In Five Years

Chapter Twenty

Here is the thing no one tells you about cancer: they ease you into it. After the initial shock, after the diagnosis and the terror, they put you on the slow conveyor belt. They start you off nice and easy. You want some lemon water with that chemo? You got it. Radiation? No problem, everyone does it, it’s practically weed. We’ll serve you those chemicals with a smile. You’ll love them, you’ll see.

Bella does indeed have ovarian cancer. They suspect stage three, which means it has spread to nearby lymph nodes but not to surrounding organs. It’s treatable, we’re told. There is recourse. So many times, with ovarian cancer, there isn’t. You find it too late. It’s not too late.

I ask for the statistics, but Bella doesn’t want them. “Information like that gets in your head,” she says. “It’ll have a higher probability of affecting the outcome. I don’t want to know.”

“It’s numbers,” I say. “It’ll affect the outcome anyway. Hard data doesn’t move. We should know what we’re dealing with.”

“We get to determine what we’re dealing with.”

She puts an embargo on Google, but I search anyway: 46.5 percent. That is the survival rate of ovarian cancer patients over five years. Less than fifty-fifty.

David finds me on the tile floor of the shower.

“Fifty is good odds,” he tells me. He crouches down. He holds my hand through the glass door. “That’s half.” But he’s a terrible liar. I know he would never make a bet on those odds, not even drunk at a table in Vegas.

Five days later, I’m back at an appointment with Bella. We’ve been referred to a gynecological oncologist who will sort and determine the course of surgery and treatment. This time, it’s just the two of us. Bella asked Aaron to stay behind. I wasn’t there for that conversation. I do not know what it looked like. Whether he fought. Whether he was relieved.

We’re introduced to Dr. Shaw in his office on Park Avenue, between Sixty-Second and Sixty-Third. It’s so civilized when we pull up, I think we’ve been given the wrong address — are we headed to a luncheon?

His office is subtler, more subdued — inside there are patients who are suffering. You can tell. Dr. Finky’s office is the first stop — the new and freshly washed train, full of steam. Dr. Shaw is where you go for the remaining miles.

Once the nurse takes us back, Dr. Shaw comes in to greet us quickly. Immediately I like his friendly face — it’s open, even a little earnest. He smiles often. I can tell Bella likes him, too.

“Where are you from?” she asks him.

“Florida, actually,” he says. “Sunshine state.”

“It’s always been strange to me that Florida is the sunshine state,” Bella says. “It should be California.”

“You know,” Dr. Shaw says. “I agree.”

He’s tall, and when he folds himself onto his small rolling stool his knees nearly come up to his elbows.

“Alright,” he says. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Dr. Shaw presents the plan. Surgery to “debulk” the tumor, followed by four rounds of chemo over two months. He warns us that it will be brutal. I find myself, more than once in Dr. Shaw’s office, wishing I could trade places with Bella. It should be me. I’m strong. I can handle it. I’m not sure Bella can.

The surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, back at Sinai hospital. It’s a full hysterectomy, and they’re also removing both her ovaries and her fallopian tubes. Something called a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. I find myself Googling medical terms in the car, on the subway, in the bathroom at work. She’ll no longer produce eggs. Or have a place where they could, one day, develop.

At this revelation, Bella starts to cry.

“Can I freeze my eggs first?” she asks.

“There are fertility options,” Dr. Shaw tells her, gently. “But I wouldn’t recommend them, or waiting. The hormones can sometimes exacerbate the cancer. I think it’s critical we get you into surgery as soon as possible.”

“How is this happening?” Bella asks. She drops her face into her hands. I feel nauseous. Bile rises to my throat and threatens to spill out onto the floor of this Park Avenue office.

Dr. Shaw rolls forward. He puts a hand on her knee. “I know it’s hard,” he says. “But you’re in the best hands. And we’re going to do everything we can for you.”

“It’s not fair,” she says.

Dr. Shaw looks to me, but for the first time I feel at a loss for words. Cancer. No children. I have to focus on inhaling.

“It’s not,” he says. “You’re right. But your attitude matters a lot. I’m going to fight for you, but I need you in here with me.”

