The Italian Doctor's Perfect Family

by Alison Roberts

  ‘No!’ The word was torn from Pip. Fear had replaced dread. Mixed with it was a very uncomfortable level of guilt. She closed her eyes. ‘You’ve known about it for most of the day and you didn’t tell me. You let me go out on a…a date!’

  ‘I needed a bit of time to get my own head around this,’ Shona responded. ‘And I had to wait until Alice was out. I don’t want her to know.’

  ‘She’ll have to know.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Shona said urgently. ‘Promise me, Pip—you won’t tell her until I’m ready.’

  Pip’s silence was taken as acquiescence, which was hardly surprising if her expression reflected what she was thinking. She would have promised Shona anything right then, if it could have made a blind bit of difference to the outcome.

  ‘Things are changing,’ Shona continued thoughtfully. ‘And I really don’t want to spoil them.’

  She had said that earlier. She had allowed Pip to be selfish enough to revel in the start of a promising romance and, by doing so, she had taken away Pip’s right to choose. As though she was still a child who needed important decisions made for her. Unexpectedly, resentment bloomed amongst a maelstrom of even darker emotions.

  ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. That you’ve been dealing with this for weeks by yourself. That you let me go out tonight of all nights, when I should have been here. With you.’

  ‘That’s precisely why.’ Shona patted Pip’s hand. ‘You would have stayed if you’d known and I had the feeling tonight was going to be special with it being the first time you’ve been to Toni’s house.’

  Pip might have been embarrassed if she’d focused on how accurately her mother had interpreted the significance of tonight’s date. Or if she had given a second’s thought to what had happened over the last few hours. Funny how something that had seemed so incredibly special had suddenly become insignificant. Something she could even feel ashamed of.

  ‘You wouldn’t have gone if you’d known, would you?’ Shona prompted.

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t.’

  ‘And that would have changed things. It might have been enough to stop them completely.’

  Would it? Toni would have understood if she had cancelled the date due to a family emergency. He would have approved of where her loyalties lay. But what about the weeks or months ahead? Would the start of any physical relationship have been given any priority in what was likely to be a time of intense family commitment?

  Probably not. But because they had become so close tonight, it would be far more difficult to shut Toni from her life than it would have been if she’d stayed home and had this conversation with her mother so much earlier. Not telling her—keeping even a hint of the news away from her—had been an unselfish act on Shona’s part. While Pip could feel resentful at having had her free choice removed, she could understand the motivation. The love it was based on.

  ‘You’re far more important than anything else I have going on in my life, Mum. This is far more important. I’m going to help you fight this.’

  Shona smiled sadly. ‘Don’t think I don’t want to fight it, love, and I will…but we need to be realistic.’

  ‘I’ll go and talk to your doctors tomorrow. Find out exactly what we’re dealing with. I can’t believe you went to this appointment today by yourself.’

  ‘I wasn’t really expecting to find out what I did.’

  ‘Did they mention treatment options?’

  ‘They told me so much that most of it went over my head. I can’t remember a lot.’

  ‘Which is why I should have been with you.’

  ‘I asked for another appointment on Monday. So that you could come and hear everything and then help me decide on what’s going to best.’

  ‘Did they say anything about the possibility of surgery?’

  ‘Yes. They talked about surgery and radiotherapy and chemotherapy and even clinical trials I might like to consider. What I did understand was that anything done might buy me a little more time or make me more comfortable but it’s not going to change the outcome. I may only have a few months.’

  Pip couldn’t hold back her tears now. Or the fear. Or the feeling that she was a child again—no older than Alice. The comfort of being held in her mother’s arms was indescribable. And so poignant. It was some time before either woman could control their grief.

  ‘If I need surgery,’ Shona said eventually, ‘I’m going to tell Alice it’s the same as the gallstone operation I had.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t want her to make a connection between what’s wrong with me and what’s wrong with her. It would be scary.’

  ‘Alice doesn’t have cancer.’

