Nick
Cancer was always a possibility for Leah. After already losing one ovary to cancer, the possibility of recurrence had always been there, with her endometriosis giving us one more reason to stay vigilant.
She was only a few months shy of celebrating five years NED—five years with no evidence of disease. It was a milestone we’d been looking forward to.
Imaging found a suspicious mass on her remaining ovary with possible involvement of the uterus. Given her history and the appearance on the scans, her gynecologic oncologist didn’t want to wait. They still can’t say definitively that it’s malignant; pathology gets the final word.
So today, less than a week after her CT scan, they’re removing her uterus, remaining ovary and fallopian tube, then sending everything to pathology.
We always knew this was a possibility.
I just wish knowing made it less terrifying.
“You're pacing again,” she murmurs.
“Just stretching my legs.”
Grady looks up from his coloring book. “What’s pacing?”
Leah continues shading in a triceratops with a bubble gum pink crayon.
“Sometimes when we’re nervous, our bodies don’t know what to do with those big feelings.
Like when your tummy gets butterflies or your head gets fuzzy and you want to hide somewhere quiet.
Some people walk back and forth instead. That’s called pacing.”
“Oh … yeah, Dad’s pacing.”
Leah presses her lips together, sheepishly glancing up at me.
I playfully narrow my eyes.
“Sounds like someone is ready to head to school with their Aunt Tate.” Tatum pulls open the curtain, a bag of donut holes in hand with a fresh cup of coffee and a carton of milk.
“Aunt Tate!” Grady abandons his crayons and jumps to his feet.
She sets everything down just in time to squat and catch him when he barrels into her open arms. “There’s my guy.” She squeezes him tight before pulling back and holding up the bag. “Look what I gotcha.”
His eyes light up, his hands fluttering beside his cheeks as he bounces on his toes. “Donut holes?”
“You bet, buddy, and—” she lowers her voice to me—“I watched them make them far, far away from the nuts.”
Good thing. Grady already has the bag open with his fingers wrapped around one.
“Partner,” I warn. “What do we say?”
“Thank you, Aunt Tate.” He lifts the donut hole toward his mouth.
“Ah-ah.” I point at it. “What else do we ask when someone besides Dad gives you something to eat?”
He pauses. “Does this have any nuts?”
“There you go.” I ruffle his hair and open his milk. “Now you can dig in.” I glance back over to Tatum. “Thanks again for doing this. I … wasn't sure if I should’ve just kept him home today or—”
“No.” Leah collects all of the crayons and places them in their box. “Quite a bit has changed—and is going to keep changing. School is familiar and will be a good distraction.”
Tatum nods. “And I’ll be there at dismissal. And I do believe we playdate with Vera and Birdie. It's going to be a good day.”
Grady looks up, his cheek stuffed with half a donut hole. “I have library today.”
Leah smiles. “Pick out a book for us to read tonight.”
“Leah …”
“What?” She lowers her voice. “The surgery will be about an hour, and they'll have me up and walking this afternoon.”
We stare at each other for a few moments.
“Well, I think we better head out.” Tatum grabs Grady’s jacket and helps him shove his arms through the sleeves. “Come on, big guy. We’ve got words to sound out.”
Grady hugs both Leah and me before taking Tatum’s hand and leaving the pre-op area.
The warmth seems to leave with them, the antiseptic sterility of the hospital seeping back into every corner.
I stare at Leah's monitors and IV fluids out of habit.
Sinus eighty-eight.
Pressure’s good.
Sat ninety-nine on room air.
Probably a standard propofol induction with fentanyl and roc—
“Nick?” Her fingers slip into my hand. “Come back to me.”
I slowly lower myself to the edge of her bed. I tuck a loose wisp of hair back into her French braid before kissing her forehead. “I'm here.”
She holds my hand against her cheek. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
She kisses my knuckles. “Please don’t become that guy.”
My brow furrows. “What guy?”
“The guy who gets cancer right along with me. Who worries when I’m tired, panics when something hurts, starts measuring our whole life by appointments and scans.” Her eyes search mine. “I don’t want this thing to take you, too. I need somewhere in my life where I’m still just Leah.”
My eyes burn as I turn my face into her palm and kiss the center of it. “Darlin’, you forget.” I look back at her. “You’re my whole world.”
“And you’re the brightest part of mine.” Her fingers trace my cheek. “I need you to keep shining, even when things get dark for me.”
A lump forms in my throat I lean into her touch. “Okay.”
The curtain pulls back as Diwa steps in with another bag of fluid. “You ready, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” I answer.
Diwa cuts her eyes toward me. “I was asking Leah.”
Leah laughs, and I hold up my hands. “Sorry.”
“This one.” Diwa points at me. “Menace. Always has been.”
“No truer words have ever been spoken,” Leah teases, pinching my sides. “I have to keep him on a very short leash.”
“Good woman.” Diwa comes around the bed and throws an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me against her side. “But—” she takes off her glasses—“he has a heart of gold. I’m glad he finally found someone to give it to.”
Leah bites her lip, beaming.
Heat crawls up my neck. “Okay, okay, stop being all sappy.”
Diwa laughs and gives my cheek an affectionate pat. “You bring her when you move with us to the Philippines.”