She looks up at him, her face streaked with tears. “Will you be there?” she asks him. “For the surgery.”

“You bet,” he says. “I’ll be the one performing it.”

Bella looks to me. “What do you think?” she asks me.

I think about the beach in Amagansett. How was it only three weeks ago that she was blushing over a pregnancy test — glowing with expectation?

“I think we need to do the surgery now,” I say.

Bella nods. “Okay,” she says.

“It’s the right decision,” Dr. Shaw says. He slides over to his computer. “And if you have any questions, here is my direct cell number.” He hands us both a business card. I copy the number down in my notebook.

“Let’s talk through what to expect now,” he says.

There is more talk then. About lymph nodes and cancer cells and abdominal incisions. I take precise notes, but it is hard — it is impossible — for even me to follow everything. It sounds as if Dr. Shaw is speaking in a different language — something harsh. Russian, maybe Czech. I have the feeling that I do not want to understand; I just want him to cease speaking. If he stops speaking, none of it is true.

We leave the office and stand on the corner of Sixty-Third and Park. Inexplicably, impossibly, it is a perfect day. September is glorious in New York, bellied even further by the knowledge that the fall will not hold — and today is banner. The wind is gentle, the sun is fierce. Everywhere I look people are smiling and talking and greeting one another.

I look to Bella. I do not have a clue what to say.

It is unbelievable that right now there is something deadly growing inside of her. It seems impossible. Look at her. Look. She is the picture of health. She is rosy-cheeked and full and radiant. She is an impressionist painting. She is life incarnate.

What would happen if we just pretended we’d never heard? Would the cancer catch up? Or would it take the hint and screw off. Is it receptive? Is it listening? Do we have the power to change it?

“I have to call Greg,” she says.

“Okay.”

Not for the first time this morning, I feel my cell phone vibrate fiercely in my bag. It’s past ten, and I was due in the office two hours ago. I’m sure I have a hundred emails.

“Do you want me to get you a car?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No, I want to walk.”

“Okay,” I say. “We’ll walk.”

She takes out her phone. She doesn’t lift her eyes. “I’d rather be alone.”

When we were in high school, Bella used to sleep at my house more than she slept at her own. She hated being alone, and her parents traveled all the time. They were away at least 60 percent of each month. So she lived with us. I had a pullout trundle bed beneath mine, and we’d lie awake at night, rolling from my bed to hers and then climbing back up again, counting the stick-on stars on my ceiling. It was impossible, of course, because who could tell them apart? We’d fall asleep amidst a jumble of numbers.

“Bells—”

“Please,” she says. “I promise I will call you later.”

I feel her words bite through me. It’s bad enough as it is, but now why would we face it alone? We need to stop down. We need to get coffee. We need to talk about this.

She starts walking and, instinctively, I follow her, but she knows I’m behind her and she turns around, her hand signaling—be gone.

My phone buzzes again. This time I pull it out and answer.

“It’s Dannie,” I say.

“Where the hell are you?” I hear my case partner Sanji’s voice through the phone. She’s twenty-nine and graduated from MIT at sixteen. She’s been working professionally for ten years. I’ve never heard her use a word that wasn’t absolutely necessary. The fact that she added “hell,” speaks volumes.

“I’m sorry, I got caught up. I’m on my way.”

“Don’t hang up,” she says. “We have a problem with CIT and corporate. There are gaps in their financials.”

We were supposed to complete our due diligence on CIT, a company our client, Epson, a giant tech corporation, is acquiring. If we don’t have a complete financial report, the partner is going to lose it.

“I’m going down to their offices,” I say. “Hang tight.”

Sanji hangs up without saying goodbye, and I book it down to the Financial District where CIT has their headquarters. It’s a company specializing in website coding. I’ve been there a little too often for my liking lately.

We’ve been in constant contact with their in-house counsel for over six months, and I know how they work extremely well now. Hopefully, this is an oversight. There are tax reports and statements for a full eight months that are missing.

When I arrive, I’m let up immediately, and Darlene, the receptionist, shows me to the associate general counsel’s office.

