He barely got through the wedding and nearly collapsed before he walked his daughter down the aisle. Alex sat with him in the rectory until she was sure he was all right, and she talked to him about it later. She was scared.
“Don’t be silly. It was a very emotional moment, any father would have nearly fainted, especially when I got the bill.” The wedding had cost a fortune, money Miles didn’t have. He was mortally embarrassed, and Alex told him not to worry about it. She gave him a check for what he owed his ex-wife. Alex was still carrying a lot of the expenses at the farm. Miles had been low on money for a while. His production company hadn’t been doing well, three of his best TV shows had folded, and he wasn’t getting as much work as before. There were new faces on the scene. It was a business for young lions and wolves, younger men were putting shows on the air more aggressively, and with subjects that had shock value and were more controversial. Miles remained locked into a previous style of TV which was less popular now.
As a result, Miles’s income suffered and the farm became increasingly expensive to run. Alex always shored things up for him, and she didn’t mind. She made enough money for both of them, and invested quite a bit of her money, so she could afford to help him and was happy to do it. She had been luckier than most, and was willing to share the wealth with him. And it was her home now too. He was so good to her, and they loved each other so much.
They went back to the doctor when they got home to London after the wedding and he ran more tests, PET scans, MRIs and other scans, and extensive blood work. Miles insisted it was unnecessary but he did it to humor Alex. Miles didn’t look well, and Alex was desperately afraid that something serious was wrong.
They went to his doctor together when his physician had the results. He asked them to come in, and neither of them expected the kind of news they got. Miles had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It had snuck right by them, and when Alex spoke to the doctor alone the next day, he told her honestly that the prognosis wasn’t good.
“He only has a few months,” he said regretfully, while she felt like someone was choking her. “Six months, maybe three. You can’t predict these things, it could be less, or he could surprise us and hang on for a year.” Surprise us? A year? Alex wanted him to live forever, not three months to a year. She could no longer conceive of a life without him. It was unimaginable that Miles was dying. That wasn’t possible. The doctors couldn’t let that happen. They had to be wrong.
Miles agreed to try an aggressive program of radiation first to shrink whatever tumors there were on his pancreas, and then chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells. It was in his liver too. They started immediately and he was desperately sick. He was exhausted from the radiation, and then throwing up all the time from the chemo. His hair fell out, he lost a shocking amount of weight, and some days he couldn’t get out of bed. He was doing it for Alex, hoping to get more time with her, and his children, and maybe even to cure the disease, which the doctor said would not happen. The cancer was too advanced. He lay in bed sometimes, just holding Alex’s hand, too weak to say anything to her except that he loved her. They were the worst six months of his life, but he was still alive at the end of them, and they gave him a brief respite from the chemo. Then a spot appeared on his kidneys in a PET scan, and they started all over again, and gave him transfusions to improve his blood count.
Alex had told the sisters at St. Dominic’s and asked them to pray for him, which they were doing ardently. When they finally told Madeleine and Duncan, they visited him as often as they could. Madeleine lived in South Africa with her new husband, but she spent two weeks in London with them. And Duncan was working in London, so he came to see Miles almost every night. There was nothing any of them could do for him except pray and love him. And Alex did a lot of both. She never left him for a moment. She stayed at the hospital on a cot in his room when he had to spend the night or was too sick to leave after a treatment. She was grateful now that she didn’t have children. All her strength and force and energy and time and love went into Miles, willing him to get better. If love could extend his life, he would live forever. She loved him so much and fought so hard alongside him to make him well again.
She had been halfway through writing a book when they got the diagnosis, and she called Bert immediately to tell him that she had to put the edit on hold. She couldn’t work and take care of Miles. They were ahead of schedule, so she wasn’t worried. Bert was sorry to hear the bad news, and wished Miles the best. Miles was a good guy and Bert liked him. Bert had stayed with them several times at the horse farm in the past six years, when he had to do work with Alex, and he loved the place. And Bert had finally agreed that Miles was the Right Man at the Right Time. It had taken Bert years to admit it, because he saw himself as the champion and protector of Alex’s career. He was aware that Miles knew the truth about her pseudonym and had for several years, and Bert trusted him. Miles had never divulged her secret or even hinted at it, and he won Bert’s respect forever.
She had also warned Rose that she might be late with the book, but she had to focus on Miles, and Rose understood completely. Everyone who knew them admired Alex for what she was doing. She devoted herself selflessly and a thousand percent to her man and his recovery from the cancer. Rose notified the publisher that there was a delay, and they were understanding about it. And then as the doctors started more aggressive treatment again, Alex got sick, and suddenly they were both throwing up after his treatments. The stress had finally gotten to her. But she didn’t want him to know how ill she felt, and she couldn’t give in now. She had to keep on going. His doctor saw Alex at the hospital one day while Miles was getting a transfusion, and she was green and sweating profusely, with perspiration running down her face as she fought not to faint or throw up.
“How are you doing, Alex?”
“I’m fine,” she said, as her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted. Miles was at the lab and unaware of it, as his doctor took Alex into a room and examined her. Christmas had come and gone by then, and all they focused on were his treatments. Alex had no time for herself and didn’t want any.
“What’s going on with you?” the doctor asked her.
“I’m fine. It’s just stress. It’s nothing.”
“You’re under the worst stress that someone can be under. The man you love is dying.”
“He’s not dying, he’s sick,” she said with a steely look.