Left to Love (The Next Door Boys) (8 page)

I sucked in a breath. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t put it together.” My body shook. My voice shook.

“What?” he asked. “What didn’t you see?
”
He put his hands on my arms.
“
Leigh
?”

I knew it. I knew it right then. I knew what the doctor was going to say. I knew what I’d have to go through. What Brian was about to have to go through. What Nathan would go through. I choked back a sob at that thought. I looked up at Brian desperately. I didn’t want to be sick. I wanted to run away and pretend I didn’t have a doctor to go to. I wanted to hide. My chin started to shake, but I had to hold myself together, hold together all the tiny parts of me that were breaking apart.

“
My, um, stomach.” I swallowed. “A
nd I’ve been so tired and now this and I just hadn’t put it all together…” I could feel his arm around my shoulders and we started to walk back to the car.

Realization hit Brian. He froze, still facing me. He looked d
own, nothing but a mask of calm.
“So we need to call your
oncologist
.”

“And I really do have to pee.” I tried to smile. I walked back to the small restroom. It felt like moving through jell-o. I didn’t want to do it again. I couldn’t
imagine
going through it all again. I remembered enduring the stress of my parents, and then
my brother,
Jaron. Now I would have to watch Brian and Nathan. Having more people connected to me was going to make it harder, not easier. Wave after wave of disbelief and dread washed through me.

I walked back to the car in a daze, staring at the dust around my feet. I pulled out my cell when I got inside, afraid to look at Brian. Afraid of what I’d
see. I didn’t have the strength to face his worried look. I wanted to get the call to my doctor’s office over with first.

“Dr. Watt’s office.” A perky girl’s voice answered.

“This is Leigh Tressman, um, Wright, but I’m probably still Tressman to you. Anyway, I need to make an appointment, as soon as you can squeeze me in.” My body was starting to find a place of detachment, somewhere I could speak and sound normal.

“Hmm… Well, you’re on our list of squeeze-ins, but he did have a cancellation tomorrow morning, and would be able to have a little more time with you.”

“Tomorrow morning would be great.” I stared at the grey dash of the car, trying not to believe my situation.

“We’ll see you at ten.” I could picture her smiling and happily putting my name into the empty time slot in her computer. I wanted to slam the phone.

I looked over at Brian, sitting in the driver’s seat. The air was heavy. He put a hand on either side of my face. “I love you, Leigh.” He leaned forward and kissed me softly.

“I love you, too.” I kept my eyes closed as he pulled away.

“So, tomorrow?”

I nodded. He leaned back in his seat, and started the car. I looked out the window. I didn’t want this stupid body. I didn’t want to be sick. We were
back on a main road. I could see a sign for Crown Burger up ahead.

“Hey, Bri?” I sat up, feeling lighter than I thought possible.

“Yeah.”

“I’m not really sick or anything until we go in tomorrow,” I started.

“Are you that sure?”

I nodded. My discomfort had been going on for a while, but I’d dismissed it as simply being stiff, newly married... I realized how often I’d taken short naps in the afternoon and how many weeks I’d slept for hours more than necessary at night. There had been a lot of symptoms. I should have figured it out right away.

I tried to lighten my voice. “I was just thinking, I have this afternoon and tonight where I can pretend I don’t know, and we can pick up something to eat and hang out and no one will be sick, no one will be sad and tonight everything is still perfect.” I hoped we’d be able to do it. That we’d be able to pull it off. In that moment it felt like my sanity depended on it.

He barely caught the entrance to pick up lunch. “Sounds like a great idea.” His smile looked forced. He was trying too hard. So was I. But I needed this. I needed another night of normal. We stopped in the drive-through. Brian leaned over and carefully put his hands on my face. We sat and stared at one another, I took in his warm, brown eyes, the concern on the edges. He kissed me and pulled away, keeping his eyes on mine. He turned away from me quickly, and looked out the window, holding his chin with his hand.

I worried that my idea for our evening wouldn’t work, but when he turned back around he smiled easi
ly at me sending me a message—
he’d do his best.

- - -

I woke up sometime in the middle of the night and rolled over to snuggle back up with my husband. He was gone. I sighed. He must be in the bathroom. I waited restlessly for him to return, and then wished I’d checked the clock when I first rolled over. He’d been gone forever. My sense of time in the middle of the night was way off.

I rolled off the edge of our bed, and walked into the hallway. The bathroom was empty. Strange. I slowly walked into the living room. Brian sat on the far end of the couch in the dark, his head in his hands. I could see his body shake in the dim light. My heart broke a little right then. Already I was hurting him. It hadn’t even begun, not yet.

