You Don't Own Me(132)

‘Come on. Let’s get you back.’

He stands and sways slightly before righting himself against the wall of the cave, then turns to go.

‘BJ,’ I call.

He turns to face me. He’s so broken. He looks nothing like the great fighter I once faced. At that moment I realize that he might not be able to survive without Layla. I had been wrong about him. He truly loves my sister.

‘I’m sorry I made you have the commitment ceremony,’ I say.

‘I didn’t do it for you.’

He picks up the lamp and starts moving into the dark passage. With a sigh, I follow him.





THIRTY-EIGHT




Layla

Maddie asks me to lunch and we arrange to meet in an Italian restaurant half-way between both our workplaces. I arrive first and am sitting with a bottle of mineral water when she walks through the door. She does not smile when her eyes meet mine. Not even as she slips into the chair opposite me.

‘How are you?’ she asks.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, surprised by her unfriendly demeanor.

‘Yeah?’ Her jaw is clenched, and her tone is an inch away from downright hostility.

I don’t react to it. ‘Yeah. I’m all right. I’m not in pain or anything like that.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really,’ I say, knowing that she is brewing towards some kind of confrontation.

‘Well, you’re the lucky one, then. Because I’m in pain, and I bet you’ve got poor BJ bleeding his heart out.’

I stare at her in astonishment.

Her eyes stab at me angrily. ‘I never thought I’d say this but you’re so cruel, Layla. How could you do this to all of us?’ She takes a shuddering breath before carrying on. ‘We love you so much, and there you are giving it all up for a … a … fucking fetus. It doesn’t love you like we do. Fuck, it doesn’t even feel.’

I sense myself start to crumble inside. My defenses are weak. Everyday I am fighting to keep it all together when all I want to do is weep. Because I’m the one who could lose everything.

Blindly, I reach for a packet of breadsticks and tear it open. All around us are the civilized, muted sounds of cutlery against plates, conversation, laughter, and piped music.

Don’t cry, Layla. Just don’t do it.

I pull a stick out and bring it to my mouth, but my body doesn’t want it. One part of me says it is full of preservatives another part simply feels too sad to even pretend to eat. No one truly understands. Not Ma, not Jake, not BJ, and now, not even Maddie. Tears are stinging at the backs of my eyes. I blink them away, and place the breadstick back on the pristine tablecloth so it is almost perfectly aligned with the knife.

‘Cruel,’ I whisper, my eyes fixed on the knife.

‘Yes, cruel,’ Maddie repeats vehemently. Her voice is strong, indignant, and throbbing with moral righteousness.

I raise my eyes. ‘I’m not cruel, Maddie. You know what is cruel? This world is cruel. Fate is cruel. The God that decided that I should have a malignant cancer growing in my womb at the same time as my baby is cruel. And I’ll tell you what else is cruel. Asking me to kill my own baby is cruel.’

But Maddie is unmoved. ‘We all have to make horrible decisions. Our politicians kill hundreds of totally innocent people everyday in the Middle East and just call it collateral damage. A fetus is not even a proper person,’ she cries passionately.

‘Is it right? Shall I do it just because they do it?’

‘No.’ She stops a moment to change tack. ‘Doesn’t your great love for BJ count for more than this unborn fetus?’

‘Love is love. You don’t understand. It’s the little and unimportant things that give a person away. They call it the waitress test. You can always tell a person by the way he or she treats a waitress. And that’s because the waitress stands for someone who has no future value to you. If I claim to love this baby, then what I do to it will ultimately decide how I will love and treat BJ. How much I will be willing to sacrifice for him if he needed me to?’

‘I don’t want you to die,’ she wails suddenly, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears.

‘Oh Maddie,’ I sigh, and reach out for her hand. Her hand is cold and limp. I grasp it strongly. ‘This is not a death sentence. I am taking a calculated risk. Something we take everyday without knowing we are. I could get struck by lightning while I am sleeping in my bed, or get run over while I am crossing the road, or get shot while I am in a cinema by a man who is drugged up to his eyeballs with psychotic drugs.’

Maddie sniffs but she is listening intently to me.

‘It may sound like I am being careless, but I am not. I promise you, I’m not. I am going by the findings of the Nobel prize winner, Sir MacFarlene Burnet, who said cancer cells are not foreign bodies. They are defective, mutated cells produced in the hundreds by our bodies. In a normal immune system they are naturally and quickly destroyed. The problem arises when our immune system is compromised, and does not trigger an attack on these rogue cells. So a tumor is not a problem, but a symptom of a failing immune system.’