Living With No Regrets (13 page)

“I’m feeling alright outside of a headache.”  Leigh figured she would answer as simply as she could until she remembered more, or got a better handle on what she was doing there, but the way the nurse looked at her made her think that she knew what Leigh wasn’t saying.  She confirmed that thought with her next words.

“What do you remember about yesterday?”

Leigh closed her eyes and tried to concentrate and pull up anything she could about the day before.  She started getting flashes of seeing Randy in an unfamiliar house.  He’d been trying to soothe her from a panic she had been in.  She remembered Russell being there.  Then Leigh saw Mark driving her SUV, and her mother talking to her from the back.  After that, flashes of needles and machinery floated in and out of her head.  “I’m having testing done?”

The nurse gave a very wide, happy smile.  “That is very good Ms. Hampton.” She said.  “You checked in late yesterday morning to get some updated tests done.  Do you remember what the tests are for?”

Though she was having trouble with her fogged up mind, Leigh wasn’t stupid.  The only thing that had ever caused her problems was cancer, and she said as much.  “My mind seems to be a bit out of it, but I remember my Oncologist telling me that my cancer was back. I moved back home so my mother and I could be there for each other because hers is also back.”

“It’s very good that you remember that,” the nurse said as she was checking Leigh’s vitals.  “My name is Amy, by the way.  I helped you get settled in yesterday.”

“Do you know where my family is?”

“Your mother, and the gentleman that was with you, said they would be back this morning before the doctor came in.  They should be here soon.”  Amy went to Leigh’s bedside table and took a notebook out. “You asked me to give you this this morning.  This is your daily summary that you use to remind yourself of important facts.  I’ll be back in in a bit with your breakfast.”

After Amy swept out of the door, Leigh looked over the composition notebook in her hand, and noticed that it was titled ‘Important things to remember’.  She turned to the first page and started reading.

June 21

Mark has noticed my short attention span and difficulty in remembering conversations we’ve had, so he suggested that I start keeping a journal.  I did do that, but after a trip to Dr. Klein, and resultant diagnosis, I decided to make it a notebook that will be a reminder of important things I don’t need to forget.

The first thing that has happened, that I know I can’t allow myself to forget, is that my latest tests have shown a relapse in my breast cancer.  To make it worse, Dr. Klein did CAT scans and a MRI to try to find the reason for my memory lapses and has found a tumor on my brain.  He said that it is situated between my scull and my brain, putting pressure on my brain and causing fluid to build around it.  It is the size of a pencil-top eraser right now, so he wants to refer me to a neurosurgeon to talk about options.  He’ll be looking into a doctor close to Pine Grove so I can move back to help with mother.  MarK says he’ll move with me to help us both out.

I’ve decided not to tell anyone of my own relapse.  I think it will be too much for them to deal with.  If we can do something with the tumor, then I’ll worry about the lump on my remaining breast.

Leigh realized that that must be why was there in the hospital, and could remember the office appointment where Dr. Klein had broken it to her.  Now that she’d read it, she remembered that she’d gone alone.  She didn’t even tell Mark that she was going because she didn’t want to stress him any further than he already was.  He had been worried about her and…..Bill.  Bill had started back his harassment and he’d gloated about, and emailed her pictures showing, he’d been following her and watching most everything she did.  On top of that, they had just found out about her mother’s relapse.  Her cancer had come back also, so they were trying to talk and, between the three of them, decide what to do next.  They had also discussed how much they needed to let on to Randy, but Leigh had over-ridden their opinions of keeping him in the dark, and decided to be honest with him from the get-go.  It had always bothered Leigh that her parents had kept her in the dark about her mother for long, and then again when her father was ill.  She wasn’t going to do that to her son.  She read the next entry.

June 23

I received a call from Bill today.  Just as Detective Torres suggested I had the ‘record call’ option turned on, on my phone and emailed the conversation to him.  Bill is still deluded to the fact that we are soul mates and is getting tired of me ‘avoiding him’ as he calls it.  He said that if I don’t come willingly soon, that he will take me, and I would never see Randy again.  I am back to being scared and watching over my shoulder everywhere I go.  I thought my days living like that were long past, but since he killed Kerry, he has progressively gotten worst.  No matter what, always be aware of your surroundings. 

