My World Is Empty Without You
A/N: The Title for this chapter may be found on the What's Past Is Prologue Spotify playlist.
All types of women fill Richard Clarkson's waiting room. Young mothers, arms filled with squirming babes who refuse be placated; their mothers anxious to keep them from disturbing everyone else. There are older women, grandmothers likely, smiling and cooing at the babies, and casting sympathetic eyes to their mothers. These women, with grey hair earned from years of the hard work of being a wife and mother, who sense their age catching up them, now wistfully remembering what it was to be once a young mother. There are other women, young women, bellies heavy with child, chatting excitedly with one another about their impending arrivals and some appearing to be due very soon. They compare birthing techniques, the choosing of baby names, the decorating of nurseries, and their excitement is quite contagious. And then there are women like Elsie, sitting stiffly in uncomfortable chairs, their voices quiet, eyes cast down to a six month old, tattered magazine or perhaps a book that they've brought with them that they aren't really reading. Their eyes gloss over the pages that they turn occasionally, mechanically. Instead, their minds focus on questions to ask the doctor, trying desperately to remember every detail, every piece of information that he might need to know.
She does not hear her name the first time the nurse calls it but the second time, she startles just a bit. She closes the magazine she has been reading and places it on the nearby table, and gathering her handbag, she smiles weakly making her way to the nurse who smiles back kindly and directs her to an examination room. As they walk down the corridor to the exam room, the nurse makes small talk and Elsie tries to concentrate, tries to make the appropriate responses. She doesn't wish to be rude, the young woman is perfectly polite, but Elsie is in no mood to talk about how her day is going because if it were going well, the appointment secretary would not have needed to squeeze her into the schedule today. However, she holds her tongue, bites back the sharp retort that is forming.
"Now Ms. Hughes, if you will remove everything from the waist up and put on this gown, Dr. Clarkson will be in with you momentarily." The nurse is all smooth efficiency; an economy of motion as she reaches into the cabinet, retrieves a gown, and handles it to Elsie. She smiles again before leaving the room, the door clicking closed behind her. Elsie hears the clipboard that the nurse was holding slip into the acrylic slot on the door.
She begins the process of undressing. Working the buttons loose, she removes her blouse, folds it, and places it on the chair that is nearby. She pauses a moment, looks at the empty chair, and Beryl's words come flooding back You'll not be alone for a minute. Yet, here she is. Alone. In a cold, sterile examination room, undressing for an uncomfortable assessment, so that a doctor can speak to her in cold, clinical terms about something so very personal. She loosens her bra, lets it slide down her arms, and away from her body, places it with her blouse. She stares at the empty chair as she slips into the flimsy cotton gown. You'll not be alone for a minute. Don't you think that he has a right to know? She knows that she should have told him, that Charles should be with her, steadying her, offering words of encouragement; they should be facing this together.
"Good morning Elsie," Dr. Clarkson eases into the room. The good doctor is all cool confidence wrapped in an attractive package. He and Elsie met at a Burn's Night party not long after she moved to London, a mutual friend introducing them. Their friend thought them well matched, the handsome blonde doctor from Edinburgh and the attractive ginger from Argyll. But they chit chatted about home and Richard passed her his card. Turned out that he was seeing a nurse at the time and he and Elsie only became friends.
"I must say that I was concerned to see your name on my schedule today. It isn't time for your annual check-up." Reacquainting himself with her case, he flips through the pages of her file. There are no instances of anything out of the ordinary. She has been the picture of health thus far excepting the occasional bout of cold or flu. He takes a seat on his swivel chair and begins his questioning. "So, what's brought you in?"
Elsie blinks hard once or twice and takes in a deep breath before she blurts it out. "I've found a lump in my breast. I was in the shower and well…. I…. there it was in my left breast…. and here I am." The words tumble out all at once and very matter of factly. She is not sure of what she has said and if she has made any sense at all.
"Well, then. Have you noticed any other symptoms? Have you felt ill or tired?" The doctor makes notations in her chart, scribbles that she cannot read, doesn't understand.
"No. Not that I am aware of. I can't swear to not feeling tired sometimes, but nothing out of the ordinary," she replies. It is the truth; what with seeing Charles and working long hours on the new book, her first non-fiction enterprise, she is burning the candle at both ends.
"I am going to conduct a preliminary examination and we will go from there," Dr. Clarkson says kindly. He steps to the door, calls out into the corridor for a nurse to join them.