  ‘No, but she has an abnormality in her pancreas. It could be that there’s a genetic link, couldn’t there? That she might be more at risk herself?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pip admitted. ‘But I do know that Alice is going to be fine. It’s you we need to concentrate on at the moment.’

  ‘I do want more time.’

  ‘Of course you do. I want more time for you as well. As much as possible.’

  ‘I don’t need too much. Just enough to see if Toni is the one for you. Whether you can make a family together when…when I’m not here.’ Shona stroked Pip’s hair. ‘That’s all I need to know, Pip. That you and Alice are both going to be safe…and happy.’ She gripped her daughter’s hand. ‘He’s a wonderful man, darling. Alice thinks so, too, although I think the words she used were “hot” and “cool”—which don’t seem to be contradictory for teens these days.’

  They both smiled.

  ‘He seems totally smitten with you,’ Shona added, ‘and I’ve never seen you as happy as you’ve been in the last month. Don’t let this change things, Pip. Please!’

  How could it not change things?

  The first, and possibly most unexpected, change occurred well before the appointment Pip was dreading on Monday when the official confirmation of her mother’s prognosis would come.

  If she had given any thought to Toni during the sleepless hours of that first night, it had been poignant. Their relationship was so newborn and fragile and there could be no room in her life for romance now. Not when her emotional energy had to be focused on the needs of her mother and her daughter.

  The time she had spent with Toni that evening had been too good to be true. Magic but selfish. A gift her mother had wanted her to have, but in some ways it might have been easier if Pip hadn’t experienced what Toni had to offer as a lover. She wasn’t going to be desirable as a romantic companion for the foreseeable future, and it was too much to hope that Toni cared about her enough already to take this in his stride.

  He wouldn’t drop her immediately, of course, he was far too nice for that, but the baggage she brought with her had suddenly become much heavier, almost too heavy to lift, and it would have to start making a difference. It would become too much and their relationship could falter and die, inch by inch.

  Maybe it would be better to let him escape now before things became miserable.

  But Toni had other ideas.

  The fact that he could tell something was wrong simply by the way she said hello when he rang the next day was a surprise. The depth of concern in his query about what was wrong that went unanswered was almost enough to reduce Pip to tears and the way he took control was irresistible.

  ‘Be at your gate in five minutes,’ he ordered. ‘I am coming to take you for a drive and you will tell me what is upsetting you, bella.’

  Shona had waved her off. ‘Be as long as you like, love,’ she instructed. ‘Alice and I need time to argue about what take-aways we want to order and what we’re going to watch on television tonight.’

  Normal Saturday night family stuff when normality was no longer a real option. Pip waited at her gate with confusion thrown into the maelstrom of her heightened emotions.

  Sliding into Toni’s car and accepting his kiss could have been an exciting new normality after last night, but Pip had
to pull away. At least, she tried to, but Toni held her—his fingers gripping her shoulders with determination.

  ‘Whatever is wrong? Is my kissing so bad?’

  Pip tried to laugh. Instead, she burst into tears.

  ‘Drive…’ she managed to choke out. ‘Please…I don’t want Alice to see me crying.’

  Toni drove the shortest distance. Just around the corner until they were out of sight of her house. He pulled the car to a jerky stop, snapped open both his own and Pip’s safety belts and then pulled her into his arms.

  For the longest time, he said nothing.

  Demanded no explanations.

  He simply held her and let her cry, and if Pip hadn’t realised she was in love with this man before, she could have no doubt about it now. He had no idea what she was so upset about but he was still prepared to hold and comfort her. It was like the way he accepted Alice as part of her life. Whoever she was and whatever baggage she brought with her was made to feel acceptable.

  And when she was finally ready to talk, he listened with the same kind of attentiveness with which he had heard the story of her past. He held her as she spoke and every subtle movement of his body and hands implied willingness to be there. To support her.

  ‘And she waited to tell you this because she knew it was our…first time together?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She is a wise woman.’