Don’t let him sneak up on you!

The phone on the bedside table rang; causing her to jump from the sudden noise of it.  Picking up the receiver, Leigh heard the one voice that could and would lift her spirits with-out fail.  As she talked with Randy, him excitedly recounting what he and Russell had been doing, she had to flip through the entries in the notebook to see when she’d introduced him to his father. 

Tears were silently falling down her cheeks.  How was her memory so bad that she couldn’t even recall something like that?  Leigh decided to cut the call short so she could read more and hopefully understand what was going on a little better.  Though she wanted to talk to her son very badly, she was afraid she would say something wrong and worry him more than he should be.

“Daddy shaid we’d be going to where you are thish afternoon when we done with the horshes.”

“Really?  When did he tell you that?” Leigh couldn’t imagine why she would agree to that when Randy had just reminded her that school was supposed to be starting that Monday.

“Lasht night after he talked to you.” She heard someone speak in the background.  “Daddy wantsh to talk to you.  I love you Momma!”

“I love you too, baby.  Go ahead and put him on the phone.”

Leigh’s heart picked up its pace when she heard his deep voice over the line.  “Did we call too early?” he asked.  She was surprised that there was no anger or derision in his voice.  He sounded genuinely concerned, and Leigh looked to the book in her hand wondering, again, how much of how many things she was forgetting.

“Not at all,” she said slowly.  “I’ve been up for half an hour or so already.”

“Has the doctor been in already?”

“Not yet,” taking the phone from her ear she looked at the receiver as if it would answer her questions for her.  Why was Russell talking to her? Civilly and with concern in his voice?  He hated her didn’t he?  “The nurse said he would be in a little later this morning.”

Russell must have heard something in her voice, because he asked her if she had her journal and if she’d read it yet.

“You know about that?”

It was silent on the other side for a moment, and she wondered if he was still there, but he finally answered sounding slightly hesitant.  “You stayed here the night before last with Randy.  When you woke up, there was a little excitement until Randy called Marc to bring you the journal.  You had forgotten it at your house.”

“What does that mean?”

“You didn’t know where you were, how you’d gotten there, and you were hysterical until Randy heard you and came out of his room to calm you down.” His voice seemed to hitch, but Leigh figured it was just her imagination.  “Randy explained, with Marc’s help, that you kept a journal of things you needed to remember, and that you took it everywhere with you and tried to make sure it would be where you’d see it when you first woke up.”

She felt her cheeks fill with the heat of embarrassment and thought about what to say to that.  She decided to just answer the initial question and just think on the rest of it.

“I have only just started reading it,” she said.  “Can I ask why you’re bringing Randy today, when he has to back and rested for the first day of school on Monday?”

“Um,” Russell took a moment before answering, and Leigh knew that he was probably getting tired of their short conversation already.  “He was upset about not being with you, so you said he could come today.  We talked about getting the school’s permission to do his schooling half in/half out so that he could be close to you and Mary Leigh while y’all are getting whatever treatments they deem necessary.”

“You think they’ll do that?”

“I don’t think we’ll have any problem getting approval for it.”

They talked for another moment before Russell told her they needed to finish what chores on the ranch that had to be done so they could make the drive to Charlotte.  After hanging up, Leigh got back to reading the entries in the journal.

There were a couple more entries about Bill.  Out of all the things Leigh had forgotten, why couldn’t that whole thing be one of them?  Why did the good Lord let that memory be one she couldn’t get rid of?

Another thing she noticed was that Russell had only seemed to be mad at her that first day.  In her entries she wrote of the accusations he had made when he had first met Randy out by the pond on her mother’s land.  The next day she had noted the difference at the end.

Russell seemed almost depressed while we were speaking.  I know he will always wonder what actually happened that night, but I can’t bring myself to speak of it at all.  Back then yes I blamed him for not trusting me.  I realize now that I have held that grudge against him for all of this time, even against my own philosophy.  I can preach about not regretting the past because it makes us who we are in the present, but I realize that I have not lived that way myself.  Please forgive me, Lord.  I will endeavor to do better from here on out.  I am glad that it seemed to help Russell, though.  Neither of us deserved what happened back then, but he has suffered for all of this time just as I have.  A different suffering then I endured, but suffering none the less.  Russell Kennedy has always, and will always hold my heart.  My trust and faith are a different matter.