It startled him when I kneeled down, and he sat back.

“I’m so sorry, Brian.” I felt a hot tear slide down my face. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for this.

He shook his head. “Please don’t say that, Leigh.” He took my face in his hands gently. “I love you like… like I never thought I’d love anyone.”

I started to get up, but he put his arms around and underneath me to pull me onto his lap from the floor and held me tightly. “I would do anything. I mean anything to take this from you
,
and I can’t.” He took another breath in. “I feel so helpless.”

“I would do anything to take this from you too,” I said. “You have to know I’d rather do it myself than watch you do it.”

I saw another tear escape, and slide down his cheek. Guilt washed over me, and I felt helpless too. I put a hand on either side of his neck, and rested my forehead on his. My tears formed small streams on either cheek. “I don’t want to break you apart like this.”

We sat close together, neither of us speaking. His breathing become more even, and his body more relaxed.

“You’re not breaking me apart, Leigh,” he whispered. “This is just something I can’t fix, and I don’t know what to do with that.”

I didn’t either.

EIGHT

I didn’t like the expression on Dr. Watt’s face as he watched the ultrasound screen. I was right.

“I didn’t see the pictures from the last time, but from the description this looks about the same… maybe a little worse. I can see a defin
ite growth here.” H
e pointed to the blac
k and white blobs on the screen. “A
nd it looks like its spread this direction. We won’t know if it’s cancer or not until we send samples to the lab.”

He looked over at me and then up at Brian. Brian stood very still. “My recommendation, Leigh, is that we do surgery as soon as possible so we can get you started on your treatments.” He talked like he didn’t know, like we needed to check, but he knew. Just like me.

“Don’t even try to make it sound like I’m going to a spa,” I said. “I’ve been there before.”

He smiled thinly and nodded. “I won’t know for sure what we’re looking at until we get in there, but you’re obviously going to lose your ovary and tube on that side, not that they’re doing you any good. We’ll look around carefully, measure fluid, that kind of thing. I can say with about eighty percent confidence that we’ve caught it at stage two again, that means not a lot of fun for you, but great as far as survival rates go.”

Brian couldn’t hide his reaction from those words. “Survival rates.” It had scared me to death the first time around. I knew what to expect now. I squeezed Brian’s hand and he looked down at me with what he thought was a reassuring smile.

“So . . . um . . .” Brian’s voice shook.

“I can’t give you any numbers or anything until we’ve gone in, and I hear back from the lab. This is the part that all the husbands want.” He patted Brian once on the shoulder before turning his attention back to me. “So, Leigh, I need you to eat all healthy stuff, drink tons of water and get some good rest. I’m going to call the hospital so we can get this started, okay?”

I nodded. T
he lump in my throat kept me from speaking.

“Don’t worry.” Dr. Watts smiled at Brian as he stood. “She’s a tough girl. I’m going to make a few calls. I’ll be right back.” He smiled again and left the room.

My marriage with Brian seemed so new. Fragile wasn’t the right word, it just seemed like too much in our first few months together. I wasn’t ready for the first part of our marriage to be over.

Brian took a deep breath. “You must be ready to get out of here.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “But I’m not ready to call Mom.” I knew I’d hear her heart break over the phone. I didn’t want to do it.

Dr. Watts stepped back in.

“That was fast,” I said. That wasn’t good. When doctors were quick, it was never good.

“Brian, can you excuse us for a minute?” he asked.

“No, no, he can stay.” I shook my head.

“Nope, sorry Brian, just for a minute,” he insisted.

“No problem.” Brian squeezed my hand before leaving the room.

I didn’t like Brian being dismissed like that. “What… ” I started to say
not even trying to hide my irritation
.

“Leigh.” Dr. Watts held my gaze in his. “Brian will not know either way, I will tell him its office policy. Do you want him to know everything I tell you?”

“Of course.” I didn’t even have to think about that. Brian needed to know, probably more than me. I had a habit of blocking things out.

“This means I talk to him about treatments, severity, what
you
need to do. And I know you well enough that you don’t like to hear it.” A corner of his mouth pulled up a little. He’d dealt with me well my freshman year of school when I wanted nothing
to do with him or guidelines—e
ven when my recovery depended on it.

“It’s okay. Brian’s it, you know?” I wrapped my arms around my middle, like my arms on my sides would he
lp me be more in this moment—n
ot that I was sure I wanted to be in the moment.

“Okay. Good.” He stood up and opened the door. “We’re ready for you, Brian. Thanks.”

Brian walked back in, his eyes on me, wary, afraid.

“I think we can do you Thursday.”