I chuckle. “I promise.”
A few minutes later, Leah’s surgical team filters in, and the room shifts from waiting to go time. Diwa hands me a surgical cap, and I can carefully coil her French braid beneath it, tucking in the wisps around her ears.
I lean down and kiss her. “I love you,” I murmur.
Leah hums, brush her nose against mine. “See you soon, Cowboy.”
“You better.”
She kisses me once more before they unlock the bed and wheel her away.
***
The hospital chapel is empty when I walk in. It’s small and eerily quiet with dated wood paneling and stained-glass windows. The lingering scent of incense hangs in the still, sacred air.
I take a seat near the back and stare at the little wooden kneeler tucked beneath the pew in front of me.
I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t pray. I'm not even really sure I believe in a higher power—at least not the all-knowing, all-loving entity in the Bible.
But she does.
She's going to be okay. She's young and healthy and in great hands.
In this moment, I'm scared. I'm empty and lonely and I so desperately need to feel her peace.
It made sense to come here.
I lower the kneeler and get down on my knees. My elbows rest against the pew in front of me, and I lace my fingers together.
“Hello?” I glance around the chapel. “I don’t know if anyone’s actually listening. But if you are, hi.” I swallow around a knot in my throat, twiddling my thumbs. “I'm, uh … I'm Nick. Crawford, just in case.”
I sigh, staring absently at the crucifix resting on the altar. But after a while, I’m not really seeing it anymore.
All I see is her.
“She's so, so good ” I relax my hands, letting them rest against the edge of the pew in front of me. “Her smile alone makes everyone around her better. I have never experienced such kindness and generosity and love.” My lip trembles. “She’s all the proof I'll ever need that heaven exists.”
I blink back tears. “If something were to happen, I know she'd be okay.” My voice breaks. “But I wouldn't be. so, if you could, just watch over her. Because I need her.”
I need you, darlin’.
Come back to me.
As I sink back into my seat, the chapel door creaks behind me. A sliver of light slips inside, stretching across the crimson carpet. Assured footsteps follow, moving toward me with a familiar, unhurried gait. The old wooden pew groans and shifts as Jonathan sits beside me.
For a while, neither of us says anything.
“How’d you find me?” I ask.
A quiet laugh leaves him. “Word gets around when Nicholas Crawford walks into the chapel.”
I grin. “That unusual, huh?
“People were concerned the building might collapse.”
We share a soft lady as the quiet finds us again.
“I … didn’t know where else to go. In case you were wondering.” I rub the back of my neck. “Figured if there was ever a time for a last-ditch effort …”
Jonathan listens. He casually pushes up his glasses, unhurried and content to let the silence stretch between us.
I glance at my watch. “Do you know anything? Diwa called me when the procedure started, but that was almost forty minutes ago.”
Jonathan's hand finds my shoulder.
My head whips to find his doctor-to-patient face, the brave expression we mask when delivering bad news.
My stomach twists. “Jon—”
“She's still in surgery—”
“Is she alright?” I grab his forearm. “Please. Tell me she's alright.”
“When they opened her up, they found extensive adhesions.”
“How extensive?”
Jonathan hesitates. “Dense. Pelvic anatomy is distorted enough that they’re having trouble getting clean planes. They can’t reliably differentiate scar tissue from endometriosis or tumor grossly. They’re sending frozen sections.”
No, no, no.
I lean forward, pressing both hands against my head. “Any obvious mets?”
“Nothing they can call without pathology.” He lets out a heavy exhale. “Nick, there’s bowel involvement. They may need to resect.”
The last of my oxygen escapes my lungs as gravity shifts beneath me.
This might not be a contained recurrence of cancer anymore
We’re talking advanced disease.
My hand steadies against my friends arm as my ribs crack and splinter.
This isn't happening.
It can't be happening.
My eyes drift toward the altar as bitterness and disdain crawls up my throat.
“Fuck you.” The words come out broken. “Hasn't she had enough? Seriously, what more do you want from her?” I wipe my face with the back of my hands. “This is why people don’t believe in you. I might deserve this, but she doesn't.”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
I can't be here.
I shove myself off the pew, nearly catching my foot on the kneeler as I stumble into the aisle.
“Nick—”
“I need to get out of here.” I push past Jonathan, barely registering his hand reaching for me as I make for the door.
“Nick, wait …” Jonathan calls after me. “We don’t know what the pathology will show.”
I swing around and face him. “Do you believe that’s comforting? Do you?”
He drops his gaze
“This isn’t her first battle with cancer, Jon. And now they open her up and find disease everywhere, and you want me to sit here and pretend my brain isn’t going exactly where yours would?” I drag both hands through my hair and pace away from him. “God, imagine if that were Tate on the table!”
A low growl tears from my throat as I turn and pace back, gripping my hair hard enough to sting.
“I just told her I loved her.” I scoff, but it comes out wet and broken. “I wasted so much fucking time being scared of saying it.” I scrub both hands over my face. “If I’d known … I would’ve told her the first goddamn day I met her.”
I turn away again, my head drops between my shoulders.
Jonathan closes the distance between us, puts a hand on the back of my neck, and stays there while I cry.