GLASS: A Standalone Novel

by Arianne Richmonde

  “That I will deal with this when we get back, in my own way, and I want no questions and no objections as to how I choose to do it.”

  “Don’t ask me about my business,” Janie said, quoting Al Pacino in The Godfather.

  I feigned a small smile. “Exactly.”

  27

  Janie.

  DANIEL KEPT HIS promise and didn’t say another word about Kristin.

  Our ceremony was perfect. He loved that I was dressed so simply and admitted that he’d been worried that I’d “do” myself up too much. He preferred me with little or no makeup, loved my long white linen dress that was devoid of any designer label. “After all,” he told me, “I’m marrying a woman, not a dress.” I think, after Natasha, glamour turned him off.

  All I had to do was show up at our bungalow in the late afternoon. A pair of local Tahitians wearing garlands of Tiare Tahiti flowers arrived at our little dock, one paddling the traditional canoe, the other strumming a ukulele. While the canoe waited for me, two Tahitian girls and two boys knocked at my door. They laid a white garland of this national flower—a sort of Gardenia—around my neck, its heady aroma, mixed with anticipation, made me almost dizzy with excitement. They settled me into the canoe, helping me balance myself, and I was paddled off toward the shore, where Daniel, Dad, and our guests were waiting.

  Dad helped me out of the canoe, his proud face holding back tears. “You look like your mother on our wedding day,” he told me. “But even more exquisite.”

  It was twilight. There were lit fire torches flickering along the beach, the white sand now golden, and white flower petals had been sprinkled in a pathway, serving as our wedding aisle. Dad and I linked arms and slowly walked toward my groom. Daniel was also dressed in white linen, barefoot. His wayward dark hair and golden tan made his eyes glimmer the brightest blue—I had never seen a person look so happy. So relieved. One of the boys who had come to our bungalow blew into a conch shell, a rumbling low baritone that sent sound waves across the beach.

  I surveyed our little crowd, their happy smiles a blur. Will, Pearl, Alexandre, Daisy, Star, Jake, Jesse, and the bevvy of children chitchatting and excited by the spectacle.

  Dad led me to Daniel and we joined hands.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. And that’s a fact,” Daniel said in his no-nonsense director’s voice.

  “And you the most handsome man I’ve ever laid eyes on,” I gushed.

  The priest, also donning a garland of flowers, began the ceremony. There was music, more ukulele and some soft drums. The priest tied palm fronds on Daniel’s right wrist and my left wrist, and we held hands tightly as he poured ocean water from a conch shell over our joined hands. This symbolized new life. Then one of the girls handed us each a leis and floral crown, which symbolized responsibility.

  “My queen,” Daniel said with a wink, placing the wreath atop my head.

  “My king,” I replied, making the same gesture.

  We exchanged vows and our little crowd applauded. I felt as if I were slightly suspended in the air, a few feet off the ground, but then the words, “I now pronounce you husband and wife” brought me back down, and I sensed the silky sand between my toes, the dappled light of the late evening sun on my shoulders, slightly shaded from the coconut trees above us.

  The evening whirled past as if it were a dream. Dancing, music, excited, squealing children running along the shore, splashing on the edge of the water, and then dinner under the French Polynesian stars, which were more luminescent than ever. I felt stronger inside, knowing that whatever troubles lay ahead of me, I had a husband by my side. My husband. Daniel. Daniel Glass. I was aware that it wouldn’t be easy, but it would be an interesting journey, never boring, always a little edgy. But there was one clear thing: this man loved me for everything I was, my weakness, my strength, my foolishness, my pridefulness. And he saw something in me that I did not: perfection.

  I was perfect for him.

  He made love to me that night, worshipping my body, tears of happiness in his eyes as he trailed kisses across my shoulders, my neck, my nose. In fact, I think he covered every inch of me, all the while telling me how happy I made him, how we were in this for life, how I must never feel alone again, that he would catch me if I fell.

