by Jess Bentley
I can’t ignore it anymore.
I get out of bed and check on Chloe, who is sleeping peacefully in her crib next to me. We live in a studio apartment, so I have to tip-toe to the kitchen to avoid waking her up. As has become my ritual, I drink down half of a bottle of goopy pink stomach medicine to try and combat the pain. But the vile liquid stopped working a while ago, so I’m not sure why I even bother.
When Chloe was born, my family didn’t understand why I refused to tell Pierce about her. I’m not sure why they were confused. Pierce can barely take care of himself, so I knew telling him about the baby would just add a whole lot more drama to both of our lives. Besides, she’s my responsibility, and he’s away with the SEALs, which is exactly where he needs to be to take care of his responsibilities. I vowed to raise her myself — whatever it took. Yet now, as I lay on the cold tile floor of the kitchen, I can’t help but wish I had backup, someone to help me as I try to deal with my body betraying me to this misery.
Three days ago, my aunt and uncle forced me to go to the doctor, concerned about my rapid weight loss and the fact that my skin was starting to tinge a strange shade of yellow. They scraped up every penny they could to pay the bill. They even said they’d take care of the bills after that, but that didn’t exactly make me feel better. It’s like they knew something was wrong. Really wrong. The doctor ran all sorts of blood work, then sent me for a CAT scan and a really uncomfortable biopsy. Even though it was all over in the course of a few hours, I knew the medical bills would be obscene. As I leave the doctor, I realize I’m already more terrified about the money than what the results might show.
In four hours, I have to pack up Chloe and all of her things and go back into the city to find out the test results. I can already hear her cooing in her crib, starting to wake up. My favorite part of the day is when she wakes up, all smiling and happy, excited to start the day. I always kiss the inside of her neck, where it smells like sweet milk and baby powder. It always makes her giggle, and she gives me that toothless grin, perfect and pure. It almost makes me forget about the creeping dread I feel at the idea of being sick, at not knowing how we will make rent. She is the only thing that keeps me going.
Should I have told Pierce? No. I’ll never be able to count on him.
Chloe lets out a little whimper, and I drag myself up off the floor to get her morning bottle ready. My pain doesn’t matter. Only Chloe matters, and it’s time to start the day.
Chloe and I are sitting in a sterile doctor’s office in downtown Manhattan, waiting in silence after a nurse has taken my vitals. The nurse is extremely kind, almost treating me like a China doll, and it makes me nervous. Chloe is on the floor, trying to lift up on her knees and crawl. I take her and sit her up when the door budges, holding her steady. I bend my body in half to keep her steady, ignoring the creeping pain in my body. When Dr. Arnold walks in, he wears a strained smile on his face. He sits on a rolling stool across from me and sets his hands on his knees, making extended eye contact, as if he’s steeling himself for something. My stomach curls into a snake of anxiety.
“Arie, we got your results back yesterday. I’m going to need to refer you to a specialist to confirm, but…”
I feel like I’m going to throw up. For the third time today. “What? Just tell me. I’m a big girl. I can take it.” I smile and shrug, like he’s about to tell me I just have a stomachache.
“Your test results indicate that you have a mass in your pancreas. It’s most likely contained at this point. But the preliminary exam seems to indicate that the tumor is malignant.”
Cancer. He won’t say it. But it’s there, on the tip of his tongue. I can almost see the word hanging in the air between us.
My head starts to swim, and I think there is a very good chance I am going to pass out. I lower myself onto the cool tile floor to sit with Chloe. There’s a very real chance I’ll fall right on top of her from the chair if I’m not sitting right next to her. I focus on her voice.
“Da,” she says. She holds up a piece of a wooden puzzle, as if to show it to the doctor. “Da,” she repeats. “Ta.”
I swallow hard before I speak. “How? Are you sure? What does that mean? What can we do? How much will...”
