She shuts the laptop. “You got in.”
I scream. “I am using aknife, people,” Bailey huffs, and Samantha drops her whisk in the frosting, and then there are arms wrappedaround me. A bunch. I can’t tell who’s who, just that these are my sisters, sweaty and happy, covered in lemon sugar.
“Okay, you need to email them back,” Maisie says as we pack the prepped food into her car. “So don’t come until later. Like, five?”
“Perfect.”
She closes her trunk. “And you’re sure you can do—you know—on your own?”
“Super sure.”
While the rest of May had lurched by, June has been slow, like only early summer in Waterfield can be. The pool opened up, school let out. The fireflies appeared one night on my evening run and haven’t gone away, swarms of them, gold fairies in the dark blue. I’d forgotten how, when you stay in the same place for a month and a half, you see how time gathers itself in little changes. The sunset coming later in the afternoon, your sister’s haircut that’s a bit shorter than she wanted.
Chicago is still herself, too. Loud, gray and blue, busy, kind. The high-risk cancer research department is located inside a university hospital, and I head into the sterile gray building after I’ve had my fill of Lake Michigan, reminding myself that I can do this. I should.
The clinic is beautiful. Clearly very well funded, which makes me sad to think about. There’s a trickling fountain in the waiting room, and mostly women in the chairs. We smile at each other, an offbeat camaraderie. So many of them have to be going through experiences that are so much harder than mine.
“Cat?”
The same soft-spoken nurse is here from last time, and she leads me back to Doctor Lucille’s room. “Just pop your head out if you need anything before she comes in,” she says, leaving me on aplastic chair and closing the door. No MRIs today, so I get to keep my clothes on. A silver lining.
Today, I’m learning my odds. Less silver.
When Doctor Lucille arrives, in a flurry of white lab coat swishes and Dansko heel clicks, she reminds me that this isn’t set in stone. It’s their job to evaluate my family history and genetics to help reduce my cancer risk through preventative care and counseling. “It’s just a number. And you have to remember that your tests look great at this moment, and genetics isn’t a destiny. This number can get lower or higher depending on your lifestyle factors, such as smoking. Don’t smoke.”
“I know,” I tell her. “It’s okay. I’m ready.”
She pulls up the number on her computer. I look at it, weirdly peaceful. It’s higher than I want it to be. It’smuchlower than it could be.
It just… is. There, on the screen.
It isn’t hanging over me anymore, invisible.
On my way out, I schedule my follow-up exams. I get to come in multiple times per year. Mammograms, MRIs, possible ultrasounds, in-office visits like today where nothing particularly happens besides an infodump and therapy. “We’ll see you in six months,” the receptionist says, then hands me a pamphlet onUnderstanding My Risksand a lollipop.
I yank the wrapper off. “See you then.”
I stop by the house after, per Maisie’s orders. Everyone’s at the restaurant, so I take a shower that lasts way too long, change into my veryBear-esque white shirt and blue jeans and lucky red shoes, then pull out Faust’s journal from under my bed. I’dbeen sleeping with it under my pillow for a few days, but that had felt creepy.
When you’re ready, he’d said.
I am now.
Flipping carefully to the first page, I blink at the date. January 1. He must keep one journal per year. So Kafka of him—soFaust. And most of the entries are on the shorter side. For the first day of the year, when the rest of us are panicking over New Year’s resolutions and sweating out hangovers, all he wrote was,I hope I make the most out of this year.
He still hasn’t announced that he’s retiring. Picking at my necklace, I flip to February 14, the day of Bernard’s wedding. This entry is short, too.
Insufferably, I met someone today.
My fingers slip over my mouth, pressing against my smile. But I bite my lip and keep flipping, through February—when he’d said he’d searched for me. There are entries for that, too, little notes about not wanting to ask Bernard about the woman in a black dress who’d attended the ceremony,better not to let him know that she exists. When I get to the first entry after I started working at Stark-Benzin, I’m swallowing back tears. I’d never forgive myself for ruining these pages by crying on them, his lists, his clues.
I don’t know what’s going on with this woman.
But I’m not going to let her out of my sight.
Seven years ago, she didn’t exist.
I’m worried that I hurt her.
