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It was incredibly strange to hear the word come out of her daughter’s mouth. It made her want to cry, actually. “Thanks for your opinion.”
Paige shrugged as if it weren’t really that big of a deal.
“Do you have any questions about it?” Rachel asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, if you do, you can ask me, okay? No matter what it is.”
“Okay.”
As if to make it clear that she was done talking about that particular topic, Paige turned up the radio when one of the new Taylor Swift songs came on the local pop station. She said nothing else for the duration of the ride to school until they wereat the drop-off line.
“Have a good day, sweetie.”
“You, too,” Paige said. When Rachel saw the slackened and slightly sad look on her daughter’s face as she got out of the car, Rachel wished she’d never even mentioned the chemo. It probably wasn’t the best thing to discuss just before dropping Paige off at school.
By the time Rachel had made it back off of school grounds, several tears had worked their way out of her eyes. She didn’t bother wiping them away. If she’d learned anything over the last few weeks, it was that crying did tend to help, if only for a little while. So she let the tears come without trying to stop them as she hurried along to officially start trying to help Jack with his case.
***
She’d noted that Jack mentioned Dr. Matthews worked for the largest hospital in the city. There were only two major hospitals in Richmond, with a few general practice centers scattered here and there. In the time that had elapsed since she’d received her first cancer diagnosis nearly a year ago, Rachel had been to that larger hospital on two occasions for smaller procedures—namely blood work and physicals. There was a general practice physician that worked closely with Dr. Emerson on brain tumor cases.
In other words, she was familiar with the layout of the hospital. When she arrived, she headed straight to the main lobby and found the line for General Help and Administration. There were only two others in line when she joined it, but she knew that meant nothing solid. While she waited, she took out her phone and texted her first blatant lie of the morning.
She sent it to Grandma Tate.Checking in,she typed. Paige delivered safely to school. Almost at the grocery store.
She got a response almost immediately, a simple thumbs up—a little shortcut Grandma Tate had been using to her advantage a bit too much as of late. She was also experimenting with emoticons, which Rachel found funny.
It took her ten minutes to reach the window. The woman sitting behind it greeted her with a practiced smile. The nametag pinned to the breast of her polo read: CANDACE.
“Can I help you?” Candace asked.
“Yes, I was supposed to meet with Regina Little today to go over some paperwork to have my medical records transferred.”
“Okay,” Candace said. It was a believable lie because Rachel had worked with Regina Little on two occasions when she’d needed paperwork sent to pharmacies for the experimental drug Dr. Emerson had prescribed a few months back.
After a few moments, Candace looked up with a frown.“I’m sorry, but I don’t see that here in the system. Are you sure if was for today? Yes, I’m pretty sure.”
“A meeting for the paperwork, you said?”
“Yes.” And then, to play it up a bit, she leaned forward and said, “I’m meeting with my specialist later today to go over chemo plans and I was supposed to come by here to make sure the paperwork for my medical records was all in order.”
“Oh.” Rachel could see that Candace now thought something strange was going on. “And what’s your name, ma’am?”
“Paige Tate.”
Candace once again typed something into her laptop and shook her head.“I’m not sure what’s going on…or why an appointment was even set for something like this. I don’t even see your name here in the schedule anywhere.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand.”
Rachel knew this was the stage where things could get very tricky. It really just depended on how strict Candace was going to be.
“Well, Ms. Tate, if you’ll have a seat over in the waiting area, I’ll—”
“Please. Please…can’t someone talk to me? It’s just paperwork and I’d really just…I’d love to just get it over with. This decision about chemo was hard enough as it was, and…please…”
Candace looked more annoyed than touched, but Rachel also knew the staff was going to do everything they could to prevent causing a scene. She smiled once again, but it looked very forced.“One moment, ma’am.”