I know I’m asking more questions than he can answer but I’m afraid if I stop talking, I might replace the words with sobbing. He bends down awkwardly and puts a hand on my shoulder, an action I don’t find remotely comforting.
“Arie, this is why I need to send you to a pancreatic oncologist. You need to have the results confirmed by someone who knows this disease inside and out. I am not that person. I’ve already set an appointment up for you with the best doctor at Sloane-Kettering. You’re seeing her tomorrow.”
I shake my head. “No, I can’t tomorrow. I have to work. I need someone to watch Chloe. Maybe next week. But I can’t go tomorrow.”
He squeezes my knee. “Arie. You can’t wait a week. You have to go tomorrow.”
“What? Why? What are you trying to tell me? How long do I have?”
Dr. Arnold looks down at his feet. “I can’t tell you that with any certainty, Arie. I’m not an oncologist.”
“Bullshit. You’re still a doctor. Tell me how long I have.”
He glances over at Chloe and takes a long, slow breath. “I can absolutely not make estimates in your case. But in the average case of pancreatic cancer, once discovered, the patient survives three to six months with treatment. Could be months. Could be years. There’s no way to know for sure.”
Chloe grabs my finger and shakes it in the air like a toy. I drink in the small sounds she’s making, trying to make a memory of her.
A deep pain grows in my throat. Its taste is acrid and salty all at once. The taste of anger and sadness, and the horror of realizing that if I’m gone now, there’s no way she’ll ever remember me.
Pierce
New York City, 2016
It’s my seventy-seventh morning waking up in my childhood bedroom, and while the pain is getting more bearable. But the indignity being back in my parents’ house is harder to take. I ease up out of my bed, and try to stifle a groan as my leg refuses to straighten, a common occurrence when I get up in the morning. After the raid in the weapons factory that night, I know I’m lucky to have a leg at all. Bullets from an assault rifle tore through my calf muscle, my knee, and my tibia, leaving it with multiple fractures that had be surgically repaired in Germany. Rods, screws, and all manner of other medical devices now fill my leg, and the odds of me ever walking without a limp again are slim-to-none.
One thing I will definitely never be doing again is running missions with the SEALs.
I was given an honorable discharge, a Purple Heart for getting wounded in action, and a pat on the shoulder by the President. Now, I’m back in Manhattan, trying to recuperate — to “focus on healing,” as my mother says. But all I’ve been able to do is wander around the house, missing my teammates. I feel lost, even more lost than I did when I left for training. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I went from having no purpose, to having the greatest purpose in the world, back to having no purpose again. And I hate the feeling of being useless. My father assures me that as soon as I am able, there is a position waiting for me at CSL. Yet, I can’t help but feel like it’s not enough. Like I was meant to be more. To do more.
I look up at the paint on the ceiling. It’s blue like the sky, but it’s chipping now. I’ve looked at it every day for two months, and it’s starting to drive me insane. I close my eyes and inch myself out of bed, walking slow. I moved off of my cane last week, but on some mornings, I still feel like I need it. The pain grinds in my leg, but I grit my teeth and suck it up. That’s the only thing I can do.
I walk down the spiral staircase, something that takes me a lot longer than it used to, and make my way to the kitchen, where I find Logan making an omelet in his boxers. He’s home on leave, and decided to stay at the house since I’m here. It feels like we’re both teenagers again, and for a m
oment, I forget that we’re not.
“Why are you up so early, Lo?” I ask as I hoist myself up onto a bar stool.
He turns with a yawn, then slides the omelet over to me and sets about making himself another one. “You know how it is. Nothing wakes you up earlier than a night of irresponsible partying and promiscuous sex.”
I roll my eyes. My brother is the last person in the world who would ever be irresponsible or promiscuous. That was always my job. “What were you really doing?”
He flips the new omelet in the air and catches it in the pan perfectly. “Blind date. It was a bust. You should have come with me. She had a friend that was… interesting. I really wish you’d come out with me occasionally, Pierce. It wouldn’t kill you to get out of the house.”
