Free 140006838X by Charles Bock

so—”
    “That option is not available,” Alice finished.
    “We’ll look to the National Donor Registry. If and when we do match you with a donor, the next step would be an aggressive regime, followed by a transplant. You’ll be in the hospital for six to eight weeks, under a high-level quarantine.”
    “The rooms on the transplant floor are very nice,” Dr. Bhakti said. She’d reemerged from whatever hole, her nail file no longer apparent.
    Eisenstatt put down the clipboard next to him, picked it back up, tapped it against his upper thigh. “Transplants are a fairly recent development. And as far as the success rate—”

    Alice cut him off. “Let me be as clear as I can make myself,” she said. “Any numbers or information that might upset me, I don’t want to know . I’m young. I’ve been healthy my whole life. I’m not another one of the seventy-year-olds in your waiting room, health and blessings to them all.”
    She felt the bones inside her fingers vibrating, felt herself powerless to stop them, felt herself pulsing with strength, ready to vomit. “Please, just let me know what I have to do each day. Just put it in front of me. Do that, I promise, I will work hard. Because I am going to watch my child grow.”
    Dr. Bhakti was looking at Alice in a manner that suggested, for the first time, she considered the possibility Alice might have legitimate thoughts and feelings. Dr. Eisenstatt was squinting lightly, his eyes considerate.
    “I think your attitude is admirable,” he said. “I’ll only provide statistics if you ask.”
    “Blinders on,” Oliver said. “That’s how we’ve been getting through this.”
    “You should know,” the doctor said, “right now things are going extremely well. The work in New Hampshire was first rate. And getting you to this point was a big step. My job is to shepherd you to the transplant. I take this responsibility seriously. My modus operandi, I always operate on a worst-case-scenario basis. I’m going to assume the worst, give you the most conservative and oppressive possibilities. Consider me your new Jewish grandmother.” He met her eyes, gave a bit of a smile. “That’s my job. Get you to transplant. Once we find a donor, a transplant doctor will take over. You’ll go forward from there and be happy to be rid of me.”
    Doe squirmed, kicking at Mommy’s chest.
    “As I said, BMT is a fairly recent procedure,” Eisenstatt continued. “We’ve been doing it at Whitman for about five years. And while it’s no walk in the park, it can work: genetic matches do happen, people do find donors. People have this procedure and they get better. From what we’ve seen, new marrow acts as a cure.”

    His words were punctuated by the redolent smack of hands against knees, Oliver rocking in place. Alice watched him flexing his feet, pressing forward from the balls of his toes; she was aware of her own stillness, the fussing child against the front of her right shoulder, her hand weak on the back of the baby’s head, supporting her. The child was sweating, her little fuzz of hair damp.
    “I’m also legally obligated to tell you,” said Eisenstatt, “for medical purposes, we define cure as the disease being in remission for at least five years.”
    An unhappy squeal, little hands pushing away from Alice’s neck.
    Oliver was respectful, if uncertain: “You said you’ve only been doing them for five years?”
    “Exactly,” piped Bhakti.
    “Classifying remission as five years doesn’t mean your leukemia will return in five years,” Eisenstatt answered. “As you said, you’re young. You have a history of being healthy, a daughter and a husband—you have every reason to live.”
    —
    Early in the afternoon, on day forty-seven since Alice’s diagnosis in New Hampshire, Oliver was standing in the back of the exam room, listening to a chunky-watch-wearing catalogue-looking motherfucker talking about some sort of irregularities with Alice’s blood work.