun. “Anyway, enough. It’s a beautiful day, you’re here, and we’re in the presence of Reine Victoria.”

“You mean the rose you were trying to grow? You did it?”

“Yep, go take a whiff. There’s still one or two blooms left, in the middle, the pink.” Aunt Barb gestured to the rosebushes on her right. “Reine Victoria is a Bourbon rose, one of the most fragrant. It can smell like pears.”

Judy got up, crossed to the bushes, and smelled a rose with pinkish blooms. Its perfume filled her nostrils with a fruity sweetness. “Wow, that’s so cool. Aromatherapy.”

“Also, its thorns aren’t that bad. I hate thorns. Who needs attitude from a flower?”

Judy heard her phone ringing in her back pocket, reached for it, and saw that the screen read Linda Adler, the client she’d been trying to reach. “Oh, damn.”

“Feel free to get that, honey,” Aunt Barb called to her.

“Nah, I’ll get it later.” Judy let the call go to voicemail because her conversation with Linda would have been a long one, and her aunt deserved her undivided attention. Judy went back to the table and sat down.

“So how’s work, honey?”

“I’m not going to complain, in the circumstances.”

Aunt Barb touched her hand. “No, please don’t act differently around me. Tell me. I’m sick of talking about lymph nodes.”

“Okay, well, I have a cool sex-discrimination case for this woman who just called me, but I also just got dumped with seventy-five new cases, all damages trials.” Judy didn’t add that her goal in the damages cases would be to diminish the value of a lost human life, a heartbreaking thought right now.

Suddenly Aunt Barb turned to face the house, where Judy’s mother was coming out the back door, carrying a floral-patterned tray. Judy didn’t call to her because it was too far away, but she was struck, as always, by her mother’s beauty, even in her late fifties. Delia Van Huyck Carrier had round blue eyes, now slightly hooded, and a squarish face and high cheekbones that bespoke her paternal Dutch heritage. She kept in trim shape and had great style, even in her standard airplane outfit: an oversized gray sweater, black leggings, and black ballet flats. She crossed the lawn toward them, her lips pursed and her head tilted slightly down, showing the top of her head with its loose, lemony blonde topknot.

“Hi, Mom!” Judy stood up, went to her mother, and gave her an awkward hug, around the tray, a pitcher of iced tea, glasses, napkins, and a platter of chocolate chip cookies.

“Hello, honey.” Judy’s mother set the tray on the tabletop, and the glasses clinked. “You might want to wipe your nose.”

“Oops, sorry. How are you?” Judy plucked a napkin from the tray and blew her nose, sensing that her mother seemed oddly cooler than usual. Aunt Barb stiffened as soon as her mother came over, and Judy realized that the two sisters had been fighting, which wasn’t atypical, though she would have guessed there was an exception for breast cancer.