Chapter 9

1993

Don's chemo went on for six months, on a schedule of two weeks on and two weeks off each month. The first three months, every time he got a treatment he did little but lie in bed over the weekends, then get up and grimly go to work on Monday.

He clearly felt miserable much of the time, but he stubbornly insisted on working, both in the office and at home. He flat-out refused to miss a day of work, no matter how bad he felt. Mowing our lawn (which was roughly the size of a postage stamp) became a big chore for him, so much so that he had to take two or three breaks while doing it.

More than once I offered to mow the lawn for him. "I do know how, you know," I'd say.

He'd frown. "It's my job. I'll do it."

I realized it was more of his I-won't-let-this-thing-beat-me attitude manifesting itself, so I shut up and let him do his job.

Oddly, somewhere around the fourth month, his body seemed to adjust to the chemo to a certain degree, and he felt better. Not great, but better. The physical effects of the chemo didn't seem terribly extreme. His thick, dark hair thinned out quite a bit, although he never went bald, and his eyebrows fell out partially, giving him a somewhat odd appearance. He didn't lose a dramatic amount of weight, for which I was grateful.

Overall, his experience with chemo was a lot better than most cancer patients. And when it was all over, the Hodgkin's disease was gone.

But whether we could have kids or not was still a question yet to be answered, a question that weighed heavily on both of us.

*****

After the chemo ended, Don went back on the road. He was gone five days a week, which I was used to by now. After several months to clear his system of the chemo, we were given the go-ahead to try to get pregnant. Even if he was still fertile, it wouldn't be easy to get pregnant around his travel schedule, and the first two months we tried, we were disappointed.

In the third month, he came home from one of his trips. I greeted him in my usual goofy and undignified way of expressing joy at his return, bounding like a golden retriever and all but knocking him over. But I must have looked even more gleeful than usual, because he frowned at me suspiciously.

"Hey," he said. "What's up?"

I grinned widely. "We're pregnant."

He stared at me for a minute, then picked me up and swung me around. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and both of us laughed with joy.

*****

December, 2007

Don was quiet on the way home from the oncologist's office. I didn't blame him. I didn't have a lot to say, either.

I drove without speaking, and he stared out the window for a long time. At last he stirred.

"I guess it's time to tell the kids," he said.

I nodded. We'd been putting off telling the kids until we had the official prognosis, because we were aware that we weren't doctors, and it was possible the information we'd gotten off the internet was inaccurate.

But unfortunately, it had turned out to be all too accurate.

"Yeah," I said. "Just the girls, I guess. The boys aren't old enough to understand. I guess we should go ahead and tell them tonight, huh? Want to do it together, after dinner?"

He was silent a moment longer.

"No," he said. "I want to be the one to tell them."

*****

After dinner, Don asked the girls to come upstairs with him. For whatever reason, he was absolutely determined that he should be the one to tell them the bad news. I wasn't sure if it was because he saw it as his responsibility, and his alone, or if he was afraid my presence would make him break down. I suspected it was probably a combination of the two.

At any rate, I waited about fifteen minutes, then went upstairs. I tapped lightly on the door of the girls' room, then opened the door.

The girls were sitting on the bed, and the eleven-year-old was weeping openly. The younger girl had a look of shocked bewilderment in her red-rimmed eyes that struck right into my heart. Don was seated in a chair, blinking hard. I went over to him and put my arms around his neck, hugging him from behind.

"Hey," I said. "Are you guys okay?"

As soon as I said it, I knew it was a stupid question. The girls weren't okay, and Don wasn't okay, and things weren't ever going to be okay again. That much was obvious.

The girls started to wail, and I let go of Don and went over to them. I sat on the bed, put my arms around them, and held them, one against each shoulder.

"Listen to me," Don said. His voice was steady, with only a hint of a quaver. "I promise you guys, I'm going to fight this as hard as I can."

I looked over the heads of my girls and saw the stubborn expression on his face, the hard glint in his pale blue eyes. And I believed that he'd fight, with everything he had. He always did.

But I knew as well as he did that it wouldn't be enough.

Read Chapter 10 here.