I know he’s right, but the truth is, I have almost no interest in going out and partying, even the lame way Logan does it. And it has nothing to do with my leg, or the fact I’ve lost my ability to relate to the average person. It’s because the idea of dating just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Not since Arie. Not since the way I treated her.
After we broke up, but before I went into BUD/S, I went on a sort of… woman bender. I thought I could fuck Arie out of my system, and I turned it into an Olympic sport. I slept with nearly any woman who would have me, thinking that eventually, I might forget how horrible I’d been to the only woman I’d ever loved. And I had been. An absolute asshole. Not a day goes by where I don’t regret everything that happened between us those days. When I close my eyes each night, I see one of two things: either the flashing of gunfire that ended my Navy career… or the look on Arie’s face when she turned and walked out of the coffee shop.
I’ve thought about looking her up a dozen times, but I can’t imagine a single scenario where she’d want anything to do with me ever again. I was a selfish, arrogant, useless bastard, and she was better off without me then. She is definitely better off without me now.
“Earth to Pierce!” Logan is waving a spatula in front of my face, and some stray egg falls on my arm. I pick it off and flick it at him.
“What? What did I miss?”
“Everything. As usual. Come out with me tonight! I’m going to this new whiskey bar in the East Village. I’ll even pay for your drinks, even though you make more than me.”
I snort. “I don’t make anything, Logan. Right now, I just sit on my ass and watch movies all day.”
“Bullshit. You watch soap operas and we both know it.”
I wave my hands at him to shut up. “We don’t need the whole house knowing my business! Besides, those shows are addictive. And they’re my only vice now. Cut a guy some slack.”
Logan rolls his eyes. “So, you’re going to come with me?”
I shake my head. “Negative. I have physical therapy today, and I’m always exhausted after PT. You go and have a good time without your no-good older brother tagging along. Maybe you’ll meet some pretty college girl who can take you back to her place,” I say with a wink. I know Logan isn’t the one-night-stand type, but I like teasing him anyway.
“Yeah, right. I’ll probably just try out their artisan whiskey, embarrass myself in front of a pretty bartender. Then I’ll come home, dejected and drunk.” He laughs.
“That sounds about right.” I barely avoid getting hit by a dish towel that Logan chucks at me. “But really. Have fun. Maybe next time.”
We both know the odds of there being a next time are non-existent. But as long as I say it, we can continue to pretend it may happen one day. In the meantime, I have to get ready for physical therapy, and that means preparing myself for two hours of unimaginable pain from which there is no escape.
What woman could say no to all of that, right?
Arie
New York City, 2016
“I’m sorry, Miss Blanchard. I don’t understand. You want me to do what?”
I reach into my purse and take out my bottle of pain pills. The only way I make it through the days now is by swallowing as many as I can at a time while remaining functional for Chloe. I had to stop breastfeeding before I started chemo. She’s eating food now, holding her own bottle. I’ve wept so many times I can’t count. I hope there’s love in Pierce. I hope there are things I never saw, never got a chance to see.
Right now, we’re in a lawyer’s office in the Bowery, and Chloe is bouncing happily on my knee. Her thirteen-month birthday was yesterday. I won’t make it to see her turn two. I’m trying not to look directly at her, afraid I might burst into tears. Again.
“I need you to draft papers that designate all parental rights to my daughter to her father. They need to take effect immediately, and I need you to arrange to have her brought to him as soon as possible.” The words come out in a horrible rush. I hope he doesn’t make me repeat myself again.
The lawyer, a squat little man with sausage fingers and a mustache, looks at me like I’m crazy. “Miss, far be it from me to turn away someone who needs help. But have you thought this through? Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. ‘This too shall pass,’ as the poets say.”
