by Blake Pierce
I can’t do it, Rachel thought. I can’t tell her…
It then occurred to her that she was going to have to do this twice. There was no way she could just drop the news on both of them at the same time. That could be a potential disaster, Peter having to process it while also trying to help Paige understand what it meant. She’d have to tell Peter first, just the two of them. Then after they’d processed it and got their share of grief and sorrow out of the way, they’d figure out the best way to tell Paige.
Peter came down the stairs moments later, oblivious to Rachel’s dreamlike state. She shook it off as well as she could and managed to keep it together until they all sat down to dinner. Rachel did her best to go through dinner as if it were any other day. And while she had decided to tell just Peter first, she could not help but picture the scene. Sitting alone in the living room, or in the bedroom just before bed. I found out today that I have a large tumor in my brain.
She imagined Peter’s reaction and something about it did not sit well with her. Just thinking of his face collapsing in grief, of his weeping and confusion, made her somehow certain that she would not be able to tell him. It wasn’t fear, but a love for her husband—for her family. As an FBI agent, there had been two times during her career where she had been placed in a situation where she had to tell someone that a loved one had passed. It was one the hardest things she’d ever done and for reasons she could not quite identify, this was infinitely harder.
“…and the lady on the video said the Dole Whip was the best food in the park!”
Rachel was barely even aware that Paige had been speaking. She also saw that Paige was looking directly at her. Dole Whip, Rachel thought. Park. She’s taking about Disney again.
“Yeah, but just ice cream?” Rachel asked, trying to sound as casual as she could.
“With pineapple,” Peter said.
“Yeah! So can we please put that on my list?”
Paige had an ongoing list of things she wanted to try when they took her to Disney World for her eighth birthday. It was still two months away, but she had been planning for it as if it were tomorrow. She’d created playlists to listen to on the drive down and had recently started watching YouTube videos about how to enjoy your Disney trip to the fullest. The tongue-out-of-the-mouth concentration thing had come from Rachel, but the girl’s knack for planning was a direct result of her father’s DNA.
“Yes,” Rachel said, fighting emotion. “It can go on the list.”
She wasn’t sure why, but something about Paige’s planning struck a nerve in her. Her daughter had made plans that she, Rachel, might not even be around for. A wave of sorrow bigger than any other she’d experienced all day rose up within her and she knew she was not going to be able to keep it down.
“You okay?” Peter asked, looking directly at her.
“Yeah,” she said, putting on a smile that felt far too fake. “Just zoning out. Just…”
She felt it rising up—not the words, but the heaviness of it all. Had she just decided not to tell Peter? Had she made the decision to not burden him with this? Or was it just that she was a coward?
“Rachel?” Peter said, concerned now.
“I’m not feeling the best,” she said, the excuse coming quickly and without much effort. Getting out of her chair, she said, “I need to run to the bathroom.”
She was pretty sure Peter called out to her again, but she didn’t hear it clearly. She headed for the stairs, not liking the idea of retreating into the downstairs bathroom to have a complete breakdown. The tears were streaming before she made it to the master bathroom off the bedroom. A low moan had started to rise up in her throat, barely audible as she opened the bathroom door. When she closed it behind her, she sat on the floor with her back against the sink cabinets. She bit back the wailing that wanted so badly to come out and wondered how long it would take for Peter to come up. She thought about Paige and wondered what she might be thinking in that moment.
She rocked herself a bit, back and forth, picturing Paige with a pair of Mickey ears and walking through the park holding Peter’s hand. She was not in the picture, nor was she in the imagined moments of Paige’s high school graduation, first boy troubles, or practicing her slow-dancing with Peter in the living room before prom.
And as all of those images rolled through her head, Rachel started to understand why she was so afraid to tell her family about the tumor—about her very shortened lifespan. It wasn’t only the breaking of their hearts and the disruption of her family. No, at the very core of it was the feeling that she was letting them down in some intangible way.
She wasn’t sure how much time passed between closing the door and the soft rapping sound that came from the other side. It felt like only a few seconds but her shortness of breath and tear-streaked cheeks suggested otherwise.
Peter’s voice followed the soft knocking on the door. “Rach, are you okay?”
“I think so,” she said. She was ashamed at how easily the lie came out. “It’s my stomach and head. Maybe a virus or something. I don’t know.”
“Sick to the stomach?”
“Maybe,” she said. It made her feel guilty, but she wished he’d just leave her alone for a bit. If she could just cry it out and deal with it on her own, it would be easier. Maybe then she’d be able to bring herself to tell them.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Peter said cautiously through the door.
“I will. Thanks. But if this doesn’t let up, I think I’m just going to go to bed.”
She heard Peter’s footsteps walking away from the door. Rachel allowed herself a few more moments to lose herself on the floor. She stifled back her cries, wishing she was home by herself to just let them all out and get acquainted with the idea of death without her family there to make it hurt so much.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lucinda Masters quietly walked out onto her back deck with a pack of cigarettes in her hand, moving with stealth so as no to wake up her husband. Not that it mattered—if he hadn’t stirred awake when she got out of bed at 1:15 in the morning, he wasn’t going to hear the door to the deck open up one floor below. There was a chill to the late spring air, but not an unpleasant one. Still, it made her wish she’d grabbed her robe—coming out in a tank top and a pair of her husband’s boxers wasn’t exactly toasty.
