CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DEAN
January 31
“DEAN.”
“Right here.”
There’s a strained silence. I turn from the stove to find Liv standing in the kitchen doorway wearing her bathrobe, her hand extended and her expression filled with sadness. I approach her, my heart plummeting at the sight of the dark strands of hair twisted around her fingers.
“I’d almost forgotten I could lose my hair this soon,” she admits. “I was so worried about other side effects, even though they haven’t been that bad. But when I woke up this morning, there was all this hair on my pillow.”
“I’m sorry, beauty.” I pull her into my arms, hating her sadness, hating this has to happen to her, hating what she’s going through. “Try to remember it means the chemo is working.”
I put my hand on her hair, the softness of it so familiar. I’d wanted to run my fingers through Liv’s hair the second I first saw her. And though she’d had it cut shorter before starting chemo, it’s still thick and lush. For now.
Her body heaves with a sigh before she goes to sweep the strands of hair into the trash.
“I’ll call Kelsey,” she says. “She said she’d go back to that wig store with me, but I don’t think I want to wear one. They’re really itchy and hot. The store also has scarves and stuff, and Kelsey said she’d help me pick a few out.”
“You want me to go?” I ask.
“No, it’s a girl thing.” She walks toward the stairs. “I’ll be back before our appointment with Dr. Anderson.”
I watch her go. Aside from fatigue and some nausea, the hair loss is the first side effect she’s experienced after her second round of chemo. Two down, six to go. I hope to God the remaining treatments go easy on her.
Later that afternoon, I return home from King’s to pick Liv up and drive to the doctor’s office for her clinic visit. Dr. Anderson had told us the schedule would start with him seeing her every other week, in-between appointments for blood tests.
I still don’t like that. With all these drugs flooding Liv’s system and every little ache and pain cause for concern, I want the doctor to see her every week.
“Depending on how Liv feels, we can certainly change the schedule if needed,” he tells me.
“Why can’t it just be a regular standing appointment?” I ask. “Once a week?”
“On the weeks I don’t see her, she’ll have blood draws,” Dr. Anderson says. “I assure you I’ll be keeping track of the reports and meeting with the other doctors on her team. If there’s a problem, I’ll see her immediately.”
He looks at Liv. “And you know you can always call me with any concerns.”
“She wouldn’t have to call you if she saw you every week,” I say, unable to keep the irritation from my voice.
Liv throws me a placating look.
Dr. Anderson nods. “I understand your concern, Dean, but Liv is doing very well. And Liv, you have my cell number. You can call me any time.”
“That’s why you’re such a great on-call-ogist,” Liv remarks.
She and the doctor both chuckle.
“Really, thank you, Dr. Anderson,” Liv continues. “I wouldn’t want to take up your time unnecessarily, and no offense, but I really don’t want to see you any more than I have to.”
Dr. Anderson smiles. “Yeah, I get that a lot. Now let’s have a look at your blood counts.”
He opens her file and turns the folder so she can see what he’s pointing out.
I sit back, making an effort to remind myself that they’re both right. Too many appointments with the doctor would make Liv feel worse, and of course it’s stupid to take time away from other patients.
I listen to Dr. Anderson explaining her test results. Despite my selfish wish that Liv’s entire team of doctors and specialists would focus on her alone, I can’t get rid of the simmer of anger I feel every time we meet with Anderson.
It makes no sense, since he’s proven to be all the things an excellent doctor should be—attentive, patient, knowledgeable, empathetic. As far as Liv is concerned, the good doctor’s word is the law. Every time I question him, she gets annoyed.
Which means I’ve had to make an effort to shut the fuck up. Especially now, when my wife is getting toxic drugs that are supposed to heal her by killing off all her cells.
Liv and Dr. Anderson do more of their joking thing—“At least I won’t have to worry about head lice”—and I focus my brain on the fact that my wife is the important one here. This is all about her.
After the appointment, we drive back home in silence. Rationally, I know the doctor is on Liv’s side, intent on helping her get well, but every time we meet with him, the fucking methods of his treatment make me rage all over again.
Cutting. Poisoning. Injecting. Burning.
