“At least you’re done with Rob Jacobson,” he says eventually. “That has to make you feel like you’ve been given a brand-new lease on life.”
“Hardly,” I say. “But at least we know what happened to the Carsons. And to the Gateses. And I have some sort of understanding why those two sociopathsmadeit happen.” I turn my head so I’m looking directly at him. “But is that justice?”
“Maybe on that one,” he says, “you need to do that thing you’re always talking about.”
“Which thing is that?”
“Let God sort the rest of it out.”
I am able to manage a smile. Not much of one. I can only imagine what I look like at this point. But I can still feel the smile.
And somehow manage to feel safe.
“I’ve sort of been busy asking Her to do that for me the last couple of days,” I say. “Not to keep making this all about me.”
“Hey, kid,” he says. He gets out of his chair and kisses me lightly on the lips. “As far as I’m concerned, it’sonlyabout you.”
Before cancer the end of a trial had always felt like crossing the finish line, like finishing some sort of marathon no matter how long the trial had lasted. And before Rob Jacobson—adifferent kind of malignancy—came into my life, the end of a trial had been cause for celebration, for Jimmy and for me.
Just not now.
After what feels like hours, I can feel myself starting to fall asleep, the pill they gave me finally starting to work, feeling as if I’m waiting for another verdict to be handed down.
I pray then.
And tonight don’t dream about anything at all.
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE
I TAKE MY RIDE through both machines first thing the next morning, the MRI taking longer than the CT scan, as I knew it would.
Then I go back to my room and shower and dress and do a little bit of makeup work, as much for me as for Ben Kalinsky. And maybe even for the fabulous Sam Wylie.
Then I wait.
There’s always more waiting.
Ben and Jimmy come back into the room after I’m dressed and ready to get out of here and get home and see Rip the dog. And hopefully, by the grace of God Herself, get on with the rest of my very long life.
We all wait for two more hours, during which I feel, truly, as if time has stopped, and the waiting just might kill me before cancer ever does.
“This can’t possibly be good,” I say. “How can it possibly be good if it’s taking this long?”
“Still a bad patient,” Jimmy says, doing everything he possibly can to lighten the mood.
“Might be the worst I’ve ever encountered,” Dr. Ben Kalinsky says, “at least among humans.”
“This isn’t funny,” I say.
“We know,” Ben says quietly.
By now I know my vitals are back to normal. My blood pressure is all the way normal again. My anemia has been addressed; otherwise, the nurse tells me, they wouldn’t even be thinking about releasing me.
And yet with all that, I feel as if I might pass out all over again. If hypotension was a contributing factor to my fainting spell and going down for the count at Jimmy’s bar, as Sam told me it was, this now feels like tension on steroids.
At last, a little before one o’clock, there is a knock on the door and Sam Wylie and Dr. Mike Gellis come walking into my room.
As they enter, I realize I have backed myself into a corner of the room without even realizing I’ve done that.