Beth is at her desk and looks up, blinking once at me. She’s a woman in her mid-to-late fifties and has been at the company since its inception twelve years ago. Her office resembles her in its stoicism, not a single photo on her desk, and she doesn’t wear a ring. We’re cordial, even friendly, but we never speak about anything personal, and it’s impossible to tell what greets her at home when she leaves these office walls.

“Dannie,” she says. “To what do I owe this displeasure?”

I was in her office yesterday.

“We’re still missing financials,” I say.

She does not stand up, or gesture for me to sit. “I’ll have my team review,” she says.

Her team consists of one other lawyer, Davis Brewster, with whom I went to Columbia. He is smart. I have no idea how he ended up as a midsize company’s legal counsel.

“This afternoon,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “You must really love your job,” she says.

“No more or less than any of us,” I say.

She laughs. She looks back at her computer. “Not quite.”

At 5 p.m., more documents come through from CIT. I’m going to be here until at least nine parsing through them. Sanji paces the conference room like she’s figuring out an attack strategy. I text Bella: Check in with me. No response.

It’s 10 p.m. before I leave. Still nothing from Bella. Everything in my body feels crunched, like I’ve been ground down to an inch over the course of today. As I walk, I feel myself stretching back up. I don’t have sneakers with me, and after about five blocks my pump-clad feet begin to hurt, but I keep walking. As the blocks go on — down Fifth, rolling through the forties like the subway, I begin to pick up the pace. By the time I get to East Thirty-Eighth Street, I’m running.

I arrive at our Gramercy apartment gasping and sweating. My top is nearly soaked through and my feet throb with numb disconnection. I’m afraid to look down at them. I think if I do, I’ll see pools of blood seeping out from the soles.

I open the door. David is at the table, a glass of wine next to him, his computer open. He jumps up when he sees me.

“Hey,” he says. He takes me in, his eyes narrow as he scans my face. “What happened to you?”

I bend down to take off my shoes. But the first won’t come off. It seems stitched to my foot. I scream out in pain.

“Hey,” David days. “Woah. Okay. Sit down.” I collapse onto the little bench we have in the hallway and he crouches down. “Jesus, Dannie, what did you do? Run home?”

He looks up at me and, in that moment, I feel myself falling. I’m not sure if I’m going to faint or combust. The fire in my feet rises, threatening to engulf me whole.

“She’s really sick,” I say. “She needs surgery next week. Stage three. Four rounds of chemo.”

David hugs me. I want to feel the comfort of his arms. I want to fold into him. But I can’t. It’s too big. Nothing will help, nothing will obscure it.

“Did they give you some data?” David asks, grasping. “The new doctor? What did he say?” He releases me and puts a hand gently on my knee.

I shake my head. “She’ll never be able to have kids. They’re taking out her entire uterus, both ovaries…”

David winces. “Damn,” he says. “Damn, Dannie, I’m so sorry.”

I close my eyes against the rising tide of pain from my feet. The knives that are now burying themselves into my heels.

“Take them off,” I tell him. I’m practically panting.

“Okay,” he says. “Hang on.”

He goes to the bathroom and comes back with baby powder. He shakes the bottle, and a cloud of white dust descends on my foot. He wiggles the heel of my shoe. I feel nauseous with pain.

Then it’s off. I look down at my foot — it’s raw and bleeding but looks better than I thought it would. He dumps some more powder on it.

“Let me see the other one,” he says.

I give him my other foot. He shakes the bottle, wiggles the heel, performs the same ritual.

“You need to soak them,” David says. “Come on.”

He puts an arm around me and leads me, wincing and groaning, into the bathroom. We have a tub, although it’s not a claw-foot. It’s always been a dream of mine to have one, but our bathroom was already built. It’s so stupid, impossible even, that my brain still relays this information to me now, still notes it — the missing feet of a porcelain tub. As if it matters.

David begins to run the water for me. “I’m going to put some Epsom salts in it,” he says. “You’ll feel better.”

I grab his arm as he turns to go. I cling to it — hold it against my chest like a child with their stuffed animal.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tells me. But, of course, the words mean nothing. No one knows that. Not him. Not Dr. Shaw. Not even me.