My perfect wife. Doctor’s orders.
When we go into the Butterfly House and start to take off our coats, Liv stops with a sudden, “Oh no.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My wedding ring.” She holds out her left hand, showing me that the silver band is so loose around her finger she can spin it around. “It almost fell off.”
She pulls it off, a flash of sadness crossing her expression. My heart clenches.
“It’s the weight loss.” Liv sighs. “I can’t wear it anymore.”
She shakes her head, staring down at the ring nestled in the palm of her hand. I put my hand under her chin and lift her face to look at me.
“Hey,” I say gently. “You’ll wear your ring again one day.”
“I know. I just…” She pulls away from me, her expression shadowed. “My breasts, my hair, my figure… now my wedding ring. It’s like being stripped layer by layer of everything that makes me a woman.”
“Those aren’t the things that make you a woman. You are what makes you a woman.”
She holds the ring out to me. “Keep it for me, like you did when I had the surgery.”
“Of course.” I slip the ring into the pocket of my suit jacket and run my hand over Liv’s thinning hair. “By summer, you’ll be wearing your wedding ring again.”
She smiles. It’s a heartening thought. Summer—when flowers are in bloom, boats float on the lake, Nicholas is antsy for the end of school, Bella wants to plant a garden, and the town is setting up ice-cream stands and paddle-boat rentals.
By then, my wife will be wearing her wedding ring again.
“You’d better go.” Liv glances at the clock. “Your meeting is at two.”
I hesitate, reluctant to leave her alone, though it’s a meeting about the World Heritage Studies program that I can’t miss.
“Don’t worry,” Liv says, standing on her toes to kiss me. “I’m feeling good, and all I have to do this afternoon is pick the kids up from school. After your meeting, I want you to go to the gym or go for a run or something, okay? Work it off.”
Because even though I haven’t said a word about the doctor, Liv knows I walk out of every appointment in a snarled mess of anger and frustration. I promise her I’ll obey her order, then head to King’s for the meeting and an afternoon lecture course.
After work, I take my duffel bag and walk across campus to the gym for a kickboxing class. Archer is in the locker room, changing into shorts and a T-shirt.
“Hey, man,” I say. “Didn’t think you’d be here today.”
“I figured you would be,” he replies. “How did the appointment go?”
“The doctor says Liv is doing well.”
Archer glances at me, like he knows that what the doctor said still isn’t enough. I turn away from him and pull off my tie and suit jacket. Punching the training bag is going to feel good.
Something clinks onto the concrete floor. Archer bends down to pick up Liv’s wedding ring, which just fell out of my pocket.
“She’s already lost so much weight it doesn’t fit her anymore,” I say as Archer examines the ring.
And she’s only had two rounds of chemo. What’s going to happen by the time she’s on round four? Round six?
Fear crawls up my chest. Archer holds out the ring to me.
“She wanted me to keep it for her,” I explain, putting the ring back into my pocket. “I’d better put it somewhere safe.”
“You could wear it,” Archer suggests.
“What?”
Archer unfastens a thin, black leather strap from around his wrist and hands it to me. “Put it on there and wear it.”
I look at the leather strap. “This is a bracelet.”
“It’s a wristband.”
“Thanks, but… uh, I’ll figure something else out.”
Archer mutters something that sounds like “idiot” under his breath, but he takes the bracelet back and fastens it to his wrist. It actually doesn’t look hideous on him, somehow suiting the rebel biker thing he’s always had going on. Not that I’d tell him that.
After changing, I wrap my hands, and Archer and I head out to warm up before class. An hour of hard jabs, punches, hooks, and kicks, and we’re both sweating and breathing hard. A part of me envisions the training bag as the goddamned cancer inside my wife, and there’s some satisfaction in hitting and kicking it as hard as I can. Not the first time I’ve done this. Won’t be the last either.
Archer and I fist-bump our gloves at the end of class, then sit on a bench and gulp some water. I check my phone, where there are a couple of reassuring texts from Liv that she and the kids are at home playing Candy Land and eating popcorn.
I set the phone aside and rest my elbows on my knees.
“Problem?” Archer asks.
