“Carcinoma,” Olive repeated. “That was the one word Ididunderstand.” She shook her head. “The doctor talked to me. Well, he talkedatme. I just…stopped hearing him after a few minutes.”
“You have cervical cancer,” Harriet said gently. “I’m so sorry.”
“Are you sure it’s not a mistake? HowcouldI? I’m a lesbian.”
“Lesbians actually have higher rates of cervical cancer,” Harriet said. “They don’t get monitored because they aren’t having penetrative intercourse. There’s a certain type that nuns get—not the kind that’s squamous cell cancer, which is associated with HPV—but one even virgins can contract.”
“Well thankfully,” Olive said, “I’m not one ofthose.” She looked at the nurse. “How bad?”
“It’s stage four, metastatic. Do you know what that means?”
“It’s like winning the lottery,” Olive replied. “But Shirley Jackson’s kind.”
Harriet stared at her blankly.
“Never mind.”
The nurse looked down at the numbers again. “It’s in your lungs; possibly in your liver. It’s blocking your right kidney.” She looked Olive in the eye. “I’m going to level with you. It’s unlikely that someone whose cancer has spread this far can be cured. I’m sure there are things the oncologist can do to help you have a good quality of life, but…you should get your affairs in order.”
Olive felt her mouth go dry as dust. She, who always had a witty retort, had nothing to say. “How long? she finally managed.
“Six to eight months, I’m guessing. I hate to say that, Olive. And I hope to hell I’m wrong. But if I were you, I’d want someone to tell me the truth.”
Olive sat in the stew of that information, sinking in her own sudden, inevitable mortality. She felt Harriet’s arms come around her, hold her tightly.
This. This was why she had come to the Center. She knew already what was hiding inside that medical folder. She had just not wanted to face it alone.
There was a sharp rap on the door, and then Dr. Ward stuck his head inside. “Harriet? It’s go time.” He smiled at Olive and closed the door again.
Olive had so many questions: Was it her fault—some deficiency in diet or some promiscuity in college that had led to this? How would she tell Peg? Would it happen fast, or would it be a slow decline? Would it hurt? Would she still be herself, at the end?
Harriet stepped back, still holding Olive’s hands. She gave them a final squeeze. “I need to go assist. You going to be all right?”
She left without hearing Olive’s response. But they both knew the answer, anyway.
—
WHEN WREN HAD STARTEDhigh school, two months ago, she suffered the usual freshman pranks: being told there was a pool in the basement when there wasn’t, finding shaving cream in her locker, being squirted with water guns as she walked down the foreign language hallway. She learned pretty fast which routes through the school were safe and which ones weren’t. The place she hated the most, however, was the Pit, which was an outside corridor connecting two arms of the building, where the smokers hung out between classes. She’d run the gauntlet, knowing these kids smelled her fear and her naïveté, were making up their minds about her without knowing her at all.
That’s what it felt like now, walking past the line of protesters. Some of them smiled at her, even as they waved posters of bloody babies in her face. Some chanted Dr. Seuss:A person’s a person, no matter how small. “Can you come here for a sec?” one woman said, with the kind of apologetic smile you use when you are truly sorry about asking for help, because your car has broken down on the side of the road or your phone is dead and you need to call home or you are juggling too many groceries in your arms and wishing you’d been smart enough to take a basket. Instinct tugged her in that direction, because Wren had always been a good girl. The woman had red hair and funky purple glasses and looked incredibly familiar, but Wren couldn’t place her. Still, she didn’t want to run the risk that the woman might recognize her, too—what if she worked at the police department or something, and spilled this secret to her dad? So she ducked her head as the woman stuffed a little goodie bag in her hand, like the kind you got at a kid’s birthday party.
Just then her aunt was glued to her side. “You’re not going in there alone,” Bex said, and Wren wrapped her arms around her aunt’s neck and hugged her tight.
Wren knew it made her sound like a total bitch, but she didn’t really pine for her mom. Part of it was because her mother had left when Wren was little; part of it was because of her aunt, who filled in any empty spaces.
Aunt Bex had sewed her a colonial dress for the American Revolution unit they’d done in second grade. (Well, she’d hot-glued it—she wasn’t particularly good with a needle.) She had never missed a T-ball game and brought sweet tea for all the other parents. She even hung Wren’s lame watercolors on her wall; she, who was an artist and knew damn well they were terrible. It seemed to Wren that having a mother had a lot less to do with a few sweaty hours of labor and delivery and a lot more to do with whose face you always looked for in a crowd.
As if she needed any more proof, here was Bex beside her, even though Wren knew how much it cost her. She knew Aunt Bex had never had children and that fact maybe even had something to do with her aversion to the Center. But in a way, Wren was secretly glad Bex belonged only to her.
By the time they were buzzed inside, sweat had broken out between Wren’s shoulder blades. “You sit down,” Wren told her aunt. “I can check myself in.”
There were a few people in the waiting room, and a television was on, with the sound muted. At the reception desk sat a woman with the most stunning tower of braids Wren had ever seen—thick red and black snakes twined around each other. She wore a name tag that readVONITA,and she was on the telephone. She smiled at Wren and held up a finger, suggesting she’d only be another moment. “In the state of Mississippi it’s a two-day process. That’s right. So Thursday would be your counseling session, your lab work, and a sonogram. The next day, when you have your procedure, you’ll be here from an hour and a half to three hours. If you want to schedule an appointment I can help you with that now.” She paused, then picked up a pen. “Name? Age? Date of last period? Good contact phone number? So you’re scheduled for Thursday at nineA.M. Now, write down your appointment date and time because we can’t verify if you call back and ask when it is, for confidentiality reasons. You have to bring a hundred and fifty dollars and your photo ID. Cash or card. No large bags, no purses, no kids. All right then. You’re welcome.” She hung up the phone and smiled at Wren. “Sorry about that. How can I help you?”
“I’m here for an appointment,” Wren said, and then hastily, “But not…not like the kind you just scheduled. My name’s Wren McElroy.”
“Ren…Ren…” The woman scanned a list.
“With aW.”