Lucinda had not been sleeping well for a month or so, but it had been especially hard tonight. She’d finally made that damned appointment. She’d been hoping she could avoid it, figuring that the result of Kel’s sperm test would come back with their answers. But when his results had come back totally fine, her worst fears had been realized; their inability to have children was all on her.
She fumbled with the pack of cigarettes and lit one up in the darkness. She hated the habit and only had a few a week. She figured if things went well tomorrow and the following days, she’d have to give the habit up. She was fine with that, though. It was a small price to pay if it meant she and Kel could get pregnant.
Taking a deep drag and puffing it out into the night, Lucinda wondered if thirty-nine was too old to be making a push for pregnancy. It made her regret waiting so long. Until two years ago, she and Kel had both agreed they never wanted to have kids. But something had changed in both of them and now here she was, Lucinda Masters, age thirty-nine, with an appointment with a specialist the following day.
As she took another drag, she realized that though she was tired, she did have a good feeling about tomorrow. She and Kel had made their change of heart on kids unprompted and at roughly the same time. It almost seemed destined to work out. She wondered if—
She heard something to the right, just beyond the deck. She walked in that direction, wondering if the damned racoons had come back. They’d been a menace to the neighborhood last fall, tearing through everyone’s trash cans. She walked to the railing, nudging past the grill, and looked over.
At first, her eyes did not understand what she was seeing. She’d been expecting t
o see a racoon or two—so when she saw the figure of a man standing right there at the edge of her deck, there seemed to be a hiccup between her eyes and her brain. And by the time she figured out exactly what she was seeing, the man was reaching up towards her.
Lucinda let out a cry of surprise, the cigarette falling from her mouth, but it was cut short by the sudden pain along her scalp. It felt like she was being skinned alive up there and it took the sudden jerking motion and then her falling over the side of the deck railing to understand that the man was pulling her by her hair. When she fell, the scream tried to come out again. But when her back and head struck the yard six feet below, all of the wind went rushing out of her.
She stared up to the night sky, the stars twinkling dully, trying to gather her breath. As she tried to get up, the man fell on top of her. He drove a knee into her stomach, and the pain in her lungs, begging for air, was like nothing she’d ever experienced.
But then she felt something slip into her stomach. It was sharp and somehow cold and she felt it slicing through her muscles. There was a tight pinching sensation as something vital was pierced. Somehow, it hurt even worse when the man drew the knife out. He leaned down closer, his nose almost touching hers. His breath was in her face but all she was truly aware of was the knife going in again…and again.
Lucinda thought it might have gone in a fourth time, but she wasn’t too sure. By that time, the stars overhead were growing dimmer and the sky seemed to fall slowly down over her and swallow her up.
CHAPTER FIVE
The bedside clock read 4:15. She wasn’t sure when she woke up, but the little sleep she got had been fragmented, broken. Rachel turned to her right and looked at Peter’s sleeping shape. The sheets covered him from the navel down and she took a moment to appreciate his body. He had never been one to worry about abs or muscles but he’d always been blessed with an unreal metabolism and managed to seem to be in at least decent shape. She toyed with the idea of reaching out and stirring him awake but couldn’t do it. She was tired and stressed—the perfect recipe for caving in and telling him the terrible news.
Coward.
It was a word she called herself many times during the course of the night. Oddly, though, Rachel was okay with it. Untimely death had caused enough damage to her family long before she’d been married. Her mother had died in a boating accident just two days after Rachel’s eleventh birthday. Her father had done his best to run things as a single father but had abandoned her, leaving her with grandparents that, though they loved her fiercely, had not been prepared to raise a child while in their sixties. While her mother’s death had been unexpected, Rachel thought it might be even worse to know it was coming. To tell your family you were going to die in a year—that set up a morbid little chain of dominos that knocked over plans and future visions, hopes, and dreams.
She thought of the trip she and Peter were supposed to make to Montego Bay for their twelve year anniversary next year. She thought of Paige’s Disney trip, of summer camp activities…and in the pre-dawn hours of morning, they felt like little bees stinging her mind. Somehow, she managed to finally drift off to sleep. She fell into a dream instantly and it was like falling into a pool of icy water. She was sitting on the deck of the boat that her mother had died on. Her mother was also there, sitting across from her with a bottle of wine. She drank directly from the bottle as Rachel looked at her.
“It’s about time you met me out on the boat,” her mother said. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail and she looked absolutely radiant—just as Rachel remembered her.
“But…you know what’s going to happen here, right?” Rachel asked.
“Of course I do. It happens to us all. And between you and me, I’d rather go out with my mind and body intact than in a hospital bed when I’m ninety, everything falling apart.”
“But aren’t you scared?”
