“You look pretty good,” Alex said as she put the last of his Dracula makeup on him. Standing in front of him in the bathroom under the lights was the longest they had been close to each other since her operation. It would have been the perfect opportunity for him to say something to her, or put his arms around her, or even kiss her, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He was too scared of what would happen after that, what she might expect from him, and he might not be able to deliver. Nothing about her turned him on right now. She was intrinsically too ill, her body had changed too much, there was too much fear and too many bad memories for him even to want to try it.
She handed him his Dracula teeth, and Annabelle gave a squeal of happy terror when she saw him. “Oh Daddy, I love you!” she said, and then she giggled. He laughed, and Alex grinned. It was the happiest they'd been in a month, and the rest of the evening was just as pleasant. They stopped and visited friends, shared a glass of wine with them, ate candy with the kids, and by the time they got home, Annabelle was half asleep, and her parents were both in very good humor.
“That was fun,” Alex said happily. It always was. Halloween had been magical ever since they'd had Annabelle. Before that, it had meant nothing. Thinking about it made Alex sad again, knowing that she would probably never have more children. It was just too unlikely now, with the statistics of sterility after chemo and the importance of not getting pregnant for the next five years. And by then, she'd be forty-seven. The prospect of another baby was over.
She also knew that, at forty-two, she would probably go through menopause, as a consequence of having chemo. It was still difficult to understand the words, to absorb them, to make them hers, mastectomy, malignancy, chemotherapy, nodular involvement, metastasis. It was incredible. Her entire vocabulary had changed in a month, and with it her life and her marriage. There was no hiding from what it had done to them, and to her relationship with Sam. He was completely removed from her now, in all the ways that mattered. But he wouldn't admit to it, of course. He was completely committed to pretending nothing had happened, which made it even harder. How could you fix something no one would admit was broken?
“Are you going to bed?” She looked surprised when he got undressed and got into bed after they'd gone trick-or-treating. It was only ten o'clock and neither of them seemed tired when they got home at nine-thirty.
“There's nothing else to do,” he said as she looked at him. “I thought I'd turn in early.” In the old days, that would have meant a little romance, but now she knew he'd be asleep, or pretending to be, before she got out of the bathroom, as indeed he was twenty minutes later. He just couldn't face her, or bear to deal with his “obligations.” And that was the last thing she wanted anyway. If he didn't want her, she'd rather do without, forever if she had to.
She read late into the night, she was feeling better by then. And she was going back to work on the Monday following the Halloween weekend. She had a lot of work to catch up on and a lot of organizing to do. She had two weeks until she began chemotherapy, two weeks in which to feel pretty good and do all the work she could, two weeks to get her office in order before her life turned upside down again. It was a lot to deal with.
And on Monday when she left for work, and dropped Annabelle off at school, she almost felt like her old self again, except that Sam barely spoke to her at breakfast. He never even took his nose out of the Wall Street Journal to kiss her good-bye, but she was getting used to it. And at least now she'd have her work to keep her busy, and her colleagues to talk to. The last two weeks had been the loneliest in her life, and she couldn't imagine anything worse than what had happened.
“Is Daddy still mad at you?” Annabelle asked, as they walked to school. And Alex looked down at her with interest. It surprised her that even she had noticed.
“I don't know. I don't think so, why?”
“He seems different. He doesn't talk to you much, and he never kisses you, and he looks mad when he comes home from work.”
“Maybe he's just tired.”
“Grown-ups always say they're tired when they're mad. But they're mad. Just like Daddy. I think he is. You'd better ask him.”
“Okay, Princess, I will. You were great on Halloween. Best princess in town.”
“Thank you, Mommy.” She threw her arms around her mother's neck, and Alex nearly melted as she watched her run into school with the others. And with that she hailed a cab with her right arm, and hopped into it and headed downtown. Her left side was still a little sensitive, but she felt alive again for the first time in two weeks. It had been exactly two weeks to the day, almost to the hour, since her mastectomy, and she already felt better. Comparatively, she felt great. The only trouble was she hadn't yet started chemo.
“Well, look who's here.” Liz Hascomb beamed at her as soon as she saw her, and came around her desk to give Alex a warm hug.
And when Alex walked into her office, she found flowers on her desk from Liz, and neat stacks of the files Brock had worked on and completed.
“Wow! It looks like you guys did just fine without me.
“Don't believe that for a minute,” Liz reassured her. There was a fist of messages an arm long, most of them with the information as to how the matters had been resolved, some had been passed to Matt, some to other partners, and Brock had handled all of the details and research. There was a handful of names who had chosen to wait the two weeks for Alex, and she sat down and read the names and information, as Liz went to get her a cup of coffee.
She looked up when Liz came back in, and smiled. It felt great to be back in her chair, to be here among friends, and to feel useful. She felt up to it again, although she was still a little bit tired. But it was like getting an important part of her identity back again. It was only half of it, but it made a difference.
“How're you feeling?” Liz asked quietly as she set down the cup of coffee.
“Fine. Great actually. I'm really surprised. I just get tired.”
“Give it time. Don't rush anything.” She went back to her own desk then, and Alex just sat there, looking around, savoring being back in her office. It was wonderful just being there. She sat back in her chair with a smile and took a sip of the hot coffee. And just as she did, Brock Stevens poked his head in.
“Welcome back,” he beamed.
“Thank you,” she smiled warmly in answer. He looked more than ever like a big blond kid. He was wearing glasses, and a lock of hair hung over his eyes, and there was a constant look of mischief about him. “It looks like you did all my work while I was gone. Maybe I should just go on permanent vacation.”
“Not a chance. I've been saving all the hard stuff for you. Jack Schultz called about two hundred times, by the way, just to thank you.”
“I'm glad we won,” she smiled. “He deserved it.”
“So did you.” He'd never seen anyone work as hard as she did to win his case, and it couldn't have been easy for her. He knew now that she'd been sick when she did it. Sick or in some kind of trouble. He knew she'd been out for surgery, though he still didn't know exactly what had happened. But something about Liz's eyes when he asked about her told him that this was no small matter. “What are you going to do today?” He thought she looked thin and a little tired but very pretty.
“Catch up on my files, read what you've done, try and figure out what's left for me to do now.”
“Oh, just a few things here and there. We have two new clients, who are being sued by former employees. There are about four new cases that came in, there's a hot libel suit that came in from some movie star. Matt knows more about it.”
“Lucky man. Maybe I'll just let him keep it.” She looked more relaxed than usual, she hadn't hit her stride yet, she was mostly savoring the moment.