Her fingers touched the place above her collarbone.
She told me she thought it was stress at first.
Then a swollen gland.
Then something she could ignore until after Sonia’s school performance, after my next job interview, after one more week when life looked less crowded.
But the lump got bigger.
Her fatigue got worse.
Bruises started appearing on her arms.
She went to her doctor alone because she did not want to worry me before she knew anything.
The blood work came back bad.
The biopsy came back worse.
Lymphoma.
Aggressive, but treatable.
She said the word treatable like she had been clinging to it with both hands.
I sat there in the bright spill of the bedside lamp and felt my body turn hollow.
I stared at the transparent dressing on her skin, then at the long sleeves folded over her wrists, then at the dark circles under her eyes, and every little thing I had turned into suspicion began to rearrange itself into something uglier.
