Waking Anastasia (24 page)

Jerry did what he was asked, and the doctor clicked the penlight on then swung it back and forth across each of Jerry’s eyes twice.

“Thank you.”

“So how did I do? Did you find that contact I’m missing?”

“You wear contacts, Jerry?” He consulted the clipboard, concerned.

“No. Sorry. Bad joke. You looked a little worried so I tried to make funny.”

“Sorry. Yes, I’m worried. Your right pupil is dilated.” He checked the second page of the report. “Yes, here it is. It was noted by the EMS team. It doesn’t really surprise me, unfortunately. Having already performed the CT and MRI, I have a very good idea what we’re looking at here, Jerry.”

Jerry squeezed Ana’s hand tighter. He was scared like he’d never been in his life, yet he felt selfish, too, what with Ana actually being dead already. Whatever the doctor was about to tell him, there was probably some slim hope for him, but there was none for Ana. The woman he had come to love was beyond help.

THEY GAVE JERRY
a little something for the pain and a big something to fend off infection from the surgery, so he spent the next three days sleeping a lot, texting back and forth with Manny about ideas he had for the station, and listening to Ana read poetry from her book. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Manny through text or even in person while lying on his back in the hospital bed how severe the situation was, so he asked the big Aussie to call an emergency staff meeting on Saturday afternoon. He was released from the hospital on schedule Saturday morning with more meds and a handful of hospital shower caps to protect the stitches from the closed-up craniotomy until they healed. After he got cleaned up and into fresh clothes, Jerry arrived at the station an hour early to brief Manny before speaking to the entire staff.

It had been an emotional meeting with tears on both sides, but the two men pulled themselves together in time. Manny now stood quietly against one wall of the station’s modest conference room, his long arms folded across his chest and his damp, red-rimmed eyes only partially hidden behind his glasses. His staff were arranged around the room, sitting where there were chairs, standing where they had to. The engineer on duty had put on a pre-recorded thirty-minute mix of music and seasonal humour to allow the station to run on auto-pilot while everyone attended the meeting. Rolf reached up and turned off the speaker on the wall. The faces around the table were a mix of glum and confused. Stories of Jerry’s collapse at the Empress had spread quickly, but few were sure what it might mean.

Jerry stood at the head of the long, oval conference table, the book clutched in his hands and a NIKE baseball cap covering his partially shaved skull and the bandage. “So. Manny and I have just had a long chat and I wanted to tell you all in person that he’ll be posting my job on Monday.” Gasps and whispered one-word exclamations from around the room made him pause. He took a deep breath, knowing what was coming had to be said, but not finding it any easier than it had been when he’d told Manny in private.

“It’s not because I don’t love the job, the station, and all of you. It’s not because Manny had a change of heart and decided I wasn’t what he was looking for in a Station Manager. I am being replaced simply because Manny and you all need someone you can rely on to be here for the long run, and that’s not me.” He thought he’d better address some of the rumours bouncing around. “No other station has made me a better offer, and I’m not running back to Ontario to some abandoned mystery family with a dog and three-point-two kids. It’s called a neoplasm. Anaplastic astrocytoma. Specifically, glioblastoma multiforme or GBM, to all the specialists and textbook publishers. Brain cancer. Advanced and aggressive. Grade 4, for those of you who understand this stuff. Probably inoperable, but brains smarter than mine are currently debating that. Radiation, yes; chemo is something called Temodar to start with, but because it’s in my head and there’s this blood-brain barrier thing that often prevents the drugs from reaching the cancer, they may have to go with implanted wafers of some sort. I’ll be seeing the oncologist on Monday.

“Apparently they found it way too late. It wasn’t nitrates in my luncheon meats, or stress, or poor posture, or any of the dozens of ideas we batted around. Unlike Ahnold, it
is
a toomah.” He forced a smile, took a long slow breath, and washed it down with a sip from the glass of water on the table in front of him. Tears were already flowing around the room and he was barely holding on, himself.

“How long? Untreated, if I get six more months, I’ll be the luckiest man on earth. Three, tops; more likely six to eight weeks, untreated. But I’m not giving up, because there have been great advances in treatment and they’re trying to fast-track me into this clinical study they’re doing here in Victoria; but the reality is that even if I beat the odds, Manny needs someone he can rely on and I’m going to be a mess for a while. We’ve made a compromise. He’s going to offer my replacement only a one-year contract, with a healthy dose of prayer and support for my recovery in that time.”

He took another sip and in that short break, Lee-Anne bolted from the room. Jerry looked up at Mika and nearly cracked when he saw the tears pouring silently down her cheeks as she stared at the table in front of her. Small sobs shook her slender frame. She looked up and he nodded at her. She nodded back and smiled weakly, then stood and quietly left. Manny snorted into a handful of damp tissues but said nothing. Jerry looked around the room, at the faces feeling his pain with him.

“That’s all for now, I guess. We’ll talk more, once the shock has worn off both you and me. I’m going to head back to my office for a bit, so if you could give me a half-hour or so before you swing by, I’d appreciate it. Who knew a tumour could be so exhausting?” He tried to smile and only managed to deflect a tear rolling down toward his chin.

The remaining staff stood and filed out in silence. Most looked his way, lost for words. He understood, and smiled with hope he didn’t really feel. Eventually he was alone in the room. As if drinking from his glass could give others his cancer, he picked up the tumbler and wandered to his office. He could hear sniffles and tears and at least one person sobbing loudly behind a closed office door. It sounded like it came from the direction of Lee-Anne’s office, but he didn’t have the energy right then and there to confirm it. He’d find a time when they could sit down, after the first round of tears dried up.

Once in his office he closed the door with a firm, quiet click, and lowered himself into the desk chair slowly, like the old man he’d now never be. He placed the Blake book on the desk and rubbed his fingertips along the spine. A moment later Ana stood facing him.

