CHAPTER ONE: I’M A TREE
“Pancreatic carcinoma.”
“Cancer?” Vince asked.
The doctor nodded solemnly. The physician apparently read Vince as a man of few words and was either just like him, or thought that a scarcity of words was what his patient needed.
“How big is the tumor?” Vince asked.
“Tumors. The cancer has already metastasized, unfortunately.”
Vince had come to his doctor a short time ago with complaints of nearly crippling abdominal pain, some nausea, and an inexplicable loss of fifteen pounds—weight loss noticeable enough for a couple of people close to him to have asked about it already. Vince had had a fit frame to begin with; now he was beginning to look ill.
He had expected bad news. A nurse had called him and asked him to come in to discuss the results of the scans and lab work his doctor had ordered. Her orders were especially telling when she’d said to bring a friend or family member with him. Of course he’d ignored her.
Cancer had certainly been a thought, so Vince had at least had some time to prepare himself for that. But he’d been under the false impression that if it was cancer, they would have caught it early enough that it wouldn’t have spread yet. He’d dreamed up scenarios where a minor surgery proved successful, or a few months of chemotherapy left him tired but in remission. “How big are the tumors, then?” he asked, slouching forward and propping his elbows on his knees. He habitually checked his watch. Only half an hour before he had promised to be back at the office. He couldn’t even remember what excuse he’d made up for his absence.
“The primary tumor is about an inch around.”
“What about the other tumor?”
“Other tumors,” the doctor corrected again.
Vince flattened his palms against one another and hung his head. He was losing patience with his doctor’s lack of bedside manner, but at least the man was keeping him informed. “Okay, how big are the others?”
“There are two on your liver, both slightly smaller than the primary tumor, and two small tumors on your lymph nodes.”
Vince took a shuddering breath as he thought of his son, Charlie, who was probably getting picked up from school by his aunt this very minute. “Can you remove them?”
“Unfortunately, you’re already in stage four. It’s very common with this kind of cancer not to catch it until it’s too late. It’s virtually impossible to help a pancreatic cancer patient with surgery at this stage. It almost always comes back, and any operations will be that much harder on your body while it’s already weakened. Our best bet is a combination of radiation and chemotherapy, but even then, we’d only be holding the cancer at bay for a short while.”
A coldness Vince thought he might never overcome iced its way through his veins. “How long?” he asked, his voice now frigid.
“About twenty percent of patients will make it a year after diagnosis, but that’s including patients from all stages, and you’re in the last stage.”
“So I don’t have as long.”
“Correct. I would say six months, realistically. Maybe seven or eight if things go better than planned.”
Six months, Vince thought. I won’t even make it to Charlie’s next birthday. Don’t think about that. Just breathe. In. Out. In. Out. You’ve dealt with scarier things.
No, you haven’t.
“Six months is terminal, isn’t it?” Vince asked.
“To most, yes, but the number is rather arbitrary. You’ll have time to get your affairs in order. Look at it that way. Do you have any family?”
“My ex-wife passed away three years ago, but I have six-year-old son.” Vince’s lips curled in between his teeth and he bore down on them as the first of many tears burst forth.
“Then you may want to consider not undergoing treatment. It won’t be pretty. You’ll spend a lot of time exhausted and sick.”
“How much time will it buy me?”
“Without it, I’d give you about four months.”
I’d give you? Vince thought with contempt. Who does he think he is? God?
“So I could possibly double my time with treatment. I need as much time as I can get. I’d like to get treated. As soon as possible. Do whatever you can.”
“Of course. Any decision you make is the right one for you. I recommend you get a port installed to make the chemotherapy easier and less painful, but that’s up to you.”
“It won’t buy me time,” Vince said.
“No, it won’t. It’s just to make things easier, more comfortable.”
“It’s a waste of my time, then.” Vince knew he was speaking rashly. From what he’d remembered from a great aunt’s bout with cancer a few years ago, a port would probably be the way to go.
“I’ll give you a prescription for some methadone, which you can take for pain relief on top of ibuprofen as needed. Use it sparingly for now. I’ll also get you on some Zofran for the nausea, again as needed. Give yourself a couple of days after starting these before you try driving again. You may find that you become unable to. Some people find the methadone to be harsh on their stomachs and the Zofran to make them dizzy. It might take a while to find a balance.”