She spent a few more minutes reading the rest of the journal when, as she is on the last page, her mother and Marc enter carrying her some breakfast from Hardee’s.

“Oh, good!” Mary Leigh said cheerfully as she came in.  “I was hoping you would be up by now, but Mark said you’d been sleeping later here recently.”

Leigh threw Mark a scathing look.  She didn’t believe that.  For one, with her business, she would have put that in one of her journal entries, and for another, even if she was sleeping later than normal, there was no reason to tell her mother about it.  All it would do would be to cause her more worry.  Between her mom’s cancer relapse, and what Leigh was now being tested for, her mother had enough to worry about.  She hadn’t even told them about the lump in her breast.  Right then it was the least of all concerns.

Leigh was just about to finish the last journal entry, when Dr. Hickmon walked into the room.  She took a big breath and let it out slowly.  With the way her life had been going lately, she was preparing herself for the worst.

Chapter 9

When the doctor came in, Mark backed off to the corner of the room trying to be unobtrusive.  Mary Leigh sat in the recliner beside the bed after scooting it close enough to be able to hold Leigh’s hand.  He and Mary Leigh had talked, on the way over that morning, and they both had the sense of foreboding that made them think the news was going to be bad.  Of course there really isn’t a way for it to be anything but bad news.  It was a brain tumor.  They didn’t know if it was benign or malignant, but with the Hampton’s medical history of cancer – from both of Leigh’s parents’ families.  A double whammy if there ever was one.

Mark felt like Leigh had been hiding something ever since her appointment with Dr. Klein back in June.  She wasn’t a good liar, so her nervousness every time someone tried to talk to her about her diagnosis was indicative of something else being wrong.  The guilty look that crossed her features, when the doctor asked if she was alright discussing the results with him and Mary Leigh in the room, gave credence to that assumption.

Leigh looked over at him, and then to her mother, before answering.  “No, they’re family.  It’s alright.”

Dr. Hickmon took out what looked like x-rays from an oversized manila folder and walked over to the board that lit up so you could see them, then he turned back to Leigh.  “Do you remember the scans that Dr. Klein did in June?”

“Not really, no.  Just vague impressions I got when I read my journal from that time.”

“Alright.  These are the scans he had delivered to me when he sent me your case.” Dr. Hickmon took a dry erase pen and circled something on the scan.  Mark moved closer so he could see.  “Here’s the tumor.  Note the size of it and that it doesn’t seem to be effecting the brain much.  Not putting pressure on it or anything.  You can see in this one,” and he circled a different view frame. “Where there is a miniscule amount of space between the tumor and the brain tissue.  That was a good thing in the fact that it wasn’t growing on the brain, just in the skull cavity.  Are you with me, or do you have any questions?”

Mark knew what the doctor was explaining, but wanted to make sure he got the full picture of how all of this was affecting Leigh, or would affect her later.  “What exactly is the difference?  She is still having headaches and memory loss.”

“I’m about to show you the difference, and the headaches were from the foreign matter – the lump – that is there.  By that point Ms. Hampton was having some memory loss, but just small matters like a forgotten conversation, yes?”

“Yeah.  That’s how I talked her into getting a check-up.” Mark answered slowly.  He wanted to make sure he knew where the doc was heading with what he was saying.

“And her memory has progressively gotten worse in the two months since?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.  Let me show you the scans from yesterday, and you’ll be able to see the difference.”

Dr. Hickmon went to the nurse’s cabinet that had their fold down desk and computer screen in it.  Mark grabbed Leigh’s and Mary Leigh’s hands because he knew something bad was coming.  Worse than even they had thought.  He also knew that both ladies were wound tight with nerves; Leigh’s hand actually shaking in his.  Running his thumb over her knuckles, Mark tried to silently remind her that she would not go through anything alone.  He would be there with her the whole way just as she had been for him and Charles.