Her mother laughed and took a long gulp of wine. “No. I’m sad more than anything. Sad that I won’t get to see you grow up, sad that I never got to touch your father again. But you…you still have time left.”
“The tumor…it took my time away. My time is its time. I’m just an oven to keep it cooking.”
“You were always a little overdramatic. Rachel…you have a year. Use it. Use it wisely.”
“What about Peter and Paige? Do I tell them?”
Her mother smiled and when she did, her form started to fade away and the boat began to fall apart. “What am I?” she said. “Your mother?”
Her laughter faded away with her. In its place, as the boat started to deteriorate, some sort of alarm started to sound from the boat. For a fleeting instant, Rachel hovered above the water, the boat fading like her mother into the nothingness of the dream.
She searched for the alarm but when she realized what the noise was, the dream fell away.
Rachel sat up in bed, reaching to the bedside table for her phone. She only had two numbers unblocked on her cell—Peter, and her supervisor at the bureau, Director Anderson. Because it was clearly Director Anderson and, according to the bedside clock, was 5:50 in the morning, she assumed there was something big on the other end of the line.
Do you even care, though? she asked herself.
On the heels of that, she heard her mother from the dream.
“You have a year. Use it wisely.”
As Peter started to stir at the sound of her phone, she answered it quickly. “This is Agent Gift.”
“Gift,” Anderson’s voice said, not sounding sleepy at all. “I know it’s early, but I need you and Rivers to get to Baltimore as early as you can. We’ve got a double homicide that needs wrapping and the local PD is at a loss. I told them I’d get someone up there to assist as soon as I could. You and Rivers need to swing by the office first for a quick briefing.”
The defeatist part of her that was refusing to look beyond the tumor told her there was no point. Was she really going to go on assignment and pretend things hadn’t changed?
Yes, she thought, looking back over to Peter. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
“Yes, sir. Does Rivers know yet?”
“I’m about to call him now. And case reports will be emailed to you within half an hour. Thanks, Gift.”
She ended the call and got out of bed. With the promise of a new case within reach, she didn’t feel as tired as she knew she should. As she walked over to the closet, she heard Peter shift in bed.
“Punching the clock early?” he said groggily.
“Yes. I need to get to Baltimore as soon as I can. Are you okay to call the sitter for this afternoon?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Sorry it’s so early,” she said.
“It’s okay.”
She took her clothes out of the dresser and walked over to his side of the bed. She kissed him softly on the corner of the mouth and he smiled. He then rolled back over on his side, seeking out another hour of sleep before he had to get up. Rachel walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She dressed quickly, feeling oddly at peace with the decision she’d made—a decision that she had rally not wrestled with all that much.
Her background in psychology told her that she was being selfish. She knew that if someone in her situation came to her for advice, she’ tell them to do the exact opposite of what she was doing. What she needed to figure out for herself in order to handle keeping such a secret was if she was telling no one was out of a form of denial or just a way to totally avoid the issue.
Whatever the reason may be, so long as she was able to function at a normal capacity, the tumor was going to be her little secret. It was a secret she’d keep from her family as well as the people she worked with. Yet as she dressed, she thought of her mother on the boat, both fading away in the dream.
“You have a year,” her mother had said.
Looking in the mirror as she slipped into a button down shirt, Rachel looked into the mirror with a thin frown and said, “Use it wisely.”
&n
bsp; ***
When Rachel stepped inside the Richmond field office and made her way back to the conference rooms, she felt like someone was walking on her heels. There was no one there, of course; it was merely the secret she was keeping. Having not told Peter, the tumor now seemed as if it were an actual person, shadowing her wherever she went. She did her best to shake it as she hurried into Conference Room A. Someone had already started a pot of coffee and she was not at all surprised to see Jack Rivers standing by it, filling a cup.
She and Jack had been partners for a little over a year now and had met the same bureau milestones at roughly the same time. They’d barely known one another during the academy and training but when they had been partnered together out of the Richmond branch, it had seemed like a natural fit. Jack was the sort of thirty-three year old that you could just tell was a geeky guy in high school and college, just now starting to understand that he was a rather good-looking man that people were starting to respect. It did not mean, however, that he had dropped the comic banter that Rachel had come to rely on to keep her in a good mood on even the toughest of days. The slight pudge in his cheeks suggested he’d once bene overweight—something he always poked fun at himself about. He referred to himself as a former fat kid that had left the weight behind, but not the sarcasm-as-a-defense-mechanism or his love for obscure music and sci-fi movies.
He looked to her as she came to the coffee pot and grimaced. “You look like shit, Gift. You just wake up?”
Rachel showed him her middle finger just as Chief Director Anderson came in. He was looking over a printed out report as he walked to the front of the room. He was very good at his job and treated all agents under him with kindness and respect, but he was not the sort of man to waste a single second of time. Even before he had sat down and taken his eyes away from the report, he was talking. Rachel and Jack sat down right away, Rachel not yet having time to doctor up her coffee. She sipped from the bureau brew totally black, and thought it might be the equivalent of sipping jet fuel.
