First blush

Abby and I were sitting on the far corner of the black leather couch closest to the fireplace, by the picture front picture window. Buddy was lying next to us on the edge of the couch, his tail wagging as he looked out the window. It was a bright July afternoon. The living room blinds were open. The door was ajar. Warm air, carrying the smell of cut grass, blew gently into the house and made everything seem almost perfect. The room was full of light. We were goofing. Abby and I as I showed her a ridiculous video from my youth called The John Wayne Rap. She watched it with the impatient distance of a teenager, pre-a noyance evident. I was doing an atrocious John Wayne imitation, my noise hitting Abby like a shuriken each time I threw a daha her way. We were laughing.

Jenny had just come home from the scan she had insisted on getting (after losing 25 lbs in a couple months without trying), the one she was told she did not need, the one the physician’s assistant told her would show nothing. He only agreed to a CAT scan to allay her fear after she had told him her father had had recently died of the disease. Even snd even then he told her there was no chance it would come back positive. No way, he said.

We were still laughing when we heard Jenny’s phone ring from the bedroom. It was the physician’s assistant, calling days sooner than he had said he would. She muted the phone and called me from the other room, her voice reflecting that she was clearly frightened, and I jumped up from the couch, still holding my phone. As was his wont, Buddy jumped down and followed me. I had no foreboding, no feeling that what I was about to walk into would be life-changing.

Entering the room, I turned off my phone so I could show Abby the rest of the video when I returned. That never happened. Jenny was sitting on the edge of her side of the bed. Her face was ashen, her hands trembling. The room was darkened because the wooden blinds were all closed, keeping the room cool, despite the summer heat.

I walked over and stood no more than a foot from her as she put the phone on speaker. Jenny stood up and paced. She told me it was the physician’s assistant on the line she had seen earlier that day. He was calling about the results, she said, days sooner than promised. She turned the phone off mute and told him to go ahead and tell her what was going on, her voice trembling and heavy.

The physician’s assistant, trying to sound nonchalant, told her about the mass on her pancreas, the spot on her liver, and the suspected spot on her lung. Jenny had just seen her father die of this disease. We had known others’ parents who had died of it. We had talked about it in bed, what we would do if it came for us. We both knew this was a death sentence. She said, “Oh my God, I’m going to die, aren’t I?” He, not being a doctor, and trying to protect her, attempted to downplay the seriousness of what he’d discovered. He said it could just be a hematoma on her pancreas and that the spots might mean nothing. But we already knew what it was.

I walked down the stairs to the basement to find the girls.