Chapter 17
Nicole
Dr. Susan Langford’s office looked like any other private practice: clean and simple. Old carpet. The whole place smelled faintly of hand sanitizer. A few faux plants were scattered around the waiting room.
I didn’t have to wait long before a nurse walked me back to see the doctor.
Diplomas hung neatly on the wall of her office. Family photos crowded her desk. Two little kids grinning with missing teeth, Dr. Langford hugging them in front of a birthday cake.
“Mrs. Kolter.” Dr. Langford stepped into the office at the same time I did. Dr. Langford was tall and slim, with large blue eyes that pulled your attention away from her big ears. Her dark hair hung loosely over her shoulders.
The nurse slipped out without another word. Dr. Langford shook my hand, her grip firm, then sat in her chair behind the desk.
I sat across from her.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” I said, handing her the power of attorney. She scanned it, quickly but thoroughly, then passed it back across the desk.
“Of course,” she said in a kind tone. “I totally understand. I’m a mom too. I can only imagine how hard this must be for you.”
I nodded, grateful for her kindness even though my stomach was twisting.
“I just wanted to see if there is anything we can do for Lacey. She does not look good, Doctor. It looks like she isn’t eating. And since she’s still not talking …”
Her expression shifted to sad seriousness as she leaned over her desk. “You have every right to be concerned. Especially when it comes to Lacey. Correctional facilities must provide medically necessary treatment, but necessary means the bare minimum.”
“Yeah, that’s what my lawyer said. But I was wondering if we could pay for protein shakes or talk about force-feeding meals. There has to be something we can do.”
She shook her head. “Unfortunately, families can’t pay for better medication or treatment, and they can’t oversee the chemo treatment itself. But I was able to move her into the medical unit of the jail, which is a lot safer for her.”
The air in my lungs turned heavy. What did she just say?
My head jerked back.
“I-I’m sorry … chemo?”
I waited for the correction. For the “oh no, you misheard.” Some kind of misunderstanding. But her brows lifted instead.
“Yes, chemo.”
“W … what?”
“Chemotherapy. For her clear cell ovarian carcinoma.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. “I don’t understand.”
Her eyes locked on mine.
“I’m talking about Lacey’s cancer.”
Her words were like a punch to the face. A ringing shot through my ears, high and shrill. Cold needles rushed up my spine. Then nausea flooded me, and I swallowed so hard, I thought I would throw up onto her desk.
My hand flew to my mouth. A sound escaped anyway, broken and raw. Tears spilled down my cheeks in hot tracks.
“You didn’t know?” she asked.
I managed a small shake of my head. Everything felt unreal. Like I had slipped into the wrong life. Or stepped into hell by accident.
“But,” I whispered, “she was just in the hospital a few months ago. After the attack. They checked her. They would have found this.”
She pinched her lips together before answering.
“Hospitals don’t usually screen for ovarian cancer after trauma, and a CA-125 isn’t a routine test. They wouldn’t have run it.
They did the right labs for a trauma case.
Blood count. Chem panel. Pregnancy test. Nothing in those tests screams ovarian cancer unless you’re looking for it. ”
I tried to calm myself so I could listen to her.
“And clear cell ovarian carcinoma is very hard to detect,” she explained.
“But a few years ago, I lost an inmate in a prison where I worked to this type of cancer. It was horrific. The prison refused to let me run tests and treatment, and we only found out about her cancer from her autopsy. The way she died …” Her voice broke off.
“Horrific. So when I see inmates who are pale and extremely underweight, I run a few extra tests, including the CA-125, which is not a routine blood test. The jail lets me do screenings as I see fit. I negotiated this before accepting the job.”
I listened as my world fell apart. Every word felt like someone was carving out my chest with a dull spoon.
“Lacey’s CA-125 came back elevated, so I sent her for imaging immediately. And it confirmed my suspicion. I am so sorry.”
I sat there and cried. How much more could I take?
“Why?” The word felt distant, foreign, like someone else was talking, using my body.
