Early Warning

Lillian’s doctor was an experienced gynecologist — older than she was, and possessed of a competent, reassuring manner, neither forbidding, like Paul (and they should have foreseen how he was going to treat Claire by the way he upbraided parents whose babies got ear infections), nor at death’s door, like Dr. Craddock, whose nicotine-stained fingers Lillian still remembered with a shudder — and he hadn’t been much of a one for washing, either, Lillian thought. But Dr. Champion was simultaneously clean as a whistle and reassuringly smooth. With his wife and nurse, Kathryn, standing nearby, clucking gently under her breath, he carefully but firmly felt the swelling and also the surrounding tissue, and also the other breast. He looked in her file and quizzed her about a few things, including her mother and grandmother. Then he tapped his pencil on the desk and said, “I am sure this is a fibroadenoma — a harmless and common thing. It feels like that to me. All we have to do, really, is keep an eye on it for three to six months. Try not to think about it, and certainly don’t worry. Eileen will make you an appointment for the summer.”

So, Lillian thought as she drove home, this was the death-and-resurrection part. She felt nothing for the moment, but she knew that when she got home she would walk out among the tulips, which were brilliant and profuse this year, all colors, but especially the purple ones whose petals came to a slight point and opened outward. Among the tulips, she would take a deep breath, and plan dinner, maybe steak and caramelized sweet potatoes, and she would be very glad when Arthur got home, and probably she would laugh even more at his jokes and kiss him a few more times and hold his hand during The White Shadow. But though she might tell Arthur about her visit to Dr. Champion, she would never tell him what she had imagined so vividly these past five days.

—

IT WAS DEBBIE who arranged the intervention. Looking back, Lillian could see that her daughter had planned it for a while, and Lillian had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. First Debbie talked them into renting a house for August on Fire Island; she had gotten Henry to find the place. It would have been expensive, Lillian didn’t know how much, but it was near the beach, and certainly cooler in its ocean-swept way than McLean. Then, apparently, on their first evening, Debbie sent Lillian with Hugh and the children out to the beach for a sunset stroll, during which she ambushed Arthur and confronted him. He admitted that he knew that Lillian was supposed to go back to the doctor, but he hadn’t pushed her — he hated doctors himself and felt she should be free to choose, just like with anything else. But of course all of his arguments fell to rubble when faced with Debbie’s blazing righteousness. That night, in bed, he didn’t say a word to Lillian about what was coming. She should have been suspicious when Henry came for the weekend — when had he ever been a fan of family life? If Carlie or Kevvie neared him, he extended a hand and shifted his legs so that they wouldn’t touch his perfectly pressed trousers with dirty fingers. For presents, he brought them books—Oliver Twist and The Borrowers, not entirely suitable for a five-year-old and a two-year-old, however well meant. Then, Sunday night, no one got up after supper except, at a signal from Debbie, Hugh, to put the kids to bed (it was a late supper), and when Lillian made a move to take her plate to the kitchen, Debbie said, “Mom, we all need to talk to you about something.”

Lillian could not imagine what this was, given Debbie’s highhanded tone, but she did sit down.

Arthur, who was around the corner of the table from her, wouldn’t look at her, but he snaked his hand under the table and grabbed hers. Debbie said, “We all have talked about it, and we agree that you have to go back to the doctor.”

“Whatever for?” said Lillian; honestly, she didn’t right then know what they were talking about. She had gotten used to the lump, in the sense that she never let herself either think about it or touch it, and though Arthur had found it once and asked her about it (which was why she did tell him about her appointment with Dr. Champion), she never let him touch it again. What was withholding sex for, if not abjuring pointless worry?

“You know what for,” said Debbie, and of course now she did. This was where Henry took over. “Really, Lillian, I can’t believe you’ve let this go this long, and even though normally I would not consider it any of my business, I do think it’s critical that you see someone.”

“We’ve made you an appointment,” said Debbie.

“How dare you!” said Lillian, but that was what an intervention was for — the same thing had happened to Betty Ford, though about drinking, not about going to the doctor. Lillian said, “Arthur has to go, too.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Arthur.