Chapter 16 - The Future We Thought We Lost
Dr. Patel chose his words carefully.
Chemotherapy could affect fertility.
Sophie already knew.
I didn’t.
“How seriously?”
I asked.
He looked at Sophie.
She answered instead.
“Possibly permanently.”
I stared at her.
“You knew?”
“Before treatment started.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
She flinched.
The hypocrisy of my question reached me immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked down.
“I was divorced.”
“You weren’t supposed to consider my feelings.”
“I didn’t know if I would survive.”
Her voice trembled.
“I couldn’t deal with the possibility of surviving and still losing motherhood.”
I sat beside her.
“You haven’t lost motherhood.”
“Don’t.”
“Sophie—”
“No inspirational speech.”
“I wasn’t going to give one.”
She looked at me.
“I was going to say I don’t know what our future looks like.”
Our future.
She noticed the word too.
I continued.
“But children were never the reason I loved you.”
Her eyes filled.
“They became the reason we broke.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“Fear became the reason we broke.”
“Emma and Caleb were part of our family.”
“They still are.”
“And if there are never more children, they still are.”
Sophie started crying.
I held her.
Several weeks passed.
Treatment resumed with adjusted medication.
The clot stabilized.
Her blood counts recovered.
Slowly, the calendar on her refrigerator filled with crossed-out appointments.
Then came the final scheduled infusion.
Rachel brought cupcakes nobody wanted to eat.
The nurses applauded when Sophie rang the brass bell outside the infusion room.
She cried before she could finish ringing it.
So did I.
Dr. Patel scheduled the remission scan for six weeks later.
Those six weeks were worse than treatment.
Without appointments every few days, there was room for fear again.
Sophie started counseling.
Eventually, I joined her.
The therapist asked why our marriage ended.
I gave a ten-minute explanation.
She looked at me.
“That was impressive.”
I waited.
“You explained everything except how you felt.”
Sophie laughed so hard she nearly fell off the couch.
I stared at both of them.
Apparently even therapy had ambush tactics.
But I went back the following week.
And the week after that.
On the morning of Sophie’s remission scan, she stood outside the imaging center shaking.
I offered my hand.
She took it.
“If it’s back?”
“We face it.”
“If it’s gone?”
I looked at her.
“Then we learn how to live without waiting for disaster.”
Hours later, Dr. Patel entered the consultation room.
May you like
He smiled before sitting down.
And for the first time, I loved a doctor for failing to control his expression.
