by Adam Mitzner
Wayne was about to tear open the cellophane surrounding the turkey and cheese sandwich he’d packed for himself five hours earlier when his phone rang. The caller ID identified his ex-wife.
Jessica had never called him at school, not even when they were married. That she was calling now meant two things. First, it was about Owen. And second, it was important.
There was a general rule among the teachers that you didn’t take phone calls in the lounge. But an exception was made if the call was short, in consideration of the fact that even teachers weren’t allowed to be seen in the hallways with a phone, and it could take ten minutes to walk outside, which meant that a two-minute call would take up nearly half your lunch break.
“Everything okay?” he whispered, conserving his words so as to not disrupt the other teachers.
“No. Everything is definitely not okay.”
Jessica began telling him that Owen’s cancer had returned and something about a possible experimental treatment. As soon as she did, the air left his lungs. He felt as if he might pass out.
Jessica did nearly all the talking, and for most of it, she sobbed. Their call ended in less than five minutes, which was still long enough that Wayne got the stink eye from Ed Weston, who had been old when Wayne joined the faculty twenty-two years ago.
Wayne knew that Owen had never been cured—that you never were cured of leukemia—but it had been easy to accept Jessica’s assurances to the contrary. The few times he had made a comment that hopefully Owen would be well enough to go to college, Jessica had glared daggers at him, suggesting that it was Wayne’s pessimism, rather than the cancer, that was making their son sick.
In the end, like so many other things, he’d been right, and she’d been wrong. It reminded him of all the times he’d said that something was not right in their marriage, and that maybe counseling would help, and she had gaslighted him into believing their problems were all in his mind. Right up until the day she left, in fact.
He tried to focus on the one positive thing Jessica had said: the experimental treatment. But just as quickly he remembered that health insurance wouldn’t cover it and that it would cost several hundred thousand dollars.
Wayne calculated the maximum amount of money he could beg, borrow, and steal. He had no assets to sell. In fact, he was in debt up to his eyeballs. He had used every last nickel he could get his hands on—which included getting cash advances on his credit cards and taking a second mortgage—to fund the $50,000 he needed to buy Jessica out of her half of the equity they had in their house during the divorce. The housing market dropped even before the ink on the divorce decree was dry. If he sold the house now, he doubted he’d net much more than thirty grand after transaction fees and paying off both mortgages, and he’d still have to find a new place to live.
His 401(k) had less than $20,000, his savings account less than $2,000.
Wayne still had thirty minutes left for lunch but no appetite to go with it. He decided that his time would best be spent out of view of the other teachers.
He didn’t stop back at his locker to get his coat and felt a shiver the moment he left the building. Still, he found the fresh air helpful to break him out of the daze he’d been in since answering Jessica’s call.
An empty bench was a few feet away, overlooking the football field. Wayne sat down, covered his face with his hands, and began to cry.
Reid had not even tried to hide his annoyance at James’s rejection of his proposal, suggesting that James take the train back into the city under the rather transparent ruse that he needed to conduct some business out of East Hampton for the next few days.
The train back to Manhattan was delayed outside Bay Shore. Some type of track problem, the conductor said. The end result was what should have been a four-hour trip took nearly twice that long. James called Jessica and told her to have dinner without him, his own evening meal a slice of pizza he grabbed in Penn Station.
By the time James finally got home, he expected Jessica to already be in the bedroom. Instead, he found her in the living room, sitting almost completely in the dark but for a small reading lamp beside her. The television was off, and he didn’t see a book or anything else that could have been occupying her time.
“Sit down, James,” she said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
He knew at once that whatever it was, it was serious. He did as she asked.
“I got some terrible news at Owen’s doctor’s visit,” she said. “It wasn’t a redo of the blood test, after all. The last test showed the cancer was back. They wanted him to retest, but they’re sure it’ll be the same result.”
Jessica was trying to keep an even keel about this news, but James knew it must be devastating her. By the time he’d met Jessica, Owen’s cancer was something spoken about in the past tense. Like a movie he had walked into in the middle, after that particular plot point had already been resolved. Still, he knew that this very possibility had always hung over Jessica like a black cloud.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry, Jessica. What . . . what’s the prognosis?”
“It depends on if you’re a glass-half-full type or not, I suppose,” she said, trying to eke out a smile that didn’t quite appear. “The doctor wants to put Owen on this experimental treatment. He said that if Owen qualifies for it, there’s a good chance—actually the doctor said a very good chance—that the cancer would go back into remission.”
“That’s good news, then, right?” James said.
He was trying to sound upbeat, even though he knew that anything short of a guarantee of survival still sounded like a death sentence when it pertained to your child.
“Not great, though. It’s going to cost a lot.”
“What about insurance?”
“It’s not covered because it’s experimental.”
James now understood. Jessica’s hesitancy was because she was asking him for money.
“I know that you didn’t sign up for this when we got married. But it means Owen’s life. The doctor said that there was no point in going back to any of the insurance-approved protocols because they were unlikely to work. So it’s this or . . . Owen’s going to die. I’m sorry to be so dramatic about it, but that’s the truth.”
