8. Becks Two Best Friends
JUNE 18, 1976
Tip: Virginia, women’s magazines will spout that early preparation of food is the key to pulling off a successful event. They are wrong. With the exception of the Thanksgiving turkey and a few other marinated dishes, food is almost always entirely better when made the day of. The key is menu organization. If you never plan a menu so complicated you can’t execute it the day of the event, you’ll never be put in the unfortunate position of having to serve your treasured guests what are, essentially, leftovers.
Mrs. Saint James,” a nurse in a starched white uniform with a nursing cap perched atop her head said, “the doctor will see you now.” Becks placed her pen and small leatherbound notebook inside her Bermuda bag and clasped the wooden handles. She loved these new bags and how she could snap on a different cover to suit her mood or outfit. She had chosen the pink cover today, which was embroidered with her monogram.
As she stood, Becks glanced at the newspaper, smiling to think of little Tommy Jones who she knew had delivered it. US VIKING 1 GOES INTO MARTIAN ORBIT AFTER 10-MONTH FLIGHT FROM EARTH, the headline read. Imagine. Mars. And only seven years after landing on the moon. What a world.
As Becks followed the nurse down the hall, she wondered if she tired of putting on those hose and white orthopedic shoes. It made her grateful for her comfortable, wide-legged pants—well, bell bottoms, she presumed they were—although hers were now ever-so-slightly too big. She had hooked the eye of her gold chain belt one loop tighter today to compensate.
Walking in this office still made Becks so grateful for the lovely life she had had because of it. Townsend’s family had found success as shipping merchants in Beaufort, and they had the sort of money that paid for college and medical school, which was a tremendous gift. Townsend’s income as a small-town doctor was perfectly suitable—especially for a man who had inherited a house with no payments—and Becks was given the luxury of staying home to raise her children, volunteering, and cultivating wonderful friendships.
Speaking of friendships, Daniel was already waiting for her in his crisp white doctor’s jacket, stethoscope around his neck, in the familiar room with the linoleum tile and the table covered in orange pleather that she was to sit on. Ordinarily, she would have waited for him, at least for a few minutes. “Hi, Daniel,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Doctor Walker,” she corrected, looking at the nurse. Where were her manners today? She must be nervous. As the nurse stepped out of the room, Daniel leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Becks.” He gestured toward a chair in the corner and sat down in his own behind a strip of laminate-covered counter, placing his hand on what she assumed was her chart. He smiled warmly.
His smile was familiar, a smile of deep friendship that reminded Becks of all the years they had spent together. When Townsend hired Daniel to go into practice with him—more than thirty years ago now—Becks had, of course, thrown a party to welcome Daniel and Patricia to town. It was the polite thing to do. She never would have imagined how deeply they would have connected, how Patricia and Daniel would become more like siblings to her than friends, filling a gaping hole in her heart. Patricia and Becks volunteered together, played bridge together. And Daniel wasn’t just Townsend’s dearest friend; he was Becks’s too. They read the same books and loved boating. For years, they had all raised children together.
But this new stage as empty nesters had its own merits. Becks was almost embarrassingly happy in her little life with her beloved husband, her now-grown children, and her dear friends. She loved to go on their boat with Townsend, Daniel, and Patricia on Sunday afternoons after a perfect Saturday night dinner party. She loved spontaneous flights with Townsend to Raleigh in their practically new 1973 Beechcraft Bonanza to see their son, or Washington, D.C., to see their daughter. Her husband was an accomplished pilot, after all, and a decorated war hero at that. If he could fly with bombs and guns aiming at him, land in fields and on roadsides during emergencies, he could certainly squire her through blue skies to her favorite cities.
She enjoyed keeping her house just so and weeding the beds in her garden, being at the helm of town affairs, and serving on the altar guild at her church. And while, yes, she did miss having children to take care of, she worked very hard at not pressuring her own kids for grandchildren. That would come soon enough, she hoped.
Becks always reasoned that she was happy because of the life she had created for herself. She wasn’t as smart as her cousins. She wasn’t as beautiful as her mother. She didn’t have aspirations to change the larger world like her daughter. But what Becks did have was an uncanny ability to read people. It was what made her an exceptional hostess, a terrific friend, and perhaps the best wife who had ever lived, in her not-so-humble opinion.