  Before going to bed I slipped quietly into the bathroom and did a home pregnancy test—I bought one at one of the airport pharmacies en route. I’d had a suspicious feeling something was up, because of my breasts feeling swollen lately. Besides, I realized I was late for my period.

  Positive. I was pregnant!

  Does it sound corny to say this was the happiest day of my life? Because it truly was, especially when what was to come next shattered us into thousands of little pieces.

  Perhaps having Glass as my last name was some kind of omen.

  28

  Daniel.

  I HAD GONE through hell with Natasha, I deduced, to be able to truly appreciate heaven with Janie. There is no Yin without the Yang. Sad, but true. Without the shit you don’t get to really feel happiness the same way.

  Our wedding was fucking perfect.

  This waif of a girl had conquered my heart. Something deep in my subconscious had known that she was one in a million the day she walked into my rehearsal room that time.

  My Janie Juilliard was all mine.

  But I never imagined she’d break my soul in two. Never courted the possibility that anything or anyone could come between us. Thought our strength of love was unbreakable. But when you have Glass for a name, I guess a happy ever after was asking too much.

  29

  Janie.

  IT WAS THE blood test that started it all. That simple blood test that I was so looking forward to; the one that would confirm the little pink line of the home pregnancy test.

  I whipped into the office of the closest gynecologist to where Daniel and I were staying. Daniel had rented a house in Laurel Canyon. I hadn’t even asked him to come along with me to the doctor. It would be a speedy, whip in, whip out visit. On my first visit, the day before, it was. They just took my blood, but when I went back the next day to get results, it took a lot longer than I anticipated.

  The doctor was a wiry young man with spectacles, who looked more like a librarian than a doctor. All I had imagined was a quickie chat, nothing more. Had I thought about it, I would have asked to see a woman.

  But forty-five minutes later, after he had noticed, with the ultrasound, that my liver was enlarged, he examined the results of my blood work with an eagle eye.

  “Your blood work is very concerning,” he told me, his brow a deep furrow, his glasses slipping to the end of his bony nose. He perused the results, his eyes scanning up and down. “I know this is hard to hear, but better now than later, right? I always like to be up-front with my patients. I’m afraid it looks as if we’re dealing with some type of blood cancer. Your white cell count is abnormally high. Maybe Leukemia.”

  I didn’t believe him. Not for a second. I almost laughed in his face. Served me right for not going to Star’s doctor, for picking some random physician, based on the proximity to our rental place.

  “There must be some kind of mistake,” I said with confidence, not trusting his diagnosis one bit. “I’ve been hospitalized twice in the last month. Once in LA, and once in Las Vegas. They did blood work. I was diagnosed as anemic. Nobody said anything about cancer.”

  His forehead creased into a crinkly map—veins like rivers. “They did a CBC? A complete blood count?”

  “Of course. And nobody alerted me to the fact I was anything other than anemic.” His words, and mine, echoed in my head. Back and forth. The Big C. No way! A mistake. It had to be. They would have known if I had freaking cancer!

  “We’ll conduct a bone marrow biopsy, just to be sure. Not here, but at the hospital. I don’t have the resources, and it’s not my expertise. Don’t lose hope, Janie, there is excellent treatment at hand, especially if you have an extensive insurance policy. Of
course, if you do have cancer your best hope to beat it is a termination.”

  My heart plummeted to the floor. “Of the baby? You mean an abortion?”

  “You’re very young. And that’s the problem with cancer in young patients. Because of your “health” and vigor, the disease spreads at an alarmingly fast pace. Were you in your seventies, say, there’d be the luxury of more time to combat it because cancer is slow in older patients. But the fact you’re pregnant, with all your hormones in full swing, so to speak, the disease can develop at an alarmingly fast pace. We simply can’t wait around until after you’ve had the baby to start treatment. Chemo can hurt the fetus—there’s a risk of the baby being born premature.”

  He’d said an alarmingly fast pace, twice. Yes, I got it the first time. Why hadn’t I brought Daniel with me? What was all this? He’d know what to say, what to do. I still couldn’t believe this gynecologist was speaking like an oncologist . . . as if he were a cancer expert. How dare he? How dare he turn my life upside down?