Vince nodded. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“I’ve covered what I needed to cover. I do recommend you get a second opinion, as I recommend to all my patients. But you seem like a man who appreciates honesty, so I’ll tell you right now that the second opinion in this case is just to give yourself more assurance of what’s to come. I wouldn’t expect any other answers from anyone else. If you have any more questions for me now, though, I’d be happy to answer them.”
“No, no other questions right now. Thank you.” Vince stood, ashamed for crying, though he knew he had every right in the world to do so. At forty-six years old, he was far too young to be killed by any sort of illness. He reached out his hand and shook the doctor’s firmly.
“I’m very sorry the news wasn’t better. I’ll page one of the nurses and have her set up your first appointments for the chemo and radiation. She’ll also talk to you about support groups you can look into. See whomever you like for a second opinion. If you think of any questions, feel free to call back.”
As Vince stepped out of the doctor’s office and into the hallway, he could swear he left a week’s worth of his health behind him. He felt his already lean figure growing skeletal and wondered what he would look like without his thick head of salt and pepper hair. There was no way around it now. Every day from now on, he would look a little different from what he had seen in the mirror the day before. And if the physical symptoms he’d suffered so far were any indicator, he was in for months of pain, months of not wanting to eat for fear of seeing it come back up again. Months of torture.
—
“Not coming back to the office? Everything all right?” Harry Fitzhugh, his colleague and one of his best friends, asked twenty minutes later over the phone.
“Just not feeling well.” Vince remembered his excuse now as he ran a sweaty hand through his hair. He’d said he was going to Charlie’s parent-teacher conferences. “Grabbed some fast food on the way to Charlie’s school and it’s really not sitting well with me. Hold down the fort for me?” he asked of his second-in-command. Though Vince was the team’s assistant special agent in charge and led them in an official capacity, he trusted that any of them could probably do the job just as well. That was comforting, given what was to come.
“You bet. Hope you feel better.”
“Thanks, Harry,” Vince said, hanging up and dialing his direct supervisor next. He and Special Agent in Charge Jean Hanson rarely saw eye-to-eye, but he knew she had a heart somewhere in there. She just didn’t like to show it. As the phone rang in his ear, Vince watched the barren trees as he sped past them, some with branches still weighed down and frail from the recent early January ice storm. Several trees had succumbed shortly after the harsh weather, meeting an early and unexpected death along the streets.
&n
bsp; I’m a tree.
Normally, the ice glinted painfully in one’s eyes, but the sun was hiding behind a thicker than usual layer of grey clouds today.
“Hanson,” a woman finally answered.
“Agent Hanson, Agent Glasser here,” he said formally. “I need to be out of the office for the rest of the day, but I need to meet with you tomorrow. It’s urgent.”
“So urgent that you’ll be gone the rest of the day and can’t say what you need to say over the phone?” she asked.
“I hope it will make more sense to you tomorrow when we meet.”
“I take it not everything is well.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Well, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Come to my office when you get in,” she said. “I hope whatever it is clears itself up before then, though.”
Vince didn’t bother telling her that was impossible. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He hung up just as he pulled into his former sister-in-law’s neighborhood. When he arrived at her driveway, he could see Jenna through the front bay window, lively and productive just like her late sister. She looked just like her too, tall and a little too slender, with gently waving red hair and the Parsons family’s short nose and small eyes. Kate had been seven years older than Jenna, but it hadn’t been uncommon for the sisters to be mistaken for twins.
“It’s me,” he called when he entered the house.
“Vince?” Jenna called back. She came to the front of the house, half a cookie in her hand.
“Daddy!” Charlie tore down the hall, squeezing between his aunt and the wall. “How come you’re not at work?”
Vince crouched down to let Charlie hop into his arms. “I just missed you, that’s all. Well, that and I need to talk to Auntie Jen. Do you think you can go get bundled up and build me a snowman in the back yard? I’ll come help you in a little bit.”
“Can I have a carrot for his nose?” the sandy blonde boy asked his aunt.
“You bet,” she said, putting on an overly happy front for Charlie and casting Vince a furtive, worried glance while she opened the fridge. “What’s going on?” she asked the second the back door was closed behind her nephew.