“Why is all this happening to us? There are so many bad people out there. Rapists. Murderers. Which I swear my daughter isn’t.
Why is this happening to my daughter? To her sweet kids?
To me? To good people? No parent should ever outlive their child. ”
Oh, God, the kids. How was I supposed to tell the kids? They loved their mother so much.
“I don’t think I can keep going,” I mumbled as my face fell into my hands. Then my gaze shot up to Dr. Langford. “How do people keep going in moments like this?”
She rose, walked around her desk, and sat in the chair next to me. Her hand grabbed mine, warm and steady.
“I know it seems impossible right now, but people do learn to live again after losing a loved one. With time.”
Her kindness meant everything, but the words sounded empty. A Chinese fortune cookie sentiment.
“I know because I lost a child myself,” she added.
My red, swollen eyes met hers.
“Our first child. She died when I was twenty-six weeks pregnant.” Her gaze drifted for a moment, and her jaw tensed at the memory.
“I had very high blood pressure during the pregnancy, and it was too dangerous to have surgery to remove my dead baby girl. So, for days, I had to carry my daughter after she’d already passed.
Until my body was strong enough to survive surgery.
It was the worst time in my life. I prayed my heart would stop so I could leave this world with her. ”
We sat in silence. My eyes wandered to the photos of her kids on her desk. Their smiles. Their missing teeth. Their whole lives untouched by grief.
“It might seem impossible right now to understand why such bad things happen, especially to good people, but with time, you can find happiness again, even if a part of your heart will always be missing.”
Dr. Langford reached for the tissue box on her desk and handed me one. I dried my tears.
“I’ll do everything I can for your daughter. For her chemo or imaging, I’ll transport her to the hospital.”
It took me a few tries to speak.
“It’s serious, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “It’s very serious, Mrs. Kolter.
Clear cell ovarian carcinoma is one of the more aggressive ovarian cancers.
And because we caught it late, the options inside the system are limited.
The jail will only approve basic chemotherapy.
That might slow the cancer for a while, but it usually doesn’t hold it back for long. ”
“How long?”
Dr. Langford looked as if she were losing her own baby girl again. Like a mother truly understanding the horror I was living.
“If she stays in jail,” she said, “we’re looking at maybe ten months. A year tops, realistically. I wish I could tell you something different.”
“What if I could get her out?”
“If she’s released, that could change things.
She could see a gynecologic oncologist. Start the advanced therapies the jail won’t approve.
Avastin, PARP inhibitors, clinical trials …
treatments that actually work really well with this cancer.
With full care, she could have years. Two, four, even five years. I’ve seen it.”
That was all I needed to hear. I weakly squeezed Dr. Langford’s hand. Looked straight at her.
“Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Please do what you can while I get my daughter out.”
She nodded and rose with me.
I didn’t recall the walk through the parking lot back to my car, but I found myself standing in front of it. Time was jumping back and forth or sideways. The ringing in my ears was back. The sky looked warped, too bright.
I didn’t remember getting inside my car either. But I was driving now, the wheels rolling, the parking lot shrinking in the rearview mirror like a nightmare dissolving behind me.
I whimpered. I gasped. I made it almost a mile before pulling into a parking spot next to a small bridge crossing a stream. Then I parked my car with my shaking hands and fell apart again.
“No!” I screamed, hitting the steering wheel so hard the horn blared beneath my fists.
“Noooo!” I screamed again, so loud my voice cracked. The pain flooded through me. I was losing my little girl not only to jail but forever to cancer. It was more than I could take.
Tears ran down my face as I broke into loud sobbing and screams, hitting things around me with full force. Whatever I could reach—the sideboard, the steering wheel—until I left a dent in the console.
I hated this world. My only child was dying in a jail cell, accused of a horrendous crime she didn’t commit. All while the whole world hated her and would continue to hate her kids. We’d already gotten death threats via email and even one in our mailbox.