  “I’m . . . I’m leaving. I need to speak to my husband,” I rasped, gathering my purse and the results from the test. “And get a second opinion. I’ll be in touch.”

  THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS were like wading through a wet and dangerous marsh plagued with malaria-borne mosquitoes. Never letting us rest, nor relax, nor revel in the happiness of our marriage, for one second. Always nipping at us, threatening death and demise.

  Acute Myeloid Leukemia, that’s what I had. AML is a pretty rare form of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow, causing an overproduction of immature white blood cells that can’t fend for themselves. It’s very unusual for someone of my age. I learned that typical symptoms of AML mimicked anemia due to a lack of red cells; causing persistent tiredness, dizziness, paleness, or shortness of breath. All of the things I’d been suffering from when it was thought I had anemia. Daniel threatened to sue both hospitals for their harmful misdiagnosis, but we needed to conserve our energy to the problem at hand, not “cry over spilt milk” as Daisy so aptly described it. I had to make decisions, remain strong. Everyone was supportive and wonderful, yet I didn’t want to spend time with anyone except Daniel. Not my father, not Will, nor any of my friends. This was our private battle, not some soap opera. I didn’t want sympathy, and I certainly didn’t appreciate judgment when it came to my personal decisions.

  I became more and more determined that I would not sacrifice my baby, not go through with a termination. Daniel tried to remain calm, but he let me know I was his number one priority and that we had a whole life ahead of us—plenty of time for getting pregnant again. But he had his facts wrong; it was possible that the treatment could cause infertility and this was my only chance. Daniel wasn’t pushing me, but made it clear which way the wind blew for him. I felt differently. I had always been pro-choice, yet suddenly when it was my baby, my life, and Daniel’s life right inside of me, there was no way I would deliberately harm our creation, our living and breathing child. I couldn’t.

  I’d take the risk. Call me crazy, but that was what I decided to do.

  30

  Daniel.

  I’D BEEN BLAMING the hospitals, not comprehending how two major institutions could have misdiagnosed Janie’s disease, mistakenly thinking it was anemia. But as I was scanning the Internet for as much information as possible about Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a realization slapped me hard across the face. I read:

  In most cases the causes of AML remain largely unknown but it is thought to result from damage to one or more of the genes that normally control blood cell development.

  Damage. The image of that witch resurfaced. The film that Star had captured on her phone: Kristin hovering over my brain like a vulture. Kristin fucking Jürgen . . . still at large. I’d been so focused on Janie, I hadn’t had time to even find out where she was.

  I rolled her name on my lips like poison: Kristin fucking Jürgen.

  I thought back. Janie was diagnosed as suffering from anemia when she was admitted to the hospital in LA. Ditto when she ended up collapsing from exhaustion at the hospital where I lay in a coma. Kristin had gotten in to her room, no doubt. Had she administered some sort of drug, using Janie like one of her lab animals? The way she’d been using me? What if she had injected her with something that had set off the disease? Leukemia was often found in people living near telephone towers, or where there were radiation leaks. Chemicals in cigarettes, hazardous substances like asbestos—these had been proven to set the cancer in motion.

  I scoured the Internet frantically.

  I read everything I could about induced cancer in lab animals and came across the chemical Benzene, still used widely in manufacturing. It said:

  Benzene is known to cause cancer, based on evidence from studies in both people and lab animals. The link between benzene and cancer has largely focused on leukemia and cancers of other blood cells.

  I read on:

  Benzene has been shown to cause chromosome changes in bone marrow cells in the lab. (The bone marrow is where new blood cells are made.) Such changes are commonly found in human leukemia cells.

  benzene

  'bεnzi:n/

  noun

  noun: benzene

  a colorless volatile liquid hydrocarbon present in coal tar and petroleum, and used in chemical synthesis. Its use as a solvent has been reduced because of its carcinogenic properties.

