*
Was that the door? Yes, he was home. Jesus, why was she so nervous? She smoothed her dress over her knees. As soon as she’d got in from the hospital she’d showered for a long, long time, until her skin was pink and raw, then put on her favorite dress, the one with the sprigs of cornflowers on it. She found herself running her hands obsessively through her long blond hair.
Tom was in the hallway, staring at the smeary screen of his phone. Shoulders hunched in his Saville Row suit. “Did you ring the plumber? That bloody toilet’s still leaking. What are you doing in there?”
She’d even lit a candle for some reason—perhaps thinking it was finally a moment worthy of the forty-eight-pound Jo Malone mimosa-and-cardamom one. She was sitting in the living room in her nice dress, makeup done, instead of her usual yoga pants and skiing socks ensemble. Maybe if she looked nice, the universe would realize it had the wrong person. She was too busy for this. She had appointments all the way to next Christmas. Move along, please, nothing for you here.
He looked up briefly. “Have you not started dinner yet? I’m starving.”
“I’ve been out.” Part of her thinking, He’s going to feel so bad when I tell him. “Could you come in here?” Calm. Noble. Rising above such petty issues as a leaking loo and a late dinner.
He opened the door—crumpled shirt, tie askew. Hair graying over the temples. And she thought, How did this happen? How did we lose each other like this? “What? I need a shower—the journey was hell as usual.”
“I had my appointment today. Remember?” She’d told him, but in a passing way that she knew he wouldn’t register. Because it was going to be nothing. Everyone got headaches, even if it was every day, even if she hadn’t been able to see the display board on the train on her way to the hospital. She’d almost canceled the MRI when the meeting about the cereal account ran over. She probably just needed to try glasses or drinking more water or sleeping or Nurofen or acupuncture or decluttering or quitting work and starting a blog about it.
“Oh.” His face—guilt immediately hiding in defense. “You should have reminded me.” Tom didn’t realize how bad the headaches were, or that she was having to write down everything she did each day so she wouldn’t forget to brush her teeth or put her shoes on. He wasn’t worried. Not yet.
“It’s okay.” She sat there, poised. Pulse hammering like she was almost excited. Waiting to shatter their lives. “I... Sweetheart...” (She never called him this but it seemed like something her new noble self might say.) “They found something. In my brain. The headaches...”
“What?” His eyes had already swiveled to the phone again. She would have liked to stamp her foot on it. Listen while I give you my noble speech, you selfish bastard.
“They think—it doesn’t look good.”
His face. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I have a brain tumor.”
“Shit. Really? What?”
So she said some words: “Stage four glioblastoma. Very aggressive...rapid growth...”
“Shit. Shit. Poll, there must be something—”
“They’ll try things. Chemo and that. But he wasn’t hopeful. He looked...kind of grim.” That was the right word, she decided, for the grouchy consultant she’d seen. Grim.
“Oh. Shit.” Tom put his hands—the phone still surgically attached—on his head. “I’m so—Shit. Shit. Why now?”
“Is there ever a good time?”
“I’m sorry. I need—” And he bolted from the room. Maybe he was just overwhelmed, with love, with pain. She waited. Her own phone buzzed on the table and she picked it up. Thinking: How will I tell everyone? Facebook message? Brave cancer diary? Whatsapp group?
It was from him. It said, Shit. Bad news here. She’s sick. Really sick, I think. Need to sort things out.
Clearly, in his sorrow, he’d sent it to the wrong person. It was meant for his mother, maybe.
And she might have overlooked it, not realized what was going on, because she was a tiny bit distracted, after all. If he hadn’t made the effort, gone the extra mile he never went for her anymore. I love you, I promise.
He came back in, still holding his phone. He’d been crying. His shirt was untucked. “I can’t believe this. I can’t. Is it—is it true?”
She held up her own phone. She was still in orbit around cancerland. Calm. Noble. “Who is it you love, Tom?” Because she knew it wasn’t her. She’d known it for a long time, she realized.
His face collapsed like wet paper. “Oh, shit.”
*
“Wow,” Annie said after Polly had told the whole sorry tale of how she’d come home with her cancer diagnosis, and Tom had accidentally texted the woman he was having an affair with. “Sorry. Am I allowed to say ‘wow’?”
“Yeah. He didn’t want to tell me, but I played the cancer card—very useful card, that. Eventually he came out and said:
“Yes, he had been seeing another woman.
“Her name was Fleur.
“Yes, when he said ‘seeing’ he meant ‘fucking.’
“Yes, he had ‘thought about’ leaving me.
“Yes, Fleur was in her twenties.
“She was a yoga teacher and interpretative dancer.
“She worked at the gym I made him join.”
Annie nodded slowly. “So you just left him?”
“Without another word. If life’s too short not to burn the Jo Malone candle, it’s certainly too short to worry about my cheating iPhone-addicted husband. So I went, moved back in with Mum and Dad, and I spent approximately two weeks in bed sobbing my eyes out. Like I wasn’t even crying about the stupid cancer. I was crying about him. Him and her. Isn’t that daft?”
“Not at all,” said Annie. “Sometimes our brains can’t take in the biggest thing. It sort of masks it, to protect us. I once cried for three hours because I couldn’t find my left shoe.”
“I hear he moved her into the house as soon as I was gone. Nice, huh.” Polly stopped, wheezing. “So. That’s it.”
“Um, am I allowed to give my verdict now?”
“Yes, you may speak. My tale of woe is finished.”
“I... Jesus, Poll.”
“You better not say what a brave cancer sufferer I am.”
“I wasn’t going to. I was going to say, well done. You win the ‘most pathetic story’ competition. You just have to be best at everything, don’t you?”
She was relieved to hear Polly laugh-cough. “You better believe it, Hebden.”
“So, the day we met, when you seemed so happy...”
“I was fucking miserable, Annie. I’d just left my husband and I had cancer.”
“So what...?”
Polly smiled. The smile Annie recognized, the one that said, Aha, look at what I’ve taught you. “Of course I wanted to be angry, and miserable, and impatient...like you, my dearest Annie. But I have so little time left. I wondered what would happen if I just didn’t. If I just made myself be happy, despite everything.”
“And that works?”
Polly spread her arms, indicating her tubes and monitors, her wasted body, her balding head. “Do I seem miserable?”
“Well, no, but—”