It all crashed over me. The court trial. The arrest. The constant fight with the prosecutors. All the friends and family who had turned their backs on us. The loneliness. The shame. The fear. For a moment, the unthinkable ran through my mind.
What if I just put the car into Drive? Drove down that hill into the stream? Ended this unbearable pain?
But even having that thought angered me. How dare I? I had to be there for the kids and Brian. Even if I didn’t mean it, I couldn’t let my mind go there again.
I grabbed the steering wheel and took a deep, shaking breath.
My phone rang, and I felt a flash of guilt, as if whoever was calling knew exactly what I’d been thinking of doing.
My shaking hands fumbled it out of my pocket.
Dylan.
I wiped the tears off my face, straightened up, and forced my voice to sound normal. “Yes, honey,” I said.
“Grandma,” he said in a somber voice. And somehow I already knew what would come next.
“Dad is missing again.”
I sighed.
“I think he’s at Bubbles and Brews again,” Dylan added.
I nodded as if he could see me. Out of all of us, Brian had handled everything the worst. Instantly falling back into toxic coping mechanisms. And the fact that most of his HVAC clients had canceled jobs didn’t help.
“Where’s Anna?” I asked, trying to sound strong and unalarmed.
“She left a few hours ago. She doesn’t want to babysit for us anymore. You know.”
Yes. I did. I knew exactly what he meant. The murder family that nobody wanted to babysit for.
The younger kids were doing okay in school since they were shielded from adult gossip.
Dylan, on the other hand, had a few incidents.
He stood up to any bullying with his fists.
And at six feet two, with his athletic build, he won.
Plus, the girls at his school gave him support—mostly because they were in love with him.
Just like his father, he was incredibly handsome.
That gift would always give him an advantage in life.
But, at the end of the day, we were all alone.
I wiped my face dry with a napkin from my to-go lunch sitting on the passenger seat.
“I’ll go get him, then come straight home.”
Dylan was silent on the other end.
“What is it, sweetie?” I asked.
“How did it go with Mom?” he asked.
The unbearable pain almost took me out again.
Poor baby.
He would lose his mother.
How could I tell him that?
I steadied myself as best I could. For him. He needed me more than ever.
“It went good!” Fake happy. “She held the phone to her ear all by herself this time.”
“Really?” He sounded hopeful.
“Yes. And remember—I got the power of attorney. I can talk to everyone at the jail now and make sure they’ll take care of her. I enrolled her in the choir and even arranged for her to sit in some of the group therapy sessions with the others. To get her out of the cell, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s good.”
“Well, honey, can you feed the kids, and I’ll go get your dad?”
“Yeah, of course. They’re doing good. Ethan is playing with Play-Doh here with me, and Lila is playing the princess dressing game on her tablet.”
“That’s good.”
I felt horrible for Dylan. For him to be the man his dad couldn’t be. But even if I tried to let him be a kid, he’d refuse. He was always right there to fight with me for his mom and siblings.
“All right, I’ll see you soon, honey.”
“Okay.”
“Love you,” I said.
“Love you too.”
Then I hung up.
For how long I just stared at the trees, I had no idea. I just sat there, watching their lifeless branches reaching for the sky.
“Stop it,” I scolded myself.
I had to get it together now. I had to get my daughter out of jail so she could get the treatment she needed. I had to save her life.
And Jack … his lackluster laziness on the case, which had started as soon as it seemed really hopeless, had also reached its limit.
I would stop by his office and demand all the files he had.
Read them over myself. Study them. The crime scene.
The facts. The laws. There was no way the police hadn’t messed this up.
Or that Thomas, the AG, hadn’t tried to hide evidence to make me pay for what happened to his son.
Zach had been stabbed forty-four times.
And my daughter was found in the woods, so traumatized she couldn’t speak anymore.
Something had to be there.
I needed to get another lawyer. Someone a bit more engaged for $400 an hour.
My daughter wasn’t a murderer.
I put the car in Reverse.
Jack’s office.
Bars.
Home.
Then I would work on getting Lacey out of there. And that was the end of it.