Mary was sitting at the kitchen table, peeling an orange. She froze. Her hands stopped moving, but she didn’t look up.
“The tumor has responded significantly to the treatment,” Dr. Kapoor said. “We’re seeing a reduction of approximately forty percent. The oncology team wants to discuss adjusting the protocol, but the direction is very encouraging.”
Mary’s hand trembled. A small piece of orange peel fell onto the table.
“Forty percent?” I said.
“Forty percent. And her bloodwork is stronger than it was six weeks ago. Whatever she’s doing, keep doing it.”
After I hung up, Mary and I sat at the kitchen table for a long time. She finished peeling the orange. She ate one slice. Then she ate another.
“Forty percent,” she said.
“Forty percent.”
She looked at me.
“I want to see my garden today.”
“It’s October. Everything’s dead.”
“I want to see it anyway.”
So we went outside. I helped her down the back steps because the chemo made her unsteady, and we walked the path along the back fence where she had planted tomatoes and sunflowers in the spring, before the diagnosis, when she still thought the summer would be ordinary.
The tomato cages were empty. The sunflower stalks were brown and drooping. The raised bed she had built with Lucas when he was twelve was covered in fallen leaves.
She stood in the middle of it all and breathed in.
“I’m going to plant again next year,” she said.
I didn’t say if. I said when.
“When you plant again next year, I’ll build you new beds.”
She smiled.
Lucas called three times that day. Mary answered the third time. I was in the other room, but I could hear her voice — quiet, steady, a little hoarse.
“I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” she said. “But I love you. That part hasn’t changed.”
She paused.
“I know you’re sorry. I heard you last night. But sorry is a beginning, Lucas. It’s not the whole thing.”
Another pause.
“Call me on Thursday. We’ll talk then.”
She hung up and sat in the chair by the window, holding the phone against her chest.
Two weeks passed.
Lucas came to the house on a Thursday afternoon. I was in the garage, sorting through old paint cans, when I heard his car pull into the driveway. I watched through the window as he walked to the front door. He was wearing jeans and a plain blue shirt. No suit. No watch. He looked smaller than I had ever seen him.
Mary let him in.
They sat at the kitchen table for three hours.