I roll up my sleeves and show him the multiple holes in my yellow skin from all of the injections and IVs I’ve had in the last three months. I pull back my knit cap to reveal my patches of missing hair. “Mr. Bailey, my doctors said I had three-to-six months to live. We’re just past three months today. I’ve informed them I want to stop chemo, because it’s obviously not working. My family is in no position to take care of my daughter, and her father is. He comes from a wealthy family, and he can give her the life she deserves. I want to make sure she’s provided for, and doesn’t end up in foster care. So, this is the way it has to be. If you won’t do it, I will find someone who will.”
The lawyer can’t make eye contact with me anymore. As soon as people find out how sick I am, they usually resort to awkward platitudes or completely shut down. I’m not going to give this man the chance. I don’t have time.
“Sir, I need you to do this today. I have all of her things with me. It is important that she be settled with him as soon as possible. But I also have a very important caveat that you must make sure is included in the papers.”
He looks up from the desk with one eye, then quickly looks back down and shuffles papers nervously. “What would that be, Miss Blanchard?”
“Pierce can never know who Chloe’s mother is. It’s for the best. I want them both to move on with their lives. I know he will want proof Chloe is his, and that’s fine. But there is no reason for me to be involved in the equation. Is that understood?”
Bailey looks up in earnest this time. “Miss Blanchard…”
“Arie, please.”
“Arie. I have to be honest with you. I’m troubled. What possible harm could there be in Chloe’s father knowing that you are her mother?”
I cough, and the cough causes excruciating pain in my abdomen. I am so tired of being sick, and I’m tired of being tired. Everything is weighing on me, and the only thing that is keeping me going is Chloe. I know once she is safe, I can finally stop fighting this. And that’s all I want right now.
“Mr. Bailey, I am poor. I am beyond poor. I have been forced to borrow money from some very questionable men just to pay for my medical treatments. I have gone to great lengths to ensure that those men have no idea I have a family, let alone a daughter. Once I am dead, there is nothing they can do to get their money back, no one they can hurt. If Pierce doesn’t know who Chloe’s mother is, he can’t make any connections that might get him, or Chloe, hurt. So, please. Just do this for me.”
Bailey sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. “All right, Arie. I will help you. But let’s make one thing very clear. I don’t want any dirty money making its way into my accounts. Nothing that started out in the pocket of a loan shark. So… I’m going to do this pro bono.”
Tears well in my eyes, and I feel guilty for being suspicious of him. “Thank you, Mr. Bailey.”
He nods. “Call me Roger. We’re going to get this sorte
d out for you, Arie. We’re going to make sure your little girl is safe.”
It’s the first piece of good news I’ve had in months, and for a moment, I feel at peace.
Pierce
New York City, 2016
It’s my first day at CSL, and I feel like everyone is treating me with kid gloves. My dad has appointed me head of Overseas Logistics and Security Maintenance, which sounds a lot more complicated than it is. But truthfully, I’m far more qualified for it now than I was before, when I had nothing to my name but a degree earned with straight C’s and a bad attitude. At least now, when people contact us looking for help organizing security details in Europe and the Middle East, I have the experience to advise them properly.
It doesn’t change the fact that I feel like I’m in over my head, especially since I have no assistant yet. My father’s assistant keeps running back and forth, trying to help me acclimate. It’s not even 10am, and I’ve already had a total of seven people come in and out of my office, expecting me to know answers to questions I don’t even remotely understand. My head is spinning, and my leg is starting to ache a little more than I care to admit, so I opt to take a few seconds just to set my head on my desk to regroup. I hear an insistent cough from just outside my office door. I know I should sit up, and be professional, but I just don’t have it in me.
Instead, I raise my voice enough that they can hear me even though I’m still face down.
“Whatever it is, if you could take it down to Melody at James Cochran’s office, I’d appreciate it. Just a little swamped at the moment.” I’m sure I look like I’m full of shit, but hey. It’s my first day. But the person just coughs again, and doesn’t move.
