Marcia Talley: In Death's Shadow

"Valerie?" I hadn't considered Valerie. I didn't know what shape she was in after her cancer treatments, for one thing, although she certainly looked healthy. Then again, what did I have to lose? If Valerie didn't want to run the race, I thought, maybe she could join in the Fun Walk with Paul and the grandkids.

I got up to find the business card Valerie had given me.

Purses should come with locator devices, like cordless phones. Mine had eluded me again. I spent several frustrating minutes searching for it in all the usual places-the kitchen, our entrance hall, the powder room tucked into the triangle under the front stairs-before finding it where I'd dumped it, next to the sofa I had just been sitting on. Chemo brain had struck again.

My purse has more pockets than a pool hall, and I spent some time rummaging through them. I was about to give up and call directory assistance when the card finally surfaced, sandwiched neatly between my Giant Shoppers card and a similar one from Sam's Club.

I took it to the phone, then paused, my finger hovering over the 4 button. Was I being presumptuous in assuming that Valerie might be well enough to join us? I remembered days following my reconstructive surgery when I could barely climb the stairs to my bedroom. Even weeks later, walking all the way around the block had been a triumph. I didn't want to put Valerie on the spot. But she'd driven herself to the doctor's office, I reasoned, and she seemed enthusiastic about meeting me for lunch. And I had promised to call. Besides, I was fresh out of friends whose arms hadn't been twisted practically out of their sockets.

I dialed her number.

After six rings I was expecting the answering machine to kick in, when a child I took to be Miranda picked up the phone. "Hello?" she whispered.

"Miranda?"

"Yeth?"

"Is your mommy there?"

"Yeth."

"Can I speak to her?"

"Yeth."

I listened to Miranda's gentle breathing on the other end of the line, and after a long minute, when there seemed to be no indication that the little girl was going to summon her mother to the telephone I said, "Miranda?"

"Yeth?"

"Will you go get your mommy, please?"

"Okay."

The phone thumped against a wall; as I waited, a clock chimed seven and I could hear a television playing the Law and Order theme song. Clearly, Miranda was going to keep me on hold for eternity. To pass the time I reread Brian's business card and considered sending Valerie an e-mail.

A door slammed. There were footsteps, raising my hopes, followed by the distinctive sound of a coffee grinder, water running, the squeak of a tap being twisted. Eventually the room grew quiet.

"Hello?" I shouted, hoping to penetrate the silence on the other end of the line. "Hello? Hello? Hello?"

A muffled, "What the…" and hurried footsteps.

I had attracted someone's attention at last.

"Who's there?" From the soft drawl and the way "there" became a two syllable word, there was no doubt the speaker was Valerie.

"It's me, Valerie. Hannah Ives."

"Hannah, I'm so sorry! Have you been waiting long?"

"Couple of hours."

"You're…" She paused, then giggled. "You're kidding, right?"

"Right."

"I'm so glad you called! Usually when somebody says 'Let's do lunch,' it never happens."

"It's not lunch that I'm calling about, exactly. I was wondering if you'd ever heard of the Komen Race for the Cure®?"

"Of course I've heard of it! Brian and me, we're from Dallas. There isn't anybody in Dallas who hasn't heard of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. My mother participated in the very first run, in fact. Golly, that must have been twenty years ago, long before they moved to New Jersey!"

I told Valerie about my Go Navy/Beat Cancer team and invited her to participate in the race. To my surprise, not only did she agree, but she volunteered Brian to fill in for the absent Kip. "I think he'll still be in town," she added. "He's driving to West Virginia to interview someone for a story, but I'm pretty sure that's not until Monday.

"What do we do about getting T-shirts and bib numbers?" she asked, suddenly shifting gears.

I lifted my eyes heavenward and mouthed a grateful Thank you . "You must have run marathons before!"

"Oh, yes. I was training for the Marine Corps Marathon before… before I got sick," Valerie told me. "I hope to qualify for the Boston one day, God willing. It's slow, but I'm gradually coming back. This race will be good for me," she added. "Is it 5K?"

"Approximately. They modified the route because of beefed-up security around the White House, so it's about eight hundred feet shorter, but it still counts as a 5K race."

"It'll be fun," Valerie enthused. "It depends on whether I can get a babysitter for Miranda, of course."

Of course.

The dreaded B-word.

Reliable babysitters were harder than ever to find these days, and of the reliable few, how many would agree to show up at Valerie's house at the crack of dawn? Before allowing my newly snagged volunteers to slip away, I improvised. "Paul is doing the walk with our grandchildren. I'm sure they wouldn't mind including Miranda." As I said this I glanced at Paul, who waggled his fingers and grinned toothily. "Paul says sure. We'll pick you up," I added, "but it will have to be early. I'm participating in the Parade of Pink, which starts at seven-fifteen, so we'll need to get to the Metro by the time it opens. I hate to tell you this, but that means we'll be knocking on your door at five-thirty a.m.”

Valerie chuckled. "Not a problem. We're up before then anyway. Brian's muse is pretty demanding. She rousts him out of bed around four every morning."

"How lucky for you."

"It is, really," she replied with a laugh. "I just love sitting on the porch with my coffee and the newspaper, watching the sun come up."

The last time I'd watched the sun rise was… frankly, I couldn't remember. Since abandoning my grueling commute, rising early had not been high on my agenda. I assured Valerie that I'd bring the bibs and the T-shirts, and then, because Brian's card had listed only a post office box number, I asked where they lived.

"We're in Hillsmere," she said, and gave me directions.

I knew Hillsmere Shores, a well-established, middle-class neighborhood on the Annapolis Neck peninsula, adjoining Quiet Waters Park. The park had a cafe, art gallery, playgrounds, a skating rink, and a paved bike/jogging trail, five miles long if you took all the loops.

"I feel bad about asking you to drive all the way out here," Valerie added.

"Don't be silly," I said. "There won't be any traffic at that time of morning.”

“True…" Valerie let her voice trail off, as if she weren't really convinced. "Hannah?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks. Thanks for thinking of me."

I had to pause and clear my throat to let my next words out. "I should have stayed in touch."

"We both had a lot on our minds," she said simply.

That was an understatement. Immediately following my chemotherapy, I'd gone to stay with my husband's sister, Connie, on the family farm to wait for my hair to grow out. Instead of the rest and relaxation I was looking for, I found a body in a well. Things got a bit crazy after that.

When I had time to think about Valerie again, months had gone by. Her prognosis had been so poor that I was afraid she'd already died. And if I didn't bother to track her down, nobody could give me the bad news.

"Hannah? You still there?"

"Sorry. I thought I heard someone at the door," I lied.

"We'll do better this time around, won't we?"

"You can count on it," I promised.

At 4:00 a.m. Saturday morning, the alarm clock practically self-destructed, but I refused to budge until the smell of coffee drifted upstairs from the high-tech coffee maker Connie had given me the previous Christmas. Consisting of one glass globe perched atop another, it operated on the vacuum principle-quietly hissing and gurgling, then erupting like Mount St. Helens-turning coffee-making into a spectator sport. Usually I was downstairs to enjoy the show, but I opened my eyes only long enough to see that it was still dark outside, turned over in bed, and drew a corner of the quilt over my head.