Chapter Four
Bree
Hospital smells turned her stomach. Bree fumbled with the package of ginger candies she’d bought for Allison and popped one into her mouth, hoping the taste and smell of it would overpower the antiseptic and hopelessness in the air.
Allison was waiting in a wheelchair by the nurses’ desk, even though Bree was half an hour early. Her friend’s usually lustrous, shoulder-length blonde hair was gone, replaced with a thin, straggly mop hidden under a head scarf. A stark, blue bruise coloured the side of her jaw, and her lips were chapped. She looked horrible, but it was still miles better than how she’d looked when she was admitted.
“Are you ready to go?” Bree asked.
“So ready. I’m all signed out and have my prescriptions.” Allison waved a handful of papers at her. “Take me home.” She sighed. “I want to go home.”
Bree didn’t have to look hard to see the bags under Allison’s eyes, despite the foundation slathered there. A round of radiation therapy to shrink the tumour had taken a lot out of Allison. Then she’d had brain surgery to suck the little mutant cancer cells out of her head. Now her best friend was looking at five weeks of chemo to try to kill the remaining rebels. Bree’s job was to get her to and from all the appointments and help take care of her and her family in between.
“Okay, boss-lady. Let’s get you home.”
The city had changed in the last decade. Winnipeg’s south-west corner had been farmer’s fields when Bree was in high-school. Now there were new developments full of eight repeating house designs in various colours with postage stamp sized yards and community mailboxes on the corners. She mindlessly made the same trip she’d driven so many times to the generically named Oaklands South, and pulled into the driveway of a large, two-storey house.
Tyson Grey stood in the front window wearing a strained smile, holding his daughter Taylor. The four-year old waved madly, and even from the street, Bree could see her little mouth yelling “Hi, Mommy! Hi! Hi, Mommy!”
“Help me inside. I want to hug my baby,” Allison ordered.
Bree settled her on the sofa, and Taylor proceeded to crawl all over her mother, chattering away in an innocent babble without giving a hint she knew or understood how sick Allison was. Tyson watched from the doorway as his wife stroked blonde hair that should have matched her own.
He was as stiff as marble as he watched the two loves of his life cuddling in the other room. “Thanks for picking her up, Bree.”
“Never a problem. Are you okay here for a couple hours?” Bree asked. She had a ton to do: make a grocery run to restock her fridge after a week of trial prep, make another grocery run for them, and be back in time to get Taylor to afternoon kindergarten.
“We’ll be fine.”
They both knew he was lying. She gave his arm a squeeze. Tyson didn’t react. Allison had warned her that between home and the Zane case, Tyson was stressed to the point where he was shutting down. That wasn’t healthy for anybody. Bree had made it her mission to get her honorary sister and brother-in-law through the next two months with their marriage intact.
“I’ll be back as quick as I can.”
It took two trips to cart in her groceries. She could have carried everything in one load if she were on the main floor, but the narrow staircase to the lower suite made balancing things tricky. In a couple more weeks, the second half of the duplex would be blissfully empty for three months over the summer, but now her upstairs neighbours were celebrating the end of semester full bore. It was a pain she had to put up with to receive the discount she got for keeping an eye on the property.
Her place wasn’t much, but it was clean and dry. That was all she really needed, and it was all she got. There were two microscopic bedrooms: one held her double bed, the other her desk and dresser. A small flat screen television sat on a low table in the living room, and there was seating for four at the breakfast bar. It was more than she needed. Every dollar she didn’t spend on rent or furnishings now was another dollar towards the down payment of her own house.
She returned to Allison’s with a full trunk. Bree had spent the last week online, looking for recipes chemo patients could easily tolerate. If she got the same answer twice, she printed the recipe to run it by Allison. She was overwhelmed doing that much. There was a ton of information out there, and none of it matched. Nothing about cancer was easy.
Tyson cracked a small smile when she returned. “Allison’s asleep. Taylor’s helping her rest. If you can get Tay up in half an hour and feed her lunch, that’ll give you time to get her to school.“
“Go to work, Tyson. I have your cell number, your office number, your work email, and your personal email in my phone. I’ll call if I have any problems. In fact, I’ll send you a text once I get back from dropping off Taylor so you won’t worry, okay?”
Bree could actually see a weight lift from his shoulders. Tyson stood a little straighter, and his smile got a little brighter. “That would be awesome. I’ll be home a little after five, I think.”
“Tyson, it’s day one. We’ll figure it out. Now go to work.”
Taylor was an angel for her auntie. Some chicken noodle soup and half a grilled cheese sandwich, and she was happy to go play with her friends for the afternoon. That’s when the hard stuff started.
“Tyson said Eric showed up in court when you were testifying. What was up with that?” Allison demanded from her recliner, which overlooked the kitchen and dining room.
“I don’t know. But he was waiting for me beside my car when I left the house this morning.”
“Why? Did he want to kiss your feet and beg you to take his stupid ass back?” Even after a year of wine-filled gab sessions where Bree swore she was over him, Allison still hated her ex with the holy hellfire only the BFF of a scorned woman could manage.
“Long story.” But she shared. Allison’s face grew more twisted with each detail she added.
“I’d offer to switch lives, but I think I might be better off with my tumour,” Allison said.
Bree’s eyes grew misty at the comment.
“Too soon?” Allison asked. “Sorry, I’m heavy into gallows humour these days.”
Her friend was supposed to be concentrating on getting herself better, not on fixing Bree’s broken life. “Anyway, I don’t anticipate running into Marcus Forrester or Eric again. I went six months without seeing Eric, and years on Marcus. I can do it again,” Bree said.
“You know I love you, but your luck isn’t that good,” Allison said.
Unfortunately, she was right.
