DAY 39
Hope
“But just read the studies, please!”
Dr. Max’s voice was calm. “I have read them, Polly. It’s my job to keep up with the research.”
“Well, then! The stem cell treatment’s shown good results.”
“In a very limited trial. For one type of cancer, which you don’t have. And two patients died from it. They’re a long way off an available treatment. Two years at least. I’m sorry. You don’t have that kind of time.”
“But... I’ll sign something! I’ll agree to have it early, before it’s ready. I can be the tester!” Her voice cracked. Annie couldn’t bear it. She got up to leave from her post outside Polly’s room, but blundered into George, arriving with a bag of snacks from Waitrose. Annie knew Polly wouldn’t be able to eat any of it, but they kept trying to bring her things, tempt her appetite back.
“What’s the matter?” he whispered, seeing her face.
“I—” she waved at the door “—can’t stop listening. Sorry. It’s awful.”
“...can’t let you do that. The ethics board would never pass it.”
“Well, then, I’ll go somewhere else. I bet someone in the States offers it, or somewhere else, or—”
“Polly.” It was as stern as she’d ever heard Dr. Max be. George’s eyes were wide-open, listening in. “Please try to understand. It may be that some hospital somewhere would give you this stem cell treatment, in return for thousands and thousands of pounds of your money. There is no evidence it would even work, and in my opinion you’re not well enough to travel overseas. You’d need a letter from me, which I wouldn’t give.”
“Why?”
“Because it would kill you.”
“I’m dying, anyway, for fuck’s sake! Why won’t you give me a chance?”
“I have done. I’ve given you every chance there is. This treatment—if it even becomes that—is too far off for you. There’s nothing else we can do, Polly. I’m so sorry.”
The sound of sobbing. “I just want more time. Please. Just a bit more time.”
“I... Christ, Polly. I’m sorry.”
Annie and George jumped as Dr. Max opened the door, trying to look nonchalant. “So, yeah, it’s burrito day in the canteen,” George babbled.
Dr. Max raised a bushy eyebrow. “I guess you two heard all that.”
“Mmmaybe.”
“Please try to talk her out of this. Has she been holding out hope all this time? That there’s a magic last-minute cure we’re going to find?”
Annie thought of the research papers Polly had been reading, her mother’s insistence on acupuncture and herbs and creative visualizations. “I think she’s sort of been...in denial. She couldn’t take it in.” She could see it now. Polly cheerfully reciting the words: I’m dying. I have three months to live. Like someone acting a part, not really believing it.
“Jesus. So that’s why she handled it so well. Listen, both of you. If I believed there was anything more to do, I would do it. But there is no cure. There is no miracle. The sooner she accepts that, the better.”
George was shaking. “I think we all thought... I think we all believed there was something...” From inside the room was the sound of frenzied sobbing. Polly, positive, upbeat Polly, had finally broken. “There’s really nothing?”
“Nothing,” Dr. Max said firmly. “I’m sorry, I have to go check on another patient. I’ll see you later.” He went stomping off.
George bit his lip. “Jesus, Annie. What do I do? What do I tell my parents? Mum’s in total denial.”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
He was still shaking. “Oh, God. What will I say to Poll? How can I even talk to her, now that we know—what will I say to her?”
“Um...” Annie’s head was reeling. “Maybe lead with that thing about burrito day?”
He looked at her, shocked, and then burst out laughing. Half sobs, half laughs. What they’d all been doing a lot of recently. “Oh, God. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. She’s dying, Annie. She really is dying.”
“I know,” Annie said, feeling it sink into her, too, like a lead weight around her ankles, pulling her down.
George ran his hands over his face, pulling on the skin. “I mean, they said it was hopeless but we didn’t believe it, I guess, or...she seemed so well. You saw her. Didn’t she seem well?”
“She did. But I think...maybe she was trying to convince herself, too. That if she just kept going it wouldn’t catch her.” And now it had. Annie realized she’d closed her eyes to it, too. Polly gasping for breath. Her back pain. The weight that seemed to melt off her overnight.
George was looking to Annie for answers, like a small child wanting to know why, why, why. “Do you think he’s right? Are we really out of options?”
“I...” Annie could see Dr. Max at the end of the corridor, bashing the vending machine in irritation. “I think he is right, yes. Let’s leave her be for now. She’s going to have a lot to come to terms with.”