  ‘You think so?’ Pip couldn’t help the seed of new hope being sown. A hope that this wouldn’t be enough to drive Toni from her life.

  ‘I know so. She knew that you would have shut yourself away from me if you’d known. You care too much for the people you love to allow something as selfish as a lover at such a time.’ Toni kissed Pip’s hair gently. ‘But you cannot do that now, can you, cara?’

  ‘No.’ There was no way in the world Pip could voluntarily give up what Toni was giving her.

  ‘I can help. I can give you strength.’

  ‘It’s not very romantic.’ Pip felt obliged to at least issue a warning. ‘I won’t be able to swan off for things like dinners and dancing and walks on the beach for a while.’

  ‘Romance can come in many forms,’ Toni said seriously. ‘Maybe this will be the most important one.’

  ‘It’s a lot to ask of you.’

  ‘It’s what friends are for.’ Toni kissed her hair again. ‘And we are more than friends, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’ Pip turned her face and received another kiss, this time on her lips. It was a kiss that carried all the strength of passion and yet there was nothing overtly sexual about it. It was like nothing Pip had ever experienced. More than sex. More than friendship. It conveyed hope. The possibility that Toni had fallen in love with her to the same degree she had with him. It was enough to cause the sting of tears again. Was that what reminded Toni of why she was sitting in his car?

  ‘And you have an appointment to go to with your mother on Monday?’

  ‘Yes. She was, understandably, a bit hazy on the medical details and options for treatment. I want to make sure we have all the information we need so I can help her decide the best next step.’

  ‘Would you like me to be there as well?’

  ‘That’s sweet of you, but, no, I think it would be better if it was just me and Mum.’

  ‘You’ll come and talk to me afterwards?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I will be at home on Monday evening. I will be waiting for you.’

  ‘Stage llA is where the tumour extends beyond the pancreas but there’s no involvement of the celiac axis or the superior mesenteric artery.’ The oncologist showed Pip the pictures from the MRI scan. ‘No regional lymph node metastasis and no distant metastasis.’

  Which sounded as though things could have been a lot worse, but Pip had done some research of her own over the weekend and was all too aware of how difficult it was to control this type of cancer. And how fast it could progress if you were one of the unluckier victims.

  ‘I need you to go over the treatment options again,’ Shona said. ‘So that Pip can help me choose what to do.’

  ‘As we discussed, there’s surgery. It’s the only form of therapy with any potential for cure and even with a tumour like yours, situated in the head of the pancreas, we could expect good results. Palliation of symptoms at the least and a life expectancy greater than the average for inoperable pancreatic cancer.’

  ‘Which is?’ Pip asked tightly.

  ‘Approximately ten months.’

  ‘What about follow-up treatment?’

  The surgeon nodded. ‘Of course. We’ll look at radiation and/or chemotherapy and we’ll treat anything else as it crops up.’

  Like pain, Pip thought miserably. ‘What’s involved with the surgery?’

  ‘It’s a pancreaticduodenectomy.’

  ‘Goodness!’ Shona actually smiled. ‘It must take as long to say that as do the surgery.’

  But it was no laughing matter. ‘We remove the head of the pancreas,’ the surgeon continued soberly. ‘And the adjacent duodenum plus the lower bile duct and a portion of the stomach. This will take out the tumour and the adjacent lymph nodes.’

  ‘That’s major,’ Pip murmured.

  ‘But with very good statistics as far as mortality and morbidity are concerned.’

  ‘How will I eat?’ Shona sounded stunned. ‘How much of my stomach gets taken out?’

  ‘About half. You’ll be able to eat normally though not in large quantities. Your diet may need some adjustment but the dieticians will help you with that. It can be more difficult to digest food so you may need replacement pancreatic enzymes or hormones after the surgery. You may also develop diabetes and need to take insulin.’

  ‘How soon could you schedule the surgery?’ Pip asked.