His office is very much like the man himself, warm and masculine. Tones of grey and blue, balanced with dark wood, leather and suede, a splash of tartan. His grandfather and father's old medical instruments and books carefully placed behind glass cupboards, accent the space. Elsie at once feels calmed by it all, ensconced in the cosiness of the room and secure in the knowledge that her friend comes from a lineage of healers. Yet the anxiety of waiting for his verdict is almost unhinging. She finds herself fidgeting, her hands in her lap, she wrings them in nervous futility. She looks at her watch; it seems an eternity since he examined her, palpated her breasts, pressed against the rounded, rubbery spot that she discovered days earlier.
Just as she is ready to seek out someone, to ask where on earth Dr. Clarkson has gotten off to, she hears the door handle turn. Her stomach sinks.
He takes a seat behind his desk and flips open the manila folder that holds her chart, the prognosis for the rest of her life. He scratches a few things into onto a form, scrawls his signature at the bottom before he looks up to her.
"Well, first things first," he begins reassuringly "I am going to refer you for a series of tests. You'll report to this office," he pushes a piece of paper towards her, "in a couple of days and they will perform a scan and then a doctor will perform a fine needle aspiration. A biopsy."
"How will they do that?" she asks.
"With a very fine needle and a syringe. Usually three samples will be taken to make sure that enough tissue and fluid has been obtained. It will be analysed and we should have the results in a few days." He watches as her face turns into a twist of worry.
"You think that it may be cancer?" she asks matter-of-factly.
"It may be cancer, but I am fairly certain that it is not. What I believe that you have is a fibroadenoma. What I felt certainly meets the criteria. The lump is smooth, rounded, like a marble under the skin. These are benign lesions but must be dealt with since they can grow and sometimes distort the breast. Some women have several of these. Many women only have one. There is another type of lesion….a phyllode, that can be benign but can also be cancerous and the only way to tell the difference is through mammogram and biopsy."
Elsie tries to process the information. She has always been one for knowing everything she can about a subject that interests or concerns her but this, all of this, these words are rattling around in her brain. Benign. Malignant. Must be dealt with. Sometimes distort. She finally gets a handle on what he has told her, which for the most has been the least severe of the blows he could have delivered. However, she focuses on fairly certain. Then it strikes her that he has suggested surgery.
"And I'll need surgery?"
"Yes," he replies kindly. "Either way, even if this is a fibroadenoma, it will need to be removed. In women under thirty-five…." He notices her stiffen, her lips draw into a sharp line. He hates to have mentioned her age but she must know the facts and he is not one to hold back, he knows that she will appreciate his forthrightness. "In women under thirty-five we often watch these if they are small, if we are positive that they are a fibroadenoma. But in older women, we advise waiting no longer than six to twelve months to remove the lesion. Most women prefer to have it excised right away."
Elsie looks down at her feet, nods her head. "Well, then."
Dr. Clarkson makes to stand, rounds the corner of his desk, and helps his friend to her feet. "We will take it one step at a time."
Charles has barely touched the beef stew and sandwich that he ordered and Beryl Mason is beginning to take offense. He has occupied a spot at her bar for the better part of a half hour, saying hardly more than two words and looking like a lost puppy.
"You know, I'm beginning to think that you've gone off my cooking," Beryl calls to Charles and when he does not answer, she smacks the back of his hand.
"What? Oh, sorry," he apologies. "I've just a lot on my mind." Absentmindedly, he turns his spoon over in his stew several times, staring down into the bowl. "I'm worried about Elsie. She's not herself." He looks up to Beryl and finds concerned, sympathetic eyes. When she does not say anything, the silence becomes awkward and he feels compelled to continue. He lays the spoon down flat across the saucer the bowl sits atop. "She's working too hard. I told her that she needs to slow down. She's not eating much; just pushes her food around on the plate. She's not sleeping well either. She's distracted." He pauses a moment before he confides something to his friend. "I want to help…. but she's so…I just don't know how…"
Beryl reaches across the bar and takes his hand in hers. "She has a lot on her mind, love. Give her time. Just stand by her. That's all we can do. Once we know the results…"
The blood drains from his face and his jaw goes slack, Charles brows knit together in fierce confusion. The results. Breath leaves his body as he quickly puts the pieces together. Not eating, not sleeping, and distracted. He remembers that she's even politely resisted when cuddling on the sofa became too amorous. When he made to caress her breast, she gently moved his hand to her hip, and then claimed that she was tired. He thought nothing of it, believed her because she looked it, circles under her eyes, her voice tired, cracked around the edges. That she is awaiting test results and Beryl's words to Just stand by her strike terror into his heart. "Beryl, how ill is she?"