“No, they’re all at home.” I drag my hands over my face. “Fucking hard to leave them alone, though. I hate it. I mean, Liv’s doing okay but what if…”
I shake my head. What if is starting to rule my life. I remember once Liv told me it was time to focus on what is rather than what if. I could do that back then, but not now.
“What else did the doctor say?” Archer asks.
I choke out a humorless laugh. “He’s happy with how things are going. He’s the one who ordered the chemo and radiation. Liv likes him. Trusts him.”
I feel Archer looking at me perceptively.
“And you?” he asks.
“He’s a good doctor.”
“But you don’t like him.”
“It doesn’t matter if I like him or not,” I say. “He’s helping Liv. That’s all that matters.”
Archer is silent for a minute. “I never told you about Sarah.”
I glance at him. “Sarah? You told me once she was the reason you straightened up.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t tell you the rest of it.” Archer picks at the label on his water bottle. “Sarah and I were together for a couple of years. She got pregnant, and I was trying to do the right thing, you know? Be there for her. Then she died. Car accident.”
I stare at him, a sudden intense pain gripping me. I lower my head into my hands and pull in a breath.
“I… I didn’t know, man,” I manage to say. “I’m sorry.”
“I got to the hospital when they were still working on her,” he continues. “Saw them through the emergency room door. And then the doctor came out to tell me he’d lost her—that’s what he said, ‘I lost her’—and I snapped. Lunged at him, took him down, started throwing punches. Took two other guys to pull me off.”
I close my eyes. “Jesus.”
“When the doctor got up, bloody nose, eye going black, he said I’m sorry.”
“He apologized?”
“For losing Sarah. I just walked out of there and went on a bender, but later—after I’d gotten my shit together again—I figured out why I’d attacked him. It wasn’t because he’d lost Sarah. It was because I hadn’t been able to save her. Even if I’d been in the car with her, I couldn’t have saved her.”
An ache is pushing at me from somewhere deep inside, harder and harder, like it’s going to break me in half.
“So, yeah.” Archer tilts his head back to swallow some water. “I get it. The woman you love, your wife… you want to be the one to save her.”
To be her hero.
But this time, for the first time, I can’t be. The only person who can save her is the doctor. And maybe not even him.
Archer claps a hand on my shoulder.
“So I’ll say this once, and then we’ll never speak of it again,” he says. “After Sarah died, I turned my life around for good. I wanted to be the kind of man she’d be proud of, the kind who would’ve been a good father and provider. And in some ways, I knew I also still wanted to be like you.”
He shoves to his feet and grabs his towel.
“But you still throw a roundhouse kick like a pussy,” he remarks, tossing his towel around his neck as he strides toward the locker room.
I watch him go, the hard pain inside me dissolving. I’d once thought Archer’s and my relationship was irreparably broken. I’ve never before been so glad to be wrong about something.
I follow him to the locker room and toss my gloves into my duffel.
“Pizza and beer?” I ask. “On me.”
“Damn right it’s on you,” Archer mutters, pulling his T-shirt over his head. “Making me embarrass myself like that.”
He grabs a clean towel and starts toward the showers.
“Hey,” I call after him.
He stops and turns to look at me.
“Thanks,” I say.
Archer shrugs, ducking his head as he continues walking. I text Liv that I’m going out for pizza with him after we leave the gym. Her response comes in seconds: Great! Have fun.
I turn to my locker, tension draining from my shoulders for the first time in weeks.
February 6
“Dean?”
I jerk my head up as the female voice filters past a haze of sleep.
I blink, realizing I’ve fallen asleep at my desk in my tower office, my head on my folded arms. Claire is standing beside me, her hand out as if she’s about to touch my shoulder.
“Oh, sorry.” She takes a step back and smiles. “I couldn’t find you downstairs, and Liv went out with your friend Kelsey. I was going to do some shopping and was wondering what you’d like for dinner.”
“Uh… anything’s fine.” I drag my hands over my face and rub my eyes. Exhaustion burns through me. I can’t sleep at night, but rather than risk keeping Liv up, I’ve been staying up long past midnight and then crashing on the sofa in my office.