  But could it induce cancer within a matter of weeks? I couldn’t find any evidence to the contrary, nor evidence supporting this theory. Yet what a clever way for Kristin to test her experiment! She wouldn’t even need to be present herself, she’d hear soon enough if Janie had fallen ill. Janie was an actress, and about to be a big star—or would have been had this not gotten in the way. Obviously we had suspended filming The Dark Edge of Love. Kristin could have administered the Benzene, or whatever poison she’d used, sit back and see what happened over the course of the next few years.

  I took a deep breath to compose myself. Looked up at the blue, LA sky. Tried to get a grip on my spiraling emotions. Maybe my imagination had run wild. Maybe I was lashing out at anything, anyone to blame for Janie’s illness? My accusation was pretty crazy. For starters, what was in it for Kristin besides a morbid curiosity?

  I wouldn’t say a word to Janie about the ramblings in my head. What was the point in piling on more angst, more worry? And it sounded fatalistic, the idea of some lethal, carcinogenic chemical being injected intravenously into an innocent patient by a mad doctor. It would terrify Janie. What was done was done—we needed to find a cure, not dwell on the how and why. I needed to be her rock, not some lunatic making the situation worse. We had a team of fantastic oncologists who were treating Janie. The best money could buy. There was hope, they all said. We were going to beat this together.

  But the idea of that evil woman Kristin still on the loose made my gut roil.

  I called Alexandre Chevalier to get Elodie’s number. He didn’t ask any questions but simply said, “The good doctor? You’ll find Elodie has dealt with that.”

  I didn’t reply but knew exactly what I had to do.

  And I needed to do it sooner rather than later.

  WHILE I WAS AWAY I’d arranged for Janie to stay at Star and Jake’s beautiful house on the beach in Malibu. It was perfect for my wife. Full-time staff on tap, company for Janie (because Star wasn’t working right now), a chef, a chauffeur to drive Janie to the hospital every day for her chemotherapy, and anything else she needed. We had just moved into our place in the Hills—a rental—until we found the house of our dreams. Well, this had been the plan until all this happened. I didn’t want Janie to be alone up there, and having her father and brother come to stay would hardly be relaxing for her. She needed rest and plenty of care. Star’s place was perfect for a few days.

  I felt bad leaving my wife, but I couldn’t take my mind off my ex sister-in-law, and something had to be done. Elodie had tracked Kristin to where she said she’d be: Bermuda. So far, it
seemed she hadn’t broken the rules; she was lying low, keeping her face down. But I didn’t trust her an inch. No, make that a millimeter. I wanted to talk to her, face to face. Look her in the eye. Sit her down and discuss every minute detail of her experiments, and grill her about her activities in the hospital while Janie had been admitted. I needed raw facts to stop myself fantasizing about the maybes, the possibilities of what she’d done or was capable of doing. She was a respected doctor, a neurologist. Was she really a certifiably insane person too? So far, all I was going on was Star’s little film, which proved nothing conclusive. Although locking Janie up was hardly behaving in a normal, rational way. But I needed to talk to other specialists, Kristin’s colleagues, as well as to her. Leave no stone unturned before bringing her to justice. I’m an impulsive man, but I am also fair. I didn’t want a rash decision, based only on emotions, to haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Elodie refused to let me know where I could find Kristin. Of course, I did my own research but couldn’t come up with a damn thing. For all intents and purposes, Kristin was invisible. That was the first surprise. I deduced she must be going under a new name. Was Elodie aware of this? I guessed she was. It made me nervous that I was putting my trust in this strange young woman, who couldn’t have been any older than Janie. She was an odd bird, Elodie. A loner. I met her very briefly when I woke up from my coma. We’d Skyped a couple of times since, about Kristin, but other than that I barely knew anything about her, apart from what Janie had told me; she was Alexandre Chevalier’s niece, but not by blood. Sophie Dumas was technically her stepmother. She was a bit of a genius with technology. A hacker. A backpacker who’d traveled in unsavory, dangerous countries, and who refused to take advantage of her wealth. In short: a bit of an enigma.

  I’d offered to put Elodie up at the five star resort, where I was staying by the ocean, all expenses paid, but she refused.