And, right now, it made her all too aware of the bad news that, despite his smile, was written all over Daniel’s face. She had been having back pain and darker-than-usual urine (something she told the nurse to relay to Daniel because she could never), and he had suspected kidney stones. Becks hadn’t been too thrilled about getting inside that newfangled CAT scan machine. Who knew what that could do to a person? But, well, she trusted Daniel, and he was the one who recommended it. She clutched her Bermuda bag tighter. “So, not a kidney stone?” Becks ventured.
Daniel took a deep breath. “I’m afraid not.” That’s when the panic sunk in. This was bad.
She couldn’t make Daniel say the words, so she jumped in for him. “It’s cancer, isn’t it?” Cancer wasn’t even a possibility they had discussed. But, then again, wasn’t cancer always a possibility these days? It couldn’t be breast. He wouldn’t have seen that from the scan. So it must be kidney, she thought. And couldn’t a person live with just one? So maybe they could treat it. Maybe it would be okay.
Daniel sighed. “It’s cancer, Becks.” He paused. “Of the pancreas.”
The room felt as if it was spinning. But she would not faint. No, she would not. Even still, she knew what her friend had just said: You are dying.
Daniel recovered quickly. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but new centers are springing up that focus specifically on cancer. I want to refer you to one that has had decent success with the Whipple procedure, a surgery that removes the head of the pancreas, a portion of the small intestine, the gallbladder, and bile duct to—”
“I know what the Whipple procedure is,” Becks said. She was a doctor’s wife, after all. She put her fingers to the bridge of her nose and squeezed in an attempt to dull the throbbing in her head. It was an ungodly surgery that one was lucky to survive.
“And chemotherapy has come a long way in the past thirty years,” Daniel added.
Becks had known Daniel for a long time. She had heard Townsend and him many, many times whispering over drinks about the life expectancy of a patient. They were wrong upon occasion, but ninety-nine times out of one hundred, they could call an ill person’s time of death down to the week.
Becks noticed how white her knuckles were and willed herself to quit clutching her bag so tightly. “Daniel,” she said softly, “I am your friend. Tell me what to do.”
To her surprise he got out of his chair and wrapped his arms around her. She wasn’t positive, but she thought he was crying. Your physician crying over your diagnosis was never a good sign.
“Be happy and let me make you as comfortable as I can, Becks,” he said into her ear. “I’m sorry. I want to help you. I want to fix it. There’s a chance one of those treatments could work. Maybe. But it’s very, very small. The cancer is very advanced.”
“How long?” she whispered.
“Six months, maybe? But if you continue on as you are, with no treatment, at least half of those should be pleasant.”
Daniel pulled away, wiping his eyes, and sitting back down in his chair. “I want to consult Townsend on this and send your scans and bloodwork off to MD Anderson for a second opinion.”
Becks shook her head. “You cannot tell Townsend.”
Daniel looked taken aback. “Becks, he’s your husband. He’s my best friend. He needs to be prepared for this.”
She shook her head again. “I want to give him as much time to enjoy life as usual as I possibly can.”
“But, Becks, I really think he’d want to—”
“Is that all?” she cut him off.
He sighed. “Let me drive you home.”
She shook her head once more. “You have a waiting room full of patients.”
“I have only two best friends, and you are one of them.”
“Oh, Daniel, let’s not do all that yet. You said yourself we have months.”
He half smiled, but his eyes filled with tears again. “You are a wonder, Becks. You always have been.”
She squeezed his hand because she knew she’d never be able to respond without breaking down.
Becks felt like she was in a trance as she walked out to the parking lot and climbed into her baby-blue Cadillac Coupe DeVille, a gift from Townsend when their daughter Virginia had graduated college last year—as if Becks had had anything to do with that. Her sobs choked her as she thought of Virginia, who was nearing twenty-three, and her son Lon, barely twenty-seven, both of whom were going to lose their mother at far too young an age. And then she thought of her own mother, whom she had spoken to only twice in the past forty years. She was running out of time. She believed it was too late to make things right. But she also knew she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t at least try.