  ‘As early as next week if that’s the route you want to take.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that,’ Shona said. ‘I need to think about it. How long would I have to be in hospital for?’

  ‘At least a week.’

  ‘And it would mean weeks of recuperation on top of that, wouldn’t it? As long as it took after I had my gallbladder out?’

  ‘Maybe longer, if you’re starting other treatments in that period.’

  ‘So that might represent a significant percentage of the time I have left. I’m not sure I want to spend it in and out of hospital.’

  The short silence underlined the fact that there would be no escape from hospital and medical intervention in the near future if Shona wanted to put up any kind of fight against what was happening.

  She sighed deeply. A resigned sound. ‘Well, that’s going to need careful planning,’ she said heavily. ‘We’ve got the care of a house and a young child to take into account.’

  ‘We’ll manage,’ Pip said, yet again, that evening. ‘I’ll take care of everything, Mum. I’ll juggle my shifts so I can drop Alice off at school. She can come to the hospital after school and wait for me. Or she’s old enough to come home by herself and be alone for a while.’

  ‘Why am I going to be alone?’ Alice breezed into the kitchen, heading straight past the table towards the pantry. ‘Have we got any chocolate biscuits, Nona?’

  ‘You’ve just had your dinner.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m still hungry.’ They could hear packages being rustled in the depths of the large cupboard. ‘So why am I going to be by myself?’

  ‘I might need to go into hospital for a few days,’ Shona said casually. ‘For an operation.’

  ‘Oh…’ Alice shut the cupboard, having extracted a new packet of biscuits. ‘Like last time?’

  ‘Yes.’ Shona gave Pip a warning glance. ‘Just like last time.’

  ‘Do I have to go and stay with that friend of yours? The one with the false teeth?’ Alice gave a visible shudder. ‘It was gross!’

  ‘No,’ Pip said. ‘I’m going to look after you.’

  Alice looked surprised and then pleased. ‘Cool.’ She ripped open the packet of biscuits. ‘Can I go t
o the movies with Dayna tomorrow night?’

  ‘No.’ Pip couldn’t believe how callous Alice was sounding. She opened her mouth to say something to that effect, but caught another look from her mother.

  ‘Not on a school night,’ Shona said evenly. ‘Maybe at the weekend.’

  Pip watched her daughter leave the kitchen, her mouth full of chocolate and wafer. Her eyebrows rose. ‘Aren’t you going to tell her to go easy on those biscuits?’

  Shona shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. And don’t be angry because she doesn’t seem to care. She doesn’t know the truth and that’s the way I want it for the moment.’

  ‘The fact that you even need to go to hospital should be enough to wake her up into thinking about someone other than herself.’

  ‘She’s a teenager.’ Shona smiled. ‘The job description is to think of no one but yourself, isn’t it? Besides, we’ve been here before. She stayed with Mary of the false teeth for a few days and then everything was back to normal. No big deal.’

  Except that nothing was going to be back to normal this time. Not ever.

  ‘Are you sure you can cope?’ Shona sounded worried now. ‘On top of working? There’s more than just supervising Alice and being a taxi. There’s all the housework and cooking and shopping and washing and—’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ Pip assured her. ‘You’ll see.’

  Her mother nodded. ‘I’m sure I will. I’ve never given you the space to try managing everything yourself, have I? Not the best way of parenting, but I guess I got used to feeling needed.’

  ‘You’ll always be needed, Mum. Just not as a housekeeper or babysitter.’

  ‘It’ll help to know you can manage without me.’

  Shona tried, but failed, to summon a smile. ‘One less thing to worry about, anyway. And, Pip?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re to go and have at least one more date with that gorgeous boyfriend of yours before I go into hospital.’

  The date was low key. A coffee and a talk in a kitchen that held no delicious aroma of a meal that would go uneaten because passion intervened.

  ‘Surgery is definitely the best option,’ Toni agreed, still holding Pip’s hands after listening to her account of the interview. ‘The only option.’