Chapter 2
Two
So yeah, ALL is a terrible uninvited guest who nobody wants to hear from again if and when you manage to kick it out of your body. But apparently, there was something way worse than getting the cancer that killed your mother and almost killed you.
The cure.
Four years ago, thanks to extensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow match from a good Samaritan of a similar racial background, I went into remission.
I’ll always be grateful for that. Unfortunately, the cure that saved my life also turned off my body’s immune system, effectively leaving the door open for an even scarier monster: acute myeloid leukemia.
AML … those were the three letters now hanging over my head a few hours later as I walked back into the ultra-modern AlgoFortune office building in a daze.
It hadn’t taken my Scottish doctor nearly as long to explain AML to me as it did the doctor back in Albany, New York where I’d grown up to explain ALL. And that turned out not to be a good thing.
The disease typically showed up in eight to ten percent of cancer patients within an average of five years. And for patients with a history and genetic profile like mine, AML had an average life expectancy of eight months. Give or take.
Eight months. The roar of an ocean started between my ears as Dr. Keller explained why chemotherapy and radiation were no longer options for me. Then he gently suggested we schedule another appointment to discuss “palliative options.”
TL; CP—Too long/couldn’t process version: “Your cancer is back, you’re dying, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
For once, I was happy the office Iain had given me outside of his suite was made entirely of glass. Sitting inside a rectangular fishbowl that put me on view for anyone who happened to be walking by was the only reason I didn’t immediately burst into tears as soon as I sat down at my desk.
Instead, I flipped through the brochures the doctor’s nurse had pressed into my hand.
They had much less hopeful titles than the ones I’d received as a sick 19-year-old. Less “rah-rah, you can beat this!” and more “oh well, better deal.”
The “Coping with Loss and Grief” booklet listed all the mental and physical therapy resources in Edinburgh Cancer Care Centre’s network.
There was also a practical pamphlet entitled, “Talking with Loved Ones about Advanced Care Planning.” And rounding out the world’s most depressing collection of medical brochures ever was, “Transitions: Taking Charge at the End of Life” which consisted of three brief commiserative paragraphs followed by a list of local hospices and in-home hospice care providers.
Wow, I’m really going to die.
At the age of twenty-five.
That’s a thing that’s going to happen to me in less than a year, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Even though I skipped breakfast and lunch, my stomach pitched and rolled, and I set the brochures aside for fear of what my body would expel if I continued to dwell on them … or my fatal diagnosis.
Okay, time to stop wallowing. “Stiff upper lip” as they were known to say around these parts. I pushed my glasses up my nose and typed in my computer passcode.
I’d been gone less than an hour. But in that time, Iain had sent me over thirty messages—four of which were marked urgent.
I glanced toward his office. His door was firmly closed. Which meant he was probably scrambling to get the code for the latest algorithm completed before taking off for his retreat.
Good. That meant I could work in peace. Without him hovering over me, complaining I’d missed two serial commas in my daily market report (as he’d done yesterday).
Or repeatedly ordering me to draft emails from him to workers that typically began with “Dear [insert one of the numerous Scottish terms for idiot here].”
Yes, that was what I would do. Throw myself into my work. Try to forget about the new set of letters hovering over my head—at least for a little while.
I started re-typing Iain’s notes to the GUI team from this morning’s update so they’d sound like they’d been written by a semi-decent human being and not a pit viper in a kilt. I managed to focus on that and only that for five whole minutes. But then a restless feeling overcame me.
A restless feeling that made me open a new tab in my internet browser and type in the URL for the Royal Scottish Bank. A password, a security question, and a few clicks later, my savings account popped up on my screen.
I stared at the four-figure number. It wasn’t a lot. But it was something. Enough to go somewhere else—somewhere I’d never been before and survive for a month or two. I could maybe even stretch it out to four or six months if I didn’t come back to live in crazy expensive Edinburgh.
I opened another new tab on my computer. This time, I typed “Milford Track New Zealand” into the empty search bar at the top of the window.
