The Wrong Sister(64)
So he had. She remembered his teasing comments well.
“And it’s truly all arranged?”
“Set in concrete. Can you write this down? Your check-in time is one-forty-five to be safe. Captain Svenson confirmed you’re docking quite early that morning.” He stayed silent for a moment and then added, “We have to talk, Blondie.”
“It’ll be a wonderful treat. I didn’t expect anything like this.”
“Tuesday, then. Don’t worry—I’ll find you.”
But first there was Auckland, and her parents.
Christian responded to the cabin attendant’s courteous goodbye and strode across the air-bridge into the terminal building. There was no sign of Doctors Rebecca or Greg in the arrivals lounge so he headed down the escalators to the baggage-claim area and waited for his black case with its distinctive blue ribbon knotted around the handle. Jan had done that for easy identification among the sea of mostly black luggage. He’d blessed her practicality every time he traveled.
As he reached for it off the baggage carousel, his mother-in-law trotted up, a little out of breath.
“Christian, thank heavens. The parking’s terrible today. I was afraid I’d miss you.” She pecked at his cheek and looked around for a trolley.
Christian hefted the bag, carried it across to the nearest vacant one and added his briefcase.
“How’s my Nicky doing now?” Rebecca asked as they walked out into the humid autumn air. “Coming to terms with...the situation?”
It seemed his mother-in-law could barely bring herself to say her daughter’s name. Christian wondered if that would make his request easier or not.
“Nic’s doing okay. Asking for Jan less, now she’s settled with the new nanny.”
“Poor little pet. So the nanny’s working out well?”
“Better than Kathy. Monica’s a big placid girl who seems to have no travel ambitions. We’ve probably got her for as long as we need her.”
Rebecca sighed. “And you?” she asked.
“Getting by. Some days easier than others. I’ve some new photos of Nic in my phone for you,” he added by way of distraction. “What’s Greg up to today?”
“Golf at last. His first opportunity in weeks.”
“So I have you all to myself for a while?”
She shot him a shrewd sideways glance.
“That sounds serious, Chris. Is everything...?”
“Everything’s fine,” he hastened to assure her. “But now Jan’s gone and a little time’s passed by, I’d like to talk to you. Without Greg would be good.”
“Now you have got me worried,” she said, indicating her car was to the left.
Christian swiveled the trolley and they set off over a pedestrian crossing in the huge parking area.
“No, just some medical information I need. I’ve been looking up breast cancer on the web and the statistics are pretty horrendous. If Jan had that BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene—”
“She didn’t,” Rebecca inserted swiftly.
“Didn’t?” The relief rushed through him so fast he almost lost his footing on the flat white painted lines. He could have danced and yelled with happiness if he hadn’t been so swamped with conflicting emotions.
“Of course she didn’t. If she had, I’d probably be dead too, the age I am.”
“Yes, it said half by 50 years.”
“There you go then,” Rebecca said with a wry grin.
“You know for sure she didn’t?” he persisted, the relief still threaded with a twisting hot wire of worry.
“I’m a doctor, Chris. Not an oncologist, maybe, but I have plenty of useful connections. Don’t you think I explored every possibility? That we explored every possibility? Greg and I went through everything.”
“It said one in six women at moderate risk was likely to get breast cancer sometime in her life?”
“And how did they define moderate risk?”
He shrugged.
“Exactly. Quite a number of women get it at the very end of their lives. By then their metabolism is very slow, the cells generally don’t mutate fast, and the disease is mostly controllable with medication. It’s something they live with, rather than die from.”
She indicated they should turn again, and he steered the trolley around.
“Anyway, Jan wasn’t even at moderate risk. She was young and healthy. She didn’t smoke. She breast-fed Nicky, which helps. She certainly didn’t have the BRCA1 or 2 gene. She just had the bad luck to contract some horrible invasive incurable variant of the disease.”
Christian heard the tremor in her voice and gave her a few moments before he asked the question that was always on his mind; the question that really terrified him. “So where does that leave you and Fiona and Nicky?”