Jessica began to cry. James got up and sat on her chair’s armrest, holding her hand until the sobbing subsided.
“How much?” he asked at last.
“The doctor said low– to mid–six figures.”
Jessica knew that they were not nearly as well off as they seemed to the outside world. Before they had married, James had explained that it was an occupational requirement that he present as rich so that his wealthy clients respected him. That meant he lived well beyond his means. The purchase of the loft had taken every penny he had. So much that he’d had to use the money Wayne had paid Jessica for her half of the house in Queens, plus a second mortgage, to settle up with Haley.
“You know how tight things are now, Jessica. We don’t have anything to speak of in the bank, and with the slowdown in the art market, I haven’t made a decent commission in six months.”
“What about selling some of the art?” she said, looking at the walls as if they were a life preserver that could save her from going under.
“I don’t own any of it. It’s all consigned. And I can’t even sell them at fire-sale prices to raise money because most of my deals have a contractual minimum.”
“Don’t we own anything that we can sell?”
James sighed. “Yeah. My watch might fetch fifty grand, and if I cash out my life insurance policy and my very modest retirement savings, maybe I could pool together . . . I don’t know, seventy-five grand?”
She let go of any resolve. Jessica’s entire body seemed to fail, and she fell onto him.
Of course, James did have one possible solution. Their sudden need to raise money fast made Reid’s earlier offer of a quick score seem heaven sent. Of course, that was true only if God trafficked in stolen art.
; “There is a way,” James said.
It was as if she had been given an antidote to a poison. Jessica’s head snapped up. “What?”
“The deal Reid wanted me to do. I think I can raise the money that way.”
Jessica’s entire face lit up. “I . . . I don’t know what to say, James. You’re not only saving Owen’s life but mine too. I mean that. And I’ll borrow the money from you. That way, if anything ever happens between us, I’ll pay you back.”
“Nothing is ever going to happen between us, Jessica. I love you and always will. Let’s just worry about getting Owen healthy. That’s all that matters now.”
“You look like the cat that ate the canary,” Haley said, still in bed. “I’m a little insulted that fucking me didn’t put a smile like that on your face.”
Reid put the phone down and debated whether to tell her the truth. On the one hand, Haley fucked better when she was angry at James. On the other, he couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t call the cops if she knew James was involved in a deal with him.
“It was business,” he said. “You’re pleasure.”
“I’m not pleasure, Reid. I’m . . . I don’t know what I am to you, actually. It’s never made any sense. I know that something must go on in your head, because every once in a while it makes you decide we should do this, but for the life of me, I don’t know what it is.”
“Right back at ya. I never know what possesses you to agree to come over when I call.”
Their affair—if that was the right word, which it wasn’t—had begun shortly after James left Haley. She called Reid one day, spilling out a sob story about how all their mutual friends had chosen James over her. He reminded her that those people were James’s friends to begin with.
“We met you together,” she said. “You’re friends to both of us. Please, don’t abandon me.”
Reid didn’t really have friends. The people in his life were there for a reason: family, business, pleasure.
He’d seen an opportunity for Haley to serve as pleasure. And she certainly had served. Each and every time. And all he’d had to pay to be the recipient of the most off-the-wall sex of his life was to listen to Haley rant about James doing her wrong and how she’d get even with him someday.
“I think you know exactly why I come over to fuck your brains out whenever you call,” she said.
“Yeah, why’s that?”
“It’s my way of getting some small measure of revenge against James. Because I know he’d be absolutely incensed if he knew. Which begs the question: What did James do to you this time to make you want to fuck me?”
“You’re crazy,” he said. “Why can’t I just enjoy the company of a beautiful woman?”
“For the same reason that a cigar can’t just be a cigar.”
She was right, at least in part of it. Truth be told, Reid didn’t think James would care in the least if he knew that Reid and Haley sometimes went at it. “Better you than me,” he’d probably say. But Haley was undoubtedly correct that, for her at least, their encounters had much more to do with James than with him. It didn’t take an advanced psychology degree to realize that Haley was hate-fucking James with Reid’s body. For her, it was like a drug—she got the positive reinforcement that she was desired, with the added benefit of believing that James would be apoplectic if he found out she was screwing Reid.
“That just makes me feel cheap, Haley.”
“Then it’s good you got that phone call, I guess. Sounds like you’ll be feeling richer any day now.”
7
It wasn’t until three days after their doctor’s visit that Owen’s mother came into his room, sat on the edge of his bed, and finally told him what he already knew.
“I’ve got a good news–bad news situation to share with you, Owen. The bad news is that there’s been a recurrence of the leukemia. But the much more important good news is that there’s a treatment that will cure it. You’re going to get a transplant in which your bone marrow is replaced by someone else’s that doesn’t create leukemia cells.”
