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“You don’t have to stay,” she said when we reached the sliding doors. “I’ll get the nurses to call you when I’m ready to leave.”
“I know,” I said. “But I can keep you company until you go in for surgery, can’t I?”
“I suppose so,” Helen said with a chuckle, and squeezed my hand. “I don’t want you to waste your day on an old woman.”
“Spending time with you is never a waste,” I said, and Xavier and I took a seat while Helen checked in at the reception desk. There were a few other people in the waiting room, all of whom looked bored, and I wondered how long they’d been there. Helen returned to us with a clipboard full of pages and a pen.
“Haven’t you filled that out before?” I asked.
“They want to make sure the information’s current,” Helen said. “Do you mind if I list you as my emergency contact?”
I was shocked that she’d asked me. Flattered, yes, but surprised that she would write my details when her daughter was staying in her house.
“What about Carly?” I asked.
“She’s pregnant,” Helen pointed out. “And she’s got the kids with her. Evan’s in Canada, but he’s trying to work out how to get home.” She shook her head and her curly hair swayed around her face. “If anything happens, I’d rather call you.”
A lump rose in my throat and I swallowed it. Crying wasn’t going to help either of us, and I needed to stay strong for her.
“Of course you can put me down,” I said, and gave her a hug. “I’d be honored.”
When she’d finished filling in the forms, she gave them back to the receptionist.
“Did they say what time you’ll get called in?” I asked, and Helen shook her head.
“Nope, just that I have to wait.” She burrowed through her bag, pulled out a thick novel, and sighed. There was a bookmark already in it, about a quarter of the way through. “Isn’t it good that I was expecting to be here for a while?”
I didn’t know how Helen could read at a time like this, because I couldn’t focus on anything. I flipped through the hospital’s magazines, barely taking in stories about celebrity marriages and divorces, not even noticing the chocolate cake recipe that I normally would have snapped a photo of so I could make for the guys. There wasn’t a clock in the waiting room, but every time I checked the time on my phone, I felt like it must have been broken. Surely more than ten minutes had passed since I’d last checked it?
A doctor in a white lab coat came through the swinging doors at ten past nine, and I sat up, wondering if he was Helen’s surgeon, but instead, he called out, “Marian Greenlaw?”
A woman around Helen’s age followed him through the door with a solemn expression, and I wondered how long we would have to wait.
“Have they given you more information about the surgery?” I asked, and Helen shook her head, using her thumb as a bookmark as she let the pages close on her hand.
“Nothing I didn’t already know.” She gave me a weak smile. “It’s the benefit of being a frequent flier — I’ve seen the cockpit, met the pilots, and I already know how jetlagged I’m going to feel when I wake up.”
“You’re not curious about the procedure itself?” I asked. Helen shrugged.
“This isn’t brain surgery, Emma. I’m getting my breasts cut off. I know what they’re going to do, and I’d rather not know the details.”
I sat back in my chair, wishing that I’d had the same level of foresight. I’d spent most of the night watching surgery videos online, wincing the first time I saw a surgeon cut around a woman’s nipple with a scalpel, becoming desensitized to it a few videos later. I’d barely slept and adrenaline had kept me going all morning, but now that we were sitting still without anything happening, all I wanted to do was sleep.
Still, I willed myself to stay awake, because I knew that if I dozed off and Helen went into surgery without me saying I loved her, I’d never forgive myself.
The minutes ticked by.
Eventually, Helen’s specialist from the medical center appeared, and I sat up again.
“Helen Williams?” he said, and it was the first time I’d seen Helen’s composure change.
She collected her things and picked up her bag without saying anything, but when she was ready to leave, turned around and looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“You’ll be fine,” I said, my voice cracking from the emotion I held back. “You’ve been through this before, and they’re going to cut out all the cancer and make sure it never returns.”
“I know,” Helen said, squeezing her eyes shut, making her crow’s feet more prominent than usual. “Don’t worry, it’ll take a lot more than this to get rid of me.”
Xavier wrapped his arms around me as she walked away, soothing me with his warm, silent, comforting presence. The door swung closed behind Helen and kept my composure as I watched her walk down the hallway through the square window.
