Free 140006838X by Charles Bock Page A

Alice’s numbers weren’t bad, the doctor was saying. But he was still concerned with the makeup of Alice’s cells. In fact, Oliver was watching the guy push to do some procedure that Oliver had vaguely heard references to before. “I’d like to do it as soon as possible,” he was saying to Alice, “if that’s okay with you.”
    This procedure, this aspirate—this bone marrow aspirate—would allow Dr. Eisenstatt to find out what was going on with the closest person to Oliver on this stupid planet, Oliver was hearing. And usually, when Oliver heard something scary, his means of dealing with, or addressing his fears was to share them, only he couldn’t, not now, because these worst-case scenarios all involved the person he wanted to share them with. So, the sharing option wasn’t on the table. And this lovely woman, she was bereft, her body racked, tremorous. She was gulping through tears: “I’m never going to get better.”

    Some sort of levee inside Oliver was breached, and now tears stung, left hot trails down his cheeks. “You’re not allowed to say that,” he said, fighting to breathe, embracing his wife. His voice went sharp: “That can’t be true.”
    —
    Alice had a deep-rooted conviction that, as a means of expression, tears were just as valid as speaking, just as necessary as laughter. Anywhere, any time, no matter how uncomfortable it may have made people around her, Alice was fine with a good cry. If Oliver mocked her, if he derived pleasure from needling her, that didn’t matter much, in the end—for after all his little quips went silent, he still put up with her waterworks. Meanwhile, Alice could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen him cry. Number one was easy: when he’d cut the umbilical cord on his baby girl and taken Doe in his arms for the first time. Two, also easy: their wedding, staring into Alice’s eyes, slowly rocking to and fro while the Ramones blared around them and friends watched in silent joy, their first dance together as man and wife. Three: the call from his mother with news that Magoo, his beloved childhood dog, had finally been put down. Then when that power forward on the Knicks—who Oliver rooted for and insisted was underrated—had choked on consecutive point-blank layups during a key sequence of a deciding play-off game against Jordan and the Bulls. (The image fresh even now to her: the final buzzer sounding; Oliver walking numbly away from the television, shutting their bedroom door behind him; minutes later Alice entering to see him sitting on the edge of the bed, face in his hands.)

    Six years together and she could count these four times—three legit, one ridiculous and endearing. Now number five.
    In less time than it took her to blink the tears away, not two seconds after they’d begun, Alice decided that if one ramification of her tears was going to be the loss of her husband’s equilibrium, if seeing her crying was going to get him crying, if he was going to worry that she wasn’t going to be able to deal with what lay ahead, and this worry was going to mean he wouldn’t be able to deal—then, she wouldn’t be the one who let them down.
    She disengaged from Oliver’s arms, dabbed at her eyes.
    Doe, still cradled in her arms, was looking up at her, the largest, most concerned eyes ever put on a baby.
    “Just a tug,” she said, “or the full regime?”
    “Full aspirate,” answered Eisenstatt.
    Alice could tell the doctor was being careful, wanted to keep their conversation grounded. “You should know,” he continued, “there are a lot of bone marrow biopsies.”
    “My third,” Alice sniffed.
    “It’s a stretch to say you’ll get used to having these procedures, but they should stop being foreign. Before we start a round of chemotherapy, we always confirm with an aspirate and biopsy. That’s what this is for.”
    “Excuse me?” Alice asked, bouncing the child. “Another round?”
    “We know more chemo is part of