Arthur didn’t say a word the whole time. Just kept hold of her and grimly took charge of the situation until they were sitting in the clinic waiting room. Waiting. Anyone else would have muttered vague, untrue reassurances the whole time, but not him. He knew exactly what she was thinking and that there was nothing he could say to comfort her. He was there, and that was enough.
If he was angry, upset, or scared, he couldn’t show it. He controlled his emotions because they’d impact the people around him, and she’d long since gotten used to him reacting like a stone to the most chaotic situations. But just this once, she wanted to know what he was feeling. The tension in his face had become constant.
A receptionist called them in and locked them away in the quiet of a doctor’s office. Not an exam room but an unassuming office with a plain desk and uncomfortable padded chairs. Diplomas on the wall, family pictures on the bookshelves.
When the door opened, Celia flinched, and Arthur squeezed her hand.
Dr. Valdez approached, full of pleasantries, shaking their hands before setting down a manila folder, then sitting behind her desk like it was a shield. Celia didn’t hear a word of it, and when Valdez stopped moving and she finally got a good look at her, the doctor’s smile seemed stricken.
“As you might have gathered from my call, the results of the blood work weren’t normal. In fact, it’s rather more serious than was initiall
y expected, which is why you were asked to come in.”
That switch to business passive voice grated on Celia’s nerves. The woman really didn’t want to talk about this, and Celia was trying to figure out how to interrupt the awkward introduction to get to the actual diagnosis when Arthur did it for her.
“Leukemia,” he said. “It’s leukemia.”
Having a word made it somehow less nerve-racking. Celia could breathe again. She couldn’t think, but she could breathe.
The doctor appeared to deflate, unable even to fake a smile. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
Celia kept repeating the word to herself. It was bad, okay. But how bad? And how had it happened in the first place? It wasn’t like catching a cold, was it?
“Do you know what could have caused it?” Arthur said, voicing her question before she could formulate it herself.
“We’re not really sure. A variety of causes have been shown to have an impact in some cases. Particularly if you’ve ever been exposed to powerful radiation—”
A wave of vertigo shook her and she clung to the arm of the chair. A flashback, a visceral smell of a secret laboratory in the process of burning, and her father coming to save her … The Psychostasis Device exploded, and he’d hunched over her, shielding her from a massive burst of radiation. “You’re safe,” he’d whispered, his dying words.
The feeling was so strong she wanted to run. Instead, she put her hand over her mouth to stifle laughter. Oh, God.
The radiation from the psychostasis ray that her father had died to protect her from. He’d died thinking he’d saved her, that she was safe, but she wasn’t, the radiation had just taken twenty years to kill her.
She swallowed back the scream that came next. Calmed herself.
“Celia,” Arthur whispered. His expression was taut, scared. His fear pressed out, against her mind. She squeezed his hand back. She was okay. She was going to be okay. She decided, right there, that she had to be.
—The girls, how am I going to tell the girls about this?—
—Wait.— Arthur urged calm without speaking.
She took a breath and settled. Looked straight across the desk to the doctor. “What do I do?”
* * *
The treatment plans were extensive and arduous. Her case would go through a panel review in the next few days, and the panel would likely recommend chemotherapy, which ought to be started as soon as possible. The doctor encouraged her to do as much research as she could in the meantime.
Oh, would she. She would kill that research. She’d started her career in forensic accounting; nothing would escape her hunt for information.
“How am I going to tell my mother?” she said abruptly as the car pulled onto the ramp that sloped down to West Plaza’s parking garage. “I don’t know how to tell my mother.” She didn’t want to tell anyone. She wanted to pretend this wasn’t happening, but she wasn’t that good an actress. “I don’t want to tell the girls. Not yet, not till I know what I’m doing next.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Is that the telepath or the psychiatrist talking?”
“It’s the man you’ve been living with for twenty years and the father of your children talking,” he said. “We’re already keeping so many secrets.” He actually sounded sad. Tired, maybe.
She leaned against him, snuggled under the crook of his arm, and let the warmth of his mind as well as his body envelop her. He could whisper hush directly into her panicking hindbrain. She’d never tried to keep secrets from him.