“How did you fare? I would have stood there beside you, had you but asked, my Sweet.”

“I know, Shvibzik, I know. But I’m not sure I could have done it with you standing there, too. It’s killing me that I’m leaving them all; but knowing that I’ll be gone so soon after finding
you
is tearing my heart out.”

“You are not gone, yet. I heard what the doctor said. You have a chance. We are going to give this the battle it deserves.
Sushchestvuyet nadezhda
—there is hope.”

“I guess. It’s a really, really, long shot, Honey, and a lot depends on the decisions made in the next few days. I may not even qualify for this clinical study.”

“I refuse to give up, Love. I will be your rock for as long as you need me to be, as you were for me when I awoke lost and confused in this strange world.”

He laughed lightly. “I wouldn’t want anyone else by my side, Ana. Whatever I have to go through, you can be my rock, my whole damned mountain. I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll be leaning on you so much you’ll feel like a crutch.”

“Then I will be your crutch, Mr. Powell.”

“Thank you. Even when you’re in the book I feel you close by, and it makes a huge difference.” He closed his eyes as the room wavered slightly. When he opened them again, he felt like his heart was double its weight. “That said, you’d better get back there so I can open my door and let them all come by. You and I can be alone at home, but for now I need to let them all lend me their strength in their own way.”

IT WAS MIKA
who came to him first and broke the ice. She’d wiped away her tears, though fresh ones threatened to burst past the dam. She hugged Jerry close, then, with a kiss on the cheek, she let him go and sat in the spare chair.

“Lee-Anne has gone home for the day. She may be the Queen of Flirt, but I think she really likes and respects you. This seems to have affected her more than most. Most, but not all.” She looked down at her hands, spinning her engagement ring in place. When she looked back at Jerry, her eyes were drier. “Do everything the doctors offer you. Agree to try it all, please, even if it sounds crazy. And in the next couple days Danveer and I will swing by the loft and we’re going to chat.”

“Mika, I appreciate the offer, but—”

“Not for idle chat, Boss. I want to discuss some alternate therapies for you to try. There’s a healer near Tofino who’s had marvellous success and he’s arriving tomorrow for a family visit. He’s Danveer’s uncle, and he’s a true swami. I’ve been studying with him for two years and while there’s no scientific explanation for the things I’ve seen, there’s certainly a spiritual one. I’m a Reiki Master, myself, and all I ask is that in addition to whatever traditional treatments you undergo, that you allow us an opportunity to help. If nothing else is achieved, at least maybe we can help you find peace during this time of pain.”

“I’m not exactly a drum-circle-banging, incense-burning kinda guy, Mika. I don’t even read my horoscope because it’s all so much ‘hooey and hokum’ as my grandfather James used to say.” Next thing she’d do would be to ask him to wear a tinfoil hat to ward off harmful rays. He knew he had to nip this line of thinking early. “I really appreciate the thought, though. Thank you.”

Mika smiled. “Fair enough. But let me show you something, first. After that, just give it some thought for a day or two. I’m a full-on, West Coast, New Age Earth Cookie, as my sister says, but it’s not really New Age when it’s been around for millennia.”

“Okay. Take your best shot at convincing me.”

“Really?”

“Really.” What did he have to lose?

“Cool.” She closed the office door. “Stand up and face me, about a yard away.” She stood, too, and moved away from the desk to give them room. “If you’re more comfortable sitting, that’s cool, too.”

“No, I’m good with standing.” And he was. He found that he was steady on his feet, at least for a few minutes. He wondered how much of his weakness in the last few days had been psychosomatic. He stood opposite Mika, with the fingertips of his right hand resting on his desk, just for the illusion of balance.

“Do you know what an aura is, Jerry?”

“Energy around the body. Some say they can see them, some say they can photograph them.”

“Energy. Exactly. It surrounds our bodies and interacts with the environment around us. Many people can see them and some don’t even realize it. To the Chinese it’s
qi
or
chi
. The photography you’re thinking of is Kirlian photography, which is thought to show the energy field around a living object, reflecting the emotional and physical states of that object. I don’t take pictures, but I can see auras quite clearly. Yours is a deep gold, most of the time, though the colour shifts around your head chakra a lot, but no surprise there, now.”

“And you’re going to show me your aura?”

“Not today. It takes some practice, so maybe another time. All I need right now is for you to understand the concept of an energy field around your body. It surrounds and radiates off of you.”

“Like the energy radiating off a hot stove burner? I can feel the heat without actually touching the metal coil.”

“A perfect analogy! Can I use that with my students?”

“Be my guest.” He smiled. He was really going to miss getting to know Mika.

“Wow. I don’t know what you were thinking just now, but a dark purple wave just rippled across your Heart Chakra. You okay?” She shook her head. “Sorry. Stupid question. Let me finish this up and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Take your time, Mika. This is important to you.”

“Thanks. Relax. Try to let the tension drain down your body and out your fingertips and toes. Take slow, deep breaths. In through your nose, and out through your mouth. With every exhalation, try to relax just a little bit more. You probably won’t see anything but me moving, but it’s important that you watch and see that I’m not making any physical contact with you.”

Jerry followed the simple directions, curious but enjoying the relaxation. Mika lifted her arms to chest level and faced her palms to him. She closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them again there was something different about her posture that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. It was almost as if she’d tensed up just as he’d relaxed. She concentrated on a spot between her hands as she extended them out, reaching for something between them. She must have found it, because her hands stopped a foot from his chest. She rocked forward, gently, and Jerry felt her push on him, rocking him back as she rocked forward. Then she rolled back and he followed.

He could feel something, but saw nothing but Mika rocking. “It feels like I’m surrounded by invisible foam and you’re pushing on it.”