Hiss Of Death

Harry, supper’s ready.”

Harry, grooming her gray pony, Popsicle, yelled from the barn, “Okay.” She kissed Popsicle’s nose. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and we can go down to the creek, where all the beavers are.”

“Good enough.”

As she led Popsicle into his stall, Champ, the family’s big tricolor collie, rose and stretched, following behind.

“Harry!”

“Mom, I’m coming.”

The nurses in the recovery room noticed Harry’s eyes moving. She was murmuring something.

Bill Menegatto walked over. Thirty-four, and usefully strong, he said, “She’s coming round.”

Violet Smith, older and pretty strong herself, bent over. “It’s a struggle to fight your way out of anesthesia. Maria Kimball said she thought the operation was a success. She’s seen enough of them.”

Maria Kimball was Dr. Jennifer Potter’s nurse in the operating room. The two made a good team. Maria sensed what Dr. Potter wanted even before she asked. She’d seen the young oncologist open up a patient only to confront a raging cancer, far worse than the tests had indicated. Imperturbable under pressure, Dr. Potter could make split-second decisions. Any specialist in oncology knows one can’t always save a patient, but you can generally give that patient more time with their loved ones. With the vicious cancers, such as ovarian, sometimes a doctor could extend a patient’s life using a drug like Avastin. A small percentage of people did survive gruesomely aggressive cancers, but most didn’t. Dr. Potter took those cancers as a personal affront, as did Maria Kimball. Both women hoped for and worked toward the day when these diseases would be eradicated. If not eradicated, then made less lethal.

Jennifer Potter often discussed cancer with Cory Schaeffer. They pored over cases and new research, as well as not only current litigation involving physicians but legal action aimed at the giant pharmaceutical companies.

Cory believed the nomenclature of cancer was misleading: lung, breast, colon, etc. He felt the disease was maddeningly complex. It might present itself as breast cancer, but did it truly start with those cells? Or was there a trigger elsewhere in the body?

Jennifer Potter believed that cancer created pathways through the body or followed established routes. How and why had yet to be determined, but she believed the answer would be found in gene study.

The two oncologists would agree, disagree, toss about ideas. Both were passionate about their work.

While Cory haunted Annalise’s autopsies, Jennifer honed in on studies of the genetic sequence of tumors, a relatively new field.

Harry and others like her were well served by doctors whose life’s work was battling cancer.

Feeling as though she were being pulled back by an undertow, Harry knew nothing of this. She heard her mother’s voice and smelled Popsicle’s wonderful odor, Eau de Cheval, loved by horsemen, less admired by others.

“Champ, Champ, come on, Mom’s worried the food will get cold.”

The magnificent collie put his cold nose in her hand, and they ran from the barn to the house, snowflakes falling on both their noses.

“Mom.” Harry threw open the door, at which time another door opened.

She saw lights overhead, which fuzzed up. She heard voices. They weren’t her mother’s voice or Champ’s. Which way to go?

Meanwhile, sitting outside the recovery room, tired even though they hadn’t undergone an operation, Fair and Susan waited.

Susan had already texted Harry’s battalion of good friends who had sense enough to leave her husband and best friend in peace. They’d show up one by one or in pairs once they knew the length of her hospital stay or when she was coming home.

The Reverend Herbert Jones, pastor of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, would be one of the first. He’d offered a small prayer service in the chapel off the main nave at St. Luke’s for her friends. He didn’t know if it was his memory, but he felt there were so many more cancer cases these days. He had inaugurated special prayer sessions and short readings of the Gospels to offer comfort last year. This service expanded to other crises, drawing back people who had drifted away from the church.

Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter lay around at home, wondering, worrying. Not until Fair walked through the door would they really know. He wouldn’t have to open his mouth. Everything about him would tell the truth, especially his smell. Human sorrow, stress, loss, anger, fear, and happiness gave off signature smells.

With Herculean effort, Harry pulled herself into the present. A moment of feeling lost was overtaken by a wave of nausea. As she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything, there was nothing to come up. She felt awful, though. Her mind slowly focused like a camera’s lens, spiraling inward very slowly.

At last, she knew where she was and why she was there. She did not, however, know the outcome of her operation.

Tears rolled down Harry’s cheeks, not because of the operation but because she’d seen and heard her mother, touched Popsicle, felt Champ by her side. She’d loved them so, and they had loved her. Her mind played tricks on her as she came out of the anesthesia, but her heart had not. If only the creatures, the people you love, could go through all of life with you. But one by one, the Angel of Death leaves his calling card, and those called cross the bridge.

She felt cold but couldn’t quite get her fingers to work to pull the sheet tighter.

In the recovery room, Bill leaned over her, did it for her. The nurse looked into her eyes.

She looked right up at him and blinked.

“You’re doing just fine.” He smiled.

She smiled back and closed her eyes, although not asleep. She felt an exhaustion she’d never felt before. She wondered if her mother, Popsicle, and Champ had visited her to give her hope and direction. Irrational as that thought was, it gave her deep comfort.

“Love never dies,” she whispered.

Violet, who knew Harry in passing, was nearby with another patient who was still out cold. She turned. “What?”

Harry opened her eyes. “Violet, love never dies.”

Violet put her hand on Harry’s shoulder, the warmth flowing through the sheet. “I know.”

• • •

As Fair finally came through the door back home, he was grateful to the doctor. In fact, to everyone at Central Virginia Hospital who had helped Harry and who had been so kind to Susan and him.

“He’s exhausted, but he isn’t scared,” Tucker observed.

He pulled a cold Sol out of the fridge, popped the cap, sat in the kitchen, and just drained it. He hadn’t eaten. The taste of the crisp beer picked him up a bit.

The two cats sat on the table.

“Girls, I forgot.” He rose, opening two cans of Fancy Feast.

“Thank you.” Mrs. Murphy minded her manners.

Face in the bowl, Pewter forgot hers.

Then he fed Tucker, who licked his hand.

He thought about drinking another beer, but he needed to get up early in the morning to take Harry home. He took a shower and crawled into bed. Mrs. Murphy snuggled on one side, Pewter on the other.

Tucker curled up on the sheepskin rug on his side of the bed. Fair liked to sink his feet into the thick rug when he first got up.

His head hit the pillow. He was out.

Tucker called up to the cats, “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

Pewter, sleepy herself, replied, “While she’s recuperating, at least she’ll stay out of trouble. Easier for us.”

Mrs. Murphy whispered, “Don’t bet on it.”