Рита Браун - Hiss Of Death

“I’m for that. Is there a course of treatment that doesn’t have such awful side effects?”

“Herceptin is a new drug used to treat women with metastatic breast cancer who are HER-two-positive. You aren’t HER-two-positive.”

“Should I be glad about that?”

Dr. MacCormack nodded, then added, “About twenty-five percent of women with cancer have an excess of the protein which makes the cancer spread quickly. Called HER-two. You don’t fall into that twenty-five percent, which I know from your bloodwork.

“However, you are premenopausal, so your body is still pumping out lots of hormones. There are drugs to inhibit the cancer getting the hormones it needs to grow. But again, you’re lucky because you don’t have hormone receptor–positive cancer. You’ve got a straightforward type of cancer. We can treat it in a straightforward way.”

“Well, it’s hard to think of myself as lucky at this moment, but I guess I am.”

“You have no idea.” Dr. MacCormack looked serious. “Again, we’ll know a lot more after the surgery, and I am already assuming you will have the tumor removed.”

“I will. I want to talk it over with Fair, but I will.”

“He’s a vet. He knows a great deal. In fact, some of what we have learned we’ve learned from cancers in dogs. Some breeds are especially prone, like golden retrievers and boxers. You’d be surprised how much veterinary medicine helps human medicine. An obvious example: The research and surgeries on dachshund back problems have proved invaluable for human treatments.”

“Sounds like you think I should go under the knife straightaway.”

“I do. I’ve seen so much, Harry. Get it out.”

“All right.”

“We’ll make you an appointment to consult with Dr. Potter. We have a roster of wonderful surgeons in our area if for some reason you don’t click with Dr. Potter on a patient level.”

“She’s been great about the five-K. I’m sure I’ll be just fine with her.” Then Harry laughed. “Annalise Veronese’s been great working for the five-K, too. Don’t want to wind up with her.”

Smiling, Dr. MacCormack stood up. Harry did also. “I’m sorry to give you the news from your biopsy, but I’m glad it’s not more serious. Your chances of full recovery are excellent. I do, however, think you should opt for the radiation, even if Dr. Potter thinks she’s removed all the tissue. She’ll think so, too. Unpalatable as it is, once it’s over, you bounce back and you can rest knowing you’re on the road to full recovery.”

• • •

When Harry walked into the kitchen, Fair was drying a glass. He felt she would be getting bad news, and he wanted to be home. Harry would never tell her husband about her diagnosis on the phone. It had to be face-to-face.

The two cats and dog immediately knew, because they could smell the tension.

“Well.” Her husband tried to look bright.

“Stage One breast cancer.”

Fair dropped the glass, which shattered on the floor. He bent down to pick up the shards.

“Honey, don’t.” She knelt down, grabbing his hand. “I’ll sweep it up.”

As they stood, he hugged her. He couldn’t speak. Then he found his voice. “I broke it, I’ll sweep it up.”

“Your hands are shaking. Let me do it.”

“I’m supposed to comfort you.” Sorrow filled his voice.

“I’ve had the whole drive back from Charlottesville to adjust. You sit down.”

As soon as she swept up all the pieces, putting them in the metal trash can, she sat across from her husband at the kitchen table. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Tucker, listening, said, “If only I could bite this cancer thing, I’d kill it.”

Pewter, puffed up, said, “I could scratch its eyes out.”

Mrs. Murphy looked up at Harry, leaning forward toward Fair, at the table as he held her hand tightly. “Now we have to trust our human to people we don’t even know.”

W here does the time go?” Harry leaned on the three-board fence of the pasture behind the barn.

Twilight lingered, a languid, early-May twilight enrobing the Blue Ridge with cobalt velvet.

The cloudless sky—backlit, for the sun had set a half hour ago—promised a crisp night.

Matilda, the blacksnake who lived in the hayloft, had finished her hunting and slithered back to the barn. She paused for a moment, flicked out her tongue, emitting a little hiss. This was not a comment on anything; it was more of a little salute to Harry, whom she recognized.

Like all farmers, Harry focused on weather with intensity. Too much rain, crops rotted in the field. Too little, they burned up. If one could afford an irrigation system, one could fight a drought. Nothing could combat too much rain.

Her tough sunflowers continued to grow. Her grapes, in their second year, sported leaves, ever enlarging, on the trained vines, which thrilled her. She had worried because of the ferociously cold winter, the worst winter for one hundred years. Spring, remarkably cool, was wet.

So wet, she’d rented a drill seeder only a week ago. Usually she over-seeded her pastures in early to mid-April.

Since Mother Nature was her business partner, she did as Mother dictated. Harry limed the fields in the spring. Sometimes she put down weed-and-feed fertilizer, but usually she put down chicken poop or commercial fertilizers in the fall. When the oil prices climbed through the sky, non-manure-based fertilizers skyrocketed to nine hundred percent of their former cost. This did not make the news. Agriculture economics rarely did. A frost in Florida’s orange groves might get coverage, or a terrible drought in the Midwest, but the distressing effect of oil prices on your everyday small farmers wasn’t news. They suffered plenty, whether that suffering was reported to their fellow citizens or not.

A nine-hundred-percent price rise is beyond comprehension.

She hadn’t fertilized for two years. The price to spread chicken poop floated out of reach, too. You burn gas putting it down.

It made Harry miserable. Just thought it was the worst. She laughed at herself as she watched Venus begin her majestic ascent, shining her lovelight over all living things, fascinating Harry as she had fascinated people since they cast their eyes upward. Another hour and Harry would be able to identify the constellations.

“Why she’s doing that chuckle thing people do?” wondered Pewter, sitting on the fence next to Mrs. Murphy, who sat next to Harry.

“Don’t know.” Mrs. Murphy put her paw on Harry’s forearm.

Wedged next to Harry’s leg, Tucker was determined not to let her beloved human out of her sight.

“Someone wants their chin scratched.”

“I prefer tuna,” Pewter replied.

“Do you ever think of anything other than your expanding stomach?” Mrs. Murphy said.

“World peace.” Pewter giggled, making the odd little intake of breath that accompanies the feline giggle. Tucker howled with glee.

“What’s cookin’, kids?” Harry scratched Mrs. Murphy’s chin.

“If only you could understand us, you’d be laughing, too.” Tucker sighed, as she often felt frustrated with human limitations.

“You know,” Harry spoke to them, “what a clear crisp evening. Must be about fifty-five degrees, and it’s seven-thirty. Glad I wore my sweater. Of course, you all are always dressed just right for the weather.” As she rubbed her hand over Mrs. Murphy’s back, her undercoat shed out.

“Murph, you shed too much,” Pewter grumbled, as some of the undercoat landed on her lovely gray fur.