You Don't Own Me(121)

‘You didn’t.’

He stares at me in shock and disbelief. ‘Could they have made a mistake?’

You cannot imagine how much hope that hopeless question gives me. I throw my arms around him and hug him tightly. ‘I was thinking exactly the same thing.’

We hold each other for I don’t know how long. Both unwilling to look the other in the eye, and stop pretending that it is all a huge mistake. Eventually, I know it will have to be me. I know that this tiny little life is mine to steer. I pull away.

‘I was counting back the other day and I know we conceived him on our very first night together. Whether they are wrong or right, we’re having this baby, right? He chose us to be his parents, right?’ I sniff.

He pulls me close to him and groans, ‘Oh, Layla. Of course, we are. He’s ours no matter what.’



We drive to the doctor’s in complete silence, both of us terrified of what awaits us at the hospital. A nurse shows us to Dr. Freedman’s office. We walk into his room hand-in-hand behind her. Dr. Freedman is a tall, bespectacled man. He looks up and smiles tightly. He is ill at ease.

‘Mr. and Mrs. Pilkington. Please, have a seat,’ he says politely indicating a set of blue chairs opposite him and letting his eyes slide away to some papers on his desk.

It is a surreal moment. I don’t fear. I know in my DNA that, no matter what, I will protect my baby. I’m so aware of this moment that I can actually feel and experience everything. I sense the doctor’s discomfort. I feel BJ’s fear seeping out of his pores like something alive and tangible. I hear the faint sounds of people walking down the corridor. For them, it’s a normal day. But for me, I can taste the disinfectant that the doctor used after the patient before us.

I can do this. I sit down and turn my head to watch BJ take the seat next to me. It hits me that this is a much bigger deal for him. I am clear in my head. No one. No one. No one can shake me. I turn to face the doctor.

The doctor’s eyes are weary. He has done this too many times and is clearly dreading the task at hand. I smell his abhorrence of what he is about to say. Wordlessly, he pushes a box of tissues towards me.

I frown and look at BJ. His beautiful mouth opens and closes. And we realize that something is not just wrong. It is horribly wrong. It is worse, far worse than what I have imagined. Oh no.

NO. NO. NO

My darling BJ. So powerful and yet at this moment, felled. I reach my hand out and he envelops it in his own. I smile at him. He does not smile back.

‘What’s wrong with my baby?’ I ask.

Dr. Freedman coughs and clears his throat. Behind him, I can see a poster of a skinless human body with all its veins showing.

‘There’s nothing wrong with your baby,’ he says. ‘It’s you.’ He says this gently and neutrally, but the room swings wildly.





THIRTY-TWO




Layla

‘There’s no easy way to say this. The ultrasound you had on the 15th showed that you either have endometrial cancer or hyperplasia that will likely rapidly progress to cancer. I’m so sorry.’

The unexpectedness of what he says is so great that I don’t react at all. I feel myself go blank and numb. The big C? Me? Impossible. I’m born under a lucky star. I’ve been so spoilt. So sheltered. So fortunate. It’s just not possible.

‘What the fuck are you talking about? Can you fucking talk English?’ BJ erupts aggressively.

Dr. Freedman shifts uncomfortably in his chair. It’s obvious that he is not used to being spoken to so rudely. It is only BJ’s size or pity that keeps him for retaliating. ‘Your wife has a large mass in her uterus. It surrounds the baby on the top and sides. The rapid growth from total absence at the dating scan to what it was yesterday, makes me strongly suspect that it is certainly malignant and aggressively so. You should have been told at the ultrasound session yesterday, but the sonographer wanted to run the scans by me before making such a drastic diagnosis.’

‘You’re saying my wife has cancer?’ BJ asks in disbelief.

‘Yes.’

BJ jumps up so suddenly and with such force that his chair crashes to the ground. He slams his hand on the desk, his black eyes boring into the doctor’s, and shouts, ‘No, this a fucking mistake. How do you know the test results haven’t been mislabeled? You do those fucking tests again.’

‘Please, Mr. Pilkington. Sit down and calm down. This outburst is not going to help your wife.’

I reach out blindly for BJ’s hand. His hand closes over mine. I look up at him. ‘Please, BJ,’ I whisper. For a second he doesn’t respond. ‘Please,’ I beg again.

He picks the chair off the floor, rights it, and sits down. I notice that his hands are shaking. He fists his right hand and covers it with his left hand.