Tuesday afternoon, Drew had a follow-up appointment with Jack. Only Abby was with him this time, and after he exchanged fist bumps with Jack, she turned to him.
“So how’s your . . . friend Alexa?”
He felt like he should shut down a question like this from a patient’s mom, but he was too happy to talk about Alexa to someone who wouldn’t make fun of him later that he couldn’t.
“She’s great. I’m sure she’ll want me to say hi to you for her.” He knew that her real question was whether “friend” was the right word to define Alexa, but he avoided answering that. “How did Jack do with the MRI yesterday? I know you were worried.”
She patted Jack on the head. “He handled it with flying colors. Thanks for asking.”
Drew smiled at Jack. “Good job, Jacky, staying in that machine like you did. Most kids your age couldn’t manage that.” He turned back to Abby. “I don’t have his results yet, but they should have been here by now. Let me go check on that.”
He found the report in his office. Read it once, then again. He ran across the hospital to find Dr. Montgomery and had him look at it, too. He sat down in his office with his eyes closed for a moment before he forced himself to walk back into the exam room.
Abby looked up from her book with a smile on her face when she saw him, but her smile dropped away. Thank God Jack had fallen asleep on the table.
“What is it?”
He sat down next to her and took a deep breath.
“Dr. Nichols, what is it?”
Shit, he just had to tell her. Why was doing this part of his job still so hard?
“Abby. I’m so sorry I kept you waiting, but I wanted to double-check a few things with another doctor here. We won’t know for sure without additional testing, but there’s a mass in one of Jack’s lymph nodes. Initial indications are that it’s cancer.”
Abby went very still. She closed her book without marking the page and stared at him without a word.
He shouldn’t have spit it out like that; he should have done a better job of leading up to the C word. Telling parents bad news was the worst part of his job.
“I’ve already called our best pediatric oncologist for a consult, so if you can bring him back in Thursday morning, we can start doing more testing and, if necessary, come up with a plan.”
She stared back at him, still without saying anything. He wanted to touch her, or Jack, or say something to reassure her. But he couldn’t do any of those things.
“Abby? Can I call someone? Should I call Fred?”
She stood up and swayed for a second. He jumped to his feet and reached out to steady her, but she pulled back.
“Okay. Can you . . . can you just have someone call me with details about the appointment on Thursday? I should take Jack home. I should call Fred. We need to . . .” Her voice trailed away as she picked Jack up and carried him out of the room.
Drew sat back down and put his head in his hands. There was probably no good way to have that conversation, but knowing that didn’t make him feel any better.
When he stood up to go back to his office, he noticed Abby had left her book on the table. He tucked it in Jack’s file, so it would be there for her on Thursday.
He stumbled through his next few appointments, the look on Abby’s face in the forefront of his mind the whole time.
Thank God he was finished with appointments early that day. Hopefully, he could leave the office without running into anyone. He didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. Well, there was one person he wanted to both see and talk to, but that was impossible. She was far away from this hospital right now.
Except . . . she wasn’t that far, was she?
He made it to his car without talking to anyone and drove straight to LAX.
Alexa was still depressed on Tuesday from the meeting on Sunday night. Even though she’d huddled with Theo and the mayor on Monday morning, she was convinced they had no chance of victory, at least not this time. The people in the hills had too much influence. They were rich and white; the teens she was trying to help were poor and brown. She knew who the city council was more likely to listen to.
She got home at seven that night and shed her dress, bra, and heels as soon as she walked in the front door, too tired and discouraged to bring them into her bedroom. She changed into yoga pants and a hoodie and stood in front of the open refrigerator, a glass of wine in her hand. She really should make herself a healthy dinner with all of those vegetables she’d bought at the farmers’ market on Saturday morning.
Instead, she reached for the block of cheese in the drawer and brought it, a knife, and a box of crackers to the coffee table. Just as she sat down, her phone rang. She groaned. It was probably Theo, calling to tell her about a negative story that was going to be in the paper the next day, or someone from Councilman Watson’s office giving her a heads-up that one of her few strong allies was going to defect. She took another swig of wine and reached for her phone anyway.
Drew. With her luck, he was calling to tell her not to come visit him this weekend. He’d probably realized during the weekend off from her how nice it was to hang out with other people, or he’d met some other girl after they’d hung up on Saturday night . . . or maybe even before he’d called.
Wait, was that why he’d called on Saturday night? To break up with her? But had he decided against it since she was with people?
She thought about letting him go to voice mail but decided to get this over with.
“Hey.” She tucked herself back into her corner of the couch, wishing she’d brought the whole wine bottle to the living room. “How are you?”
“Are you at home?” He sounded breathless. Had he just been running or something? Probably another reason why he was going to break up with her. He went running after work; she put on her yoga pants to sit on the couch with wine and cheese and crackers.
“Yeah, why?” What she wanted to say was, Why, do you need to know so you don’t break up with me when I’m in public? but she managed to not blurt that out.
“Great,” he said. Her doorbell rang two seconds later. Wait, what?
She put her wineglass down and walked to the door, phone still in her hand. She saw him through the peephole with a bag over his shoulder and a tense look on his face. Damn it, she didn’t even have a bra on.
She opened the door, and before she could say anything, he stepped inside and pulled her into his arms. He pushed the door closed with his elbow and leaned back against it, holding on tight, his head tucked into the curve of her neck.
She stroked his hair and kissed his ear, happier to see him than she could have thought possible. When he turned toward her, she felt dampness on his cheek.
“Drew, honey, what’s wrong? What happened?” She wanted to kick herself for calling him “honey,” but it had just slipped out.
He shook his head, so they stood there for a while without speaking, their arms around each other, her fingers moving back and forth through his hair and up and down his back, his rough breathing the only noise in the hallway.