The whole time she was talking, his mother managed to maintain a smile. Owen knew that there was nothing to be happy about. Since the moment he left the doctor’s office, Owen had been googling like crazy the possible treatments for a recurrence of AML.
It took him a beat too long to realize that if his mother were actually imparting new information, as she thought, then he should have said something or at least changed his expression.
“Who’s going to be the donor?” he asked.
“That’s still to be determined. Your father or me, hopefully. If not, we’ll go to the national database. But don’t worry. We’ll definitely find someone compatible.”
The American Red Cross, or whatever the website was where he had read about this, had a contrary view. According to them, it wasn’t easy to find a donor, and the best chance was a sibling, which he didn’t have.
“Okay,” he said, largely because he didn’t know what else to say.
“You, me, and Dad are going to see a new doctor tomorrow. The doctor in charge of the treatment program. So, you’ll miss school. Another piece of good news, right?”
He actually didn’t want to miss school. The orchestra was rehearsing for the opera, and he was in the running to be first violin. As soon as this thought hit him, however, he realized it would never come to pass. A bone marrow transplant meant he’d be missing most of the rest of the school year. All those things that seniors had to wait four years to achieve—final concerts, the senior prom, hanging out with your friends—were not going to happen for him. Nevertheless, he smiled, because he knew his mother was trying.
The next morning, Owen sat between his parents in Dr. Cammerman’s office at Memorial Sloan Kettering, which his mother had already told him several times was the premier cancer hospital in the country, if not the world. If their new doctor was as big a deal as Owen’s mother claimed, he certainly didn’t have the office to back it up. There was barely enough space for the third chair to fit across from the desk.
The man himself didn’t look any more impressive than his surroundings. Bald, with a goatee and oversize glasses. If it weren’t for the fact that his white lab coat had DOCTOR stenciled above the pocket, Owen might have assumed he was a janitor.
“The procedure is going to be difficult, Owen,” Dr. Cammerman said. “So let me apologize in advance for the things we’re going to be putting into your body and the way it’s going to make you feel. But know that it’s all for the good. We do it so, at the end of the process, you can go on and live as normal and productive a life as you would if you’d never heard the word leukemia.”
His mother smiled at him, and his father nodded approvingly. Owen wanted to scream at them to cut the shit already. He was so beyond tired of the lies that people peddled in an effort to make him reject reality. But he kept his emotions in check, a frozen, neutral expression on his face suggesting that he believed the doctor’s every word.
“I’m sure you want to know what this is going to look like,” Dr. Cammerman said, now with a smile of his own. “First step is we need to do some more tests to confirm that you’re eligible for the transplant. I’m not going to bore you with all the things we’re looking for, or seeking to rule out, but I can say that I’m almost certain that when we’re done with that process, we’re going to conclude that you’re a good candidate. But as you’ll hear me say a lot, there are no guarantees on any of this. So, I can only tell you something after I know it. I can’t predict beforehand.”
“Okay,” Owen said, even as he was thinking that the first thing the doctor had said—that if he underwent the treatment, it would all turn out okay in the end—was precisely the type of prediction he’d just said he’d never make.
“Good,” Dr. Cammerman said with another smile. “So, let’s assume that you’re a viable candidate. What comes next is we put in a central venous catheter, which we call a CVC. It can be done as outpatient surgery, which means you will not ha
ve to stay overnight in the hospital. It won’t hurt. The CVC allows us to more easily draw blood and give you medicine. It stays in you during the entirety of your treatment, and even for a little bit after it’s all over. We take it out once your new stem cells are firmly in place and starting to reproduce the way we want.”
“Okay,” Owen said again, wanting this entire thing to be over.
“Good. It’s easiest to think about the procedure as occurring in two phases. Stage one has a fancy name called myeloablation.”
Owen knew all about myeloablation too. The internet had practically made him an AML specialist.
“The myeloablation process is basically another round of chemo,” Dr. Cammerman continued. “The intent is to remove the cancer cells in your body and to make room for the transplant we’re going to do in phase two. Now, I know you’re a chemo veteran, so you’re familiar with the drill. It’ll be like it was the last time, except the regimen will be shorter. About a week, give or take. It’s a different type of chemo, different medicines than the last time, so I can’t guarantee—there’s that word again, right? But I can’t predict whether you’ll tolerate it better or worse or about the same as you did the last time. Also, you’re older and stronger than before, so that might help, but it’s a high-dose regimen, so that makes it more likely the side effects will be more severe, I’m afraid.”
Owen touched the ends of his hair out of reflex. It had taken him three years to get it to this length, and now it would be gone in a matter of weeks. As if reading his mind, his mother reached over and caressed his shoulder.
“Okay, now we’re done with phase one,” Dr. Cammerman continued. “We give you a day or two to rest. Then, after forty-eight hours of downtime, the main event occurs. The transplant. Here’s how that works: you’ll be under sedation, so all you have to do is sleep, and my team does the work. The transplant takes only a few hours. We’ll be placing donor stem cells into your bone marrow. Sounds like fun, right?”