It was where I’d originally planned to travel at the end of my summer internship in Scotland. But then the position at AlgoFortune had become available …
I clicked on the Images tab, and my screen filled with pictures of a gorgeous fjord, flanked by lush green mountains and majestic waterfalls, the likes of which I’d never seen in real life. And might never get the chance to see again—not if I didn’t go there before it was too late.
My heart thundered, and I knew—knew what I had to do. Right now, before I could chicken out and stop myself.
I stood abruptly and charged into Iain’s office without knocking. Totally against his standards. I was actually supposed to send a text first and get formal permission before even daring to knock. But I no longer cared about his infamous list of protocols.
I mean, what did I have to lose?
I marched right up to his stupid standing desk and cranked my head back to look him straight in the eye—only to have my newfound courage peter out as soon as my gaze met his annoyed one.
Ugh. Why did he have to be so ridiculously gorgeous? My heart skipped all the beats, as usual, and my stomach dropped like I’d gotten on a roller coaster, not simply tried to look at my boss straight on for once.
I ended up quickly redirecting my eyes to my feet.
“Well?” Iain demanded, his voice even testier than usual. “Out with it. Why did you barge into my office without the required permission to enter text.”
“Um … I just found out I have cancer,” I said, dropping my eyes to my feet.
“Actually. I had cancer before. Leukemia. It’s been in remission since before I came to Scotland.
But now I have a new type of leukemia. And I guess it’s too aggressive for them to treat, so it looks like I don’t have much longer … ”
I trailed off, expecting a barrage of questions. What kind of cancer? What do you mean untreatable? Why am I just now hearing about this?
But he didn’t say anything. And I was too afraid to look up to see how he was taking this. With my eyes still glued to my feet, I told him, “I’m sorry. I really am, but I need to quit. Effective in two weeks.”
This time I did look up. Not because I felt particularly brave. I just needed to get a sense of where he was at before I said anything else.
Iain thought he had an answer for everything, and he hated change of any kind. I got a “not up to my standards” reprimand the other day just for modifying a report’s font from Avenir to Avenir Next—that was how opposed he was to even the tiniest minutia of deviation from his standard.
So, I had no idea how he’d react to the news that for reasons completely out of his control, he’d be losing his assistant in two weeks.
However, Iain’s face remained its usual hard mask, his jaw tightly clenched with irritation.
“I’m sorry.” I dropped my gaze again. To my hands this time. They’d somehow folded into a tight prayer-like clasp against my chest. “I … I know it’s going to be inconvenient to replace me, especially as we go into stage two of the new product launch. I’ll start looking for my replacement today—”
“Both your parents are no longer in your life, correct?”
I started, majorly surprised by that question coming out of Iain Scotswolf’s mouth.
I mean, I knew almost everything there was to know about Iain.
I made sure his one-night stands went as smoothly as possible, fielded calls from his brother, sent in monthly five-figure donations to his alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, on his behalf.
Last month, I’d refused yet again to put through a call from Iain’s Italian mother, Valentina, who’d moved back to the Italian countryside after splitting up with his father, Lachlan.
And next month I’d make sure Lachlan received a new set of golf clubs for Scottish Father’s Day.
When I went back to my desk earlier that morning, I’d set up the requested date with Lisette because that was how involved I was in Iain’s life outside of work.
But I figured Iain knew next to nothing about me. He’d never asked me a single question about my background or life outside the office—not until this morning when my doctor’s appointment came up. And now here he was asking about my parents. What was going on here?
“Um … no, they’re not,” I answered carefully. Knowing how impatient he could be, I left out all the details about how my dad left pretty much right before I was born, and how my mother had died soon after.
“So, you have no close family to speak of?”
“No,” I answered again. A painful memory from four years ago surfaced … of being the only person at the funeral of the grandmother who’d raised me after my mother had died. And of the sudden realization that I was entirely on my own now that she was gone.
“Right then, you’ve nowhere to go. So why would someone in your condition quit a well-paid job with private benefits? That’s just daft!”
The harsh truth of Iain’s words hit me with a sharp pang.
He was right; I didn’t have anyone.