Free Faces in the Fire by Hines Page A

a doctor who placed a comforting hand on her leg while speaking with a tremulous tear in his eye: “I’m sorry, but you have cancer.”
    Instead, Swain had been looking at a folder of notes, black-and-white X-ray images on the screen next to him as he spat out a big mouthful: “It looks like you have diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma.”
    Not even a “sorry” worked in there.
    The table beneath her came back to its starting position, and the disembodied voice told her to take another breath and hold it.
    Diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Swain had said it without looking up from his notes—the pathology report from the biopsy, she knew—and she half wondered if he was reading it to make sure he said it properly.
    She’d been holding her breath ever since sitting down on the bench in his office, waiting for him to flip a page of the report and give her the news. So she’d been given the news, and she knew there was no reason to keep holding her breath, but the problem was: she couldn’t breathe.
    Nothing in, nothing out. She just sat there, dumbfounded, not really taking in anything he’d said except that last word. Lymphoma.
    The doctor had looked up then. “You okay?” he asked.
    Well, that had been a stupid question, hadn’t it? She’d just been told she had some gobbledygook kind of lymphoma, and he wanted to know if she was okay. Still, she was thankful he’d asked, because it’s what broke the paralysis of her lungs.
    She’d laughed. Actually laughed. Are you okay?
    The CT scanner finished its second cycle, and she heard the voice tell her to breathe again.
    Yeah. Breathe.
    22.
    An hour later, back in front of her computer screen, waiting for a mass e-mail to relay through several fake IP addresses, she heard her cell phone ring. She recognized Dr. Swain’s office number; since being diagnosed three months ago, she’d dialed it many times.
    Could be bad news. Of course it could be bad news. But then, it could just be a reminder to give blood; she always had to give samples a week before each round of chemo
to make sure her counts were holding up. Probably that, now that she’d thought of it; she faintly remembered being told to give blood on the day of her CT scan, but she’d forgotten until just now.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œCorrine. Dr. Swain.”
    She smiled grimly. “Hi.”
    â€œYou had your latest CT scan today.”
    â€œYeah.”
    Surely he wasn’t calling just to tell her this; she had, after all, been present at the scan, so this wasn’t exactly news to her.
    â€œI just talked to the radiologist, and he’s still doing a report, but I wanted to talk to you about it right away.”
    â€œOh.” Just oh. That was the only word her mouth would form.
    He paused, and when he did, she knew it was bad. Good old Dr. Swain wasn’t a pauser; this was the guy, after all, who had casually blurted out her cancer diagnosis while he scanned pages of a report.
    â€œI’m afraid,” he said, “we’re not seeing much of a response to the R-CHOP. Your chemo regimen.”
    And there it was again. That holding of the breath, that paralysis of the lungs, that inability to speak or think.
    Breathe. Breathe normally.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œI think we need to look at other options.”
    Options. That was a good word, wasn’t it? She held on to it.
    â€œWhich are?”
    â€œYou can come in and we’ll talk about it, but I think you should consider a bone marrow transplant.”
    Transplant. That wasn’t such a good word.
    Dr. Swain was on a roll now, able to talk about the kinds of technical things that gave him comfort.
    â€œWe’ll look at the donor registry, hope for a match. If I recall, you don’t have any siblings.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œRelated donor is the best, but if we can find a good
    match . . .”
    She waited, but