She has changed into her nightgown and slippers, twisted her hair high atop her head. She pours herself a cup of tea, nicks a biscuit from the nearby tin. As she settles on the sofa, she thinks back on the day's events. She's a well-read woman, she read the material that Dr. Clarkson gave her about the biopsy, and resigned herself to the fact that it had to be done regardless of whether it hurt or not. She watched as the doctor placed the slim needle into the offending nodule, and pulled tissue and fluid into the syringe. In a way, she is amazed at the science of it, amazed that the diagnosis of benign or malignant can be deduced from the sampling of drops of fluid on a glass slide.
When the knock sounds at the door, she is surprised. She is not expecting anyone. She has given Ms. Baxter the day off and she knows that Beryl is busy with the evening crowd. She has told Charles that she had a series of meetings, which is not technically a lie, she just did not tell him with whom. She left him to assume they were perhaps interviews for the book or something to do with the filming of For Queen and Country instead of testing. She has told him that she needs to spend the evening working, readying a preliminary chapter of the new book for the publisher's approval.
The knock gets louder, more insistent and she puts down her teacup and goes to answer it. Wrapping her fingers around the door handle, she opens the door to find him standing there.
They face one another; her with wide eyes, her lip worried. A look of remorse and instant realization that he knows the secret that she has been keeping. Him with tears in his eyes, a hard-set jaw. His face a mix of anguish and fury.
"She told you?" she finally manages, her voice small, quiet, laced with a hint of anger.
"I prefer to say that she put me out of my misery," his tone two parts hurt and one part resentment.
She steps aside, invites him in. She sits on the sofa and motions for him to take a seat beside her. He waves his hand; his brows knit together, his lips turned into a deep frown. He prefers to stand. She supposes that she understands; he is hurt and angry because he had to learn of it from Beryl and she is furious that Beryl has mentioned her condition to him.
"Why did you not tell me? Did you not think that I would want to know?" It is an honest question and demands an answer.
"I didn't want to worry you." She knows that her answer sounds trite and it is partially true. However, it is not solely the truth; there are more selfish reasons behind her reasoning.
"You didn't want to worry me?" His voice booms in anger as he paces the room. He scrubs a hand across his face and through his hair. "What do you think that I've been doing? You're not eating or sleeping. You don't want me to touch you. Do you not think that I would be worried?"
Her silence is infuriating and he stands directly in front of her before he demands an answer.
"Did you ever plan to tell me?"
"There is nothing that you can do about it." She knows that she should not have said the words the moment they left her lips. She looks away, ashamed that she has hurt him. When she looks back to him, she sees hurt play across his face that brings tears to her eyes.
"I don't want you to see me as a sick woman," she all but whispers.
"But you don't know that it is cancer," he reminds her. "From what Beryl told me, Dr. Clarkson is fairly certain that it is not." His voice has quietened; he is calmer because he sees the distress in her face, her body.
"That is what he said. I am so frightened Charles. The doctors expected my father to live and he didn't. My mother's life was torn into pieces. I don't want that for you. So if it is cancer, find someone to share a life with. You don't want to be stuck with me." At this, Charles sits beside her, takes her hands in his.
"That's the point," he replies quietly but with conviction.
She looks at him with confusion. "What is?"
"Whether we have five months, five years, or fifty. I do want to be stuck with you."
Her brows draw into confusion as she shakes her head, trying to make sense of it all. "I'm not sure if I am hearing this right….."
"You are if you think that I am asking you to marry me," he tells her. He gently pulls his hands free from hers and reaches into his pocket to pull out a small blue box. He carefully opens it to reveal a diamond ring. "I've had this ring a fortnight. Ms. Baxter was quite helpful in giving me your ring size. I was hoping to give it to you Christmas morning but if you'll have me….."
Elsie's hand flies to her breast as tears flow freely down her cheeks. "This isn't because?...….You've had it a fortnight?" She wants to make sure that he is asking her to marry him not out of pity or some misguided sense of duty.
"A fortnight," he confirms with a smile. "Would you like to call the store for confirmation?" he teases.
She shakes her head and blinks away her tears. She is moved that this man, this kind and good man, can forgive her misguided sense of duty. The sense that she would push him away because of pride, because she does not want pity, because she wants him to be happy. He has shown her that she is what makes her happy.
"Well?" he asks. She realizes that she has not accepted yet and she laughs through her tears. She reached out to cup his face, leans in to kiss him.
"Of course I'll marry you," she whispers against his lips.
TBC… next up the test results. Thanks for following along. Sorry I did not get back to everyone last chapter. I promise to this time. Thank you for all of the reblogs on Tumblr, reviews, private messages, guest reviews, and readership. Reviews are always appreciated. x