“Come downstairs,” Claire says. “I’ll make you a snack.”
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”
“Come on, Dean.” She shakes her head in amusement. “I’m a nanny. No one knows better than I do the restorative powers of a snack.”
“I’m sure that’s true.”
“So come on. My snacks have a perfect balance of carbs and protein for optimal energy to get through both soccer practice and Star Wars battles.”
Figuring I might need to be involved in both of those activities before Nicholas goes to bed, I follow Claire down to the kitchen. I sit at the counter and leaf through the day’s mail as Claire bustles around, opening the refrigerator and cabinets.
I focus on opening a bill, trying not to be bothered by the fact that another woman is busy in our kitchen. A woman who isn’t my wife.
“Ta da.”
Claire sets a menagerie of snacks in front of me. There’s an owl made out of a large cracker, with raisin eyes and wings created with sliced almonds. Next to the owl is a fruit kabob caterpillar, and a ladybug made from half of a red apple.
I can’t help laughing. “This is great. No wonder the kids love you.”
She smiles, her cheeks flushing. “Thanks. They’re really awesome kids, though I’m not surprised considering who they have as a father.”
A twinge of discomfort goes through me. I make an effort to suppress it, even as I remember Archer’s remark about Claire back in December.
I’d been wary around college-aged women after a grad student started a false sexual harassment claim against me before I became a tenured professor, but nothing potentially dangerous or damaging has happened since. Just the opposite in fact, especially with Jessica, who has now become one of my most valued colleagues, and the number of intelligent young women who are involved with the World Heritage Center.
But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten. And it doesn’t mean I don’t still have to reject unwanted female attention and advances, no matter how much I talk about “my wife Liv.”
But this? We hired Claire because Liv has cancer. Claire is the nanny to our two young children. Seeing anything different in that is flat-out wrong.
Then again, I’ve been around enough to know nothing is off-limits to some people. And Archer was right. The world can be a fucked-up place.
I take a few bites of the cracker and pick up the apple ladybug. “Thanks, but I’ve gotta get back to work.”
“Take the plate with you,” Claire says. “The milk too. After all, it does a body good.”
Without responding, I return to my office. I don’t care what Claire thinks of me, as long as she’s good with the kids and Liv likes her. And God willing we won’t need her help for much longer.
I pick up a loop of string resting on my desk. After idly making a few patterns, I take Liv’s wedding ring out of my pocket and slip it onto the string. I weave a circle around it right in the center. I spread the loop out between my fingers and look at the two patterns hugging Liv’s ring. After knotting the ends, I slip it onto my wrist. The ring slides under my wrist, right up against my pulse.
And that’s where it will stay.
I reach over to turn off my computer, shutting down the website open on the screen. My brain is so packed with facts and statistics about breast cancer that sometimes I have a hard time applying anything I read to Liv.
I still can’t believe this is happening to her. And despite all rational thoughts, I still hate that other people are touching my wife’s breasts, cutting into her, poisoning her. While I just stand there and watch. And burn.
I’ve always been able to take action. To succeed. When I was a kid, my father made it clear that failure wasn’t an option, not for the son of Justice West, not when my brother had made it his life’s work to be a lost cause, not when I had to uphold the West family image.
So I didn’t fail. Some things came easily to me, others took work, but I did it. Always believed I’d get the scholarship, make the team, win the trophy. I didn’t often think “I can’t” because I knew I could. Even when I first met Liv, I knew I’d get past her defenses one day. That I’d make her mine. I knew I needed her.
But I didn’t realize until now I’d taken it for granted that Liv would always be there. I didn’t realize how badly I need to grow old with her. I need to see her dark hair turn silver, to watch the laugh lines deepen around her eyes.
I need to sit with her as we watch Nicholas and Bella play soccer and perform in music recitals, as they graduate from high school and go off to college. I need her to teach our children what goodness and perseverance are. I need my wife beside me through birthday parties, family vacations, movie nights, school activities, science fairs, weddings, grandchildren, anniversaries. I need her through life.
And for the first time ever, I know to my bones there is something I can’t do. I can’t live without Liv.
I can’t.