Chapter 2 - NOT CHEMOTHERAPY
Nobody answered.
Wine dripped from the edge of the table onto the floor.
Mark finally stood.
“Daniel—”
“Everybody out.”
Linda looked at him.
“Daniel.”
He did not raise his voice.
“Everybody who doesn't live here. Out.”
His sister started to protest.
Emma said:
“Please.”
That did it.
Coats came off chair backs.
Nobody knew where to step because Thanksgiving dinner covered half the floor.
Mark squeezed Daniel's shoulder on the way past.
Daniel barely felt it.
Within three minutes, the front door closed behind the last relative.
Only Daniel, Linda and Emma remained.
Emma started picking up broken glass.
Daniel said:
“Leave it.”
She stopped.
His eyes were still on Linda.
“The pills.”
Linda swallowed.
“They're for your heart.”
Daniel looked at the label again.
“I thought they were part of the lymphoma treatment.”
“They were prescribed when your heart rate kept spiking.”
“I know when they were prescribed.”
“Then—”
“I thought the spikes were because I was sick.”
Linda looked down.
Daniel's voice hardened.
“Were they?”
“You were having tachycardia.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Emma stood beside the ruined table, frozen.
Linda said:
“The metoprolol is real medication.”
Daniel laughed once.
The sound frightened Emma.
“No one asked if the pills were imaginary.”
“You should not stop them suddenly.”
Daniel stared.
“That's what you have?”
“Daniel, please.”
He set the bottle down.
Carefully.
“What does that paper mean?”
Linda looked toward Emma.
Emma opened her backpack.
Pulled out more pages.
“I found the whole packet.”
Linda's expression changed.
“You went through my files?”
“It was in the printer tray.”
“I was printing insurance documents.”
“Yeah.”
Emma tossed another page onto the table.
“This was behind them.”
Daniel picked it up.
AMENDED PATHOLOGY REPORT.
The date was March 11.
Eight months earlier.
His surgery had been March 3.
Daniel remembered the first biopsy.
The doctor sitting across from him and Linda.
The phrase:
B-cell lymphoma highly suspected.
Then the surgical removal of the enlarged lymph node.
Then waiting.
Linda had told him the final review confirmed it was localized.
That because the entire suspicious node had been removed and the rest of his imaging looked clear, the oncology team was choosing observation before deciding whether more treatment was needed.
He had been grateful.
Terrified.
But grateful.
Two scans later, Linda said the doctor called it a complete response.
By September, his family was saying remission.
By November, recovery.
Daniel looked at the report.
March 11.
Original core biopsy interpretation withdrawn.
Outside review and excisional specimen show no malignant lymphoid population.
He looked at Linda.
“This says they corrected it eight days after surgery.”
Linda nodded.
Daniel's hand started shaking.
“You told me in April that the cancer was gone.”
She did not answer.
“Linda.”
“I told you the scans were clear.”
“You told me the lymphoma had responded.”
“I said—”
“Do not do this with wording.”
She stopped.
Emma's face crumpled.
Daniel looked back at the report.
“No chemo.”
Linda whispered:
“No.”
“No radiation.”
“No.”
“I never had either.”
“No.”
He knew that.
Of course he knew.
But in his mind, the surgery had been treatment.
The medications afterward had been treatment.
The repeated bloodwork.
The scans.
The restrictions.
The way Linda measured his temperature when he looked tired.
The way she took over the business accounts.
The way everyone whispered around him for months.
Daniel had put it all beneath one word.
Cancer.
He looked at his wife.
“You knew on March eleventh.”
Linda's silence lasted too long.
Emma covered her mouth.
Daniel said:
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
The answer came quietly.
Emma walked backward until she hit the wall.
Daniel remained seated.
“Who told you?”
“The hospital.”
“Why you?”
“You listed me as your medical proxy when you had surgery.”
“That means they told you before they told me?”
Linda looked at the floor.
“They were supposed to call you too.”
“Did they?”
“I don't know.”
Daniel stood.
“You do know.”
“I never saw you speak to them.”
He stared.
Linda's face broke.
“They told me the biopsy was wrong.”
There.
Not suspected.
Not maybe.
Wrong.
Daniel picked up his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling St. Matthew.”
May you like
“It's Thanksgiving.”
“Then someone can ruin their dinner too.”
