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“You do realize you’re not a one-woman army, right?” I asked, checking her vitals as she reclined on the chaise in her bedroom. She hadn’t dressed for bed yet, but she never did until I was done administering the round of treatments and had checked her over. I wasn’t sure if a sense of propriety was genetic, but if it was, she certainly hadn’t passed it on to her youngest.
“What are you grousing about now?” she asked without looking up from her book, as though I was constantly complaining.
I sighed, looking at her blood pressure and shaking my head. “You have cancer.”
“I’m well aware of that. Should I thank you for stating the obvious?”
“And your treatments are getting stronger and more frequent.”
“Is stating the obvious something they teach you in school?”
I continued to ignore her. “And in case you haven’t noticed, you’re not getting any stronger. You’re not going to keep living the same lifestyle you were before. I warned you this would happen, and it’s already started.”
The book cover twitched as she partially closed it to stare at me. “I think we should leave whether I’m strong enough or not up to…”
“The medical professional who has practically lived with you and monitored your progress the entire time,” I interrupted, ignoring the warning sign of her nostrils flaring. “You’re a strong person. There’s no denying that. But no one, no one is strong enough to live the life you do while fighting cancer and dealing with draining treatments. You can do one of those things, not both.”
Her lips thinned. “Is this supposed to be your inspiring speech? I would be interested in sitting in on whatever class you took to learn this skill.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes, knowing she’d take it as a childish gesture. Instead, I stared into her eyes and found myself unnerved by the reminder that her eyes were almost exactly like Shane’s. Though his sparkled and seemed to exude color, hers stayed hard, absorbing everything around them.
“I am your caretaker,” I reminded her, removing the band from her arm. “And if that means telling you what a doctor you’re paying ridiculous amounts of money to for your care won’t, then that’s what I’m going to do. Now, by all means, feel free to chew me up and spit me out. Try to give me hell. Threaten to fire me, or outright fire me.”
“Try?” she asked, her brow twitching.
“Yes, try to rip me a new one because you haven’t intimidated or scared me from the moment I met you,” I told her as I set everything back in my bag. “I’ve seen and dealt with far more terrifying things than you’ve ever been.”
“If I didn’t know it wasn’t true, I would believe you’ve been spending far too much time around my son,” she told me, her tone icy as she marked her place and closed the book.
“Shane has nothing to do with this,” I told her briskly, standing up and closing the bag. “You deal with things directly, so I’m going to be direct with you. Don’t think I haven’t seen how you’ve struggled to deal with getting around the house as often as before. Don’t think I haven’t seen how your vitals have been steadily worsening. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to magically get better over the next few days because you can’t intimidate your body into cooperating, and you certainly can’t do it with cancer.”
“I will do as I please,” she said, her jaw tightening.
“I understand…”
“Nothing.”
I bent down so I was level with her, gazing into her face. “I understand facing the prospect of death and leaving everything you’ve ever worked for behind is the most terrifying thing imaginable. And knowing you, it’s probably more the second than the first. But if you want a good chance of living another two or three decades, you need to start taking care of your body and giving it the rest it desperately needs. Otherwise, you really are going to leave all your hard work behind before you’re ready, and you’ll be known as the woman who thought she could fight the world and her own body.”
Her hard eyes stared into mine, and I gazed back, waiting until she snorted, leaning back into the cushions. “Is this where you give me a sob story of how you nearly died? Childhood cancer?”
“If there were a sob story, it would be that at a young age I lost my parents and then grandmother, the only family I had left, within three years. But there is no sob story. I can promise you I understand the fear and hatred of death all too well,” I told her evenly, standing straight once more.
Her jaw worked stubbornly before she glanced up at me. “And you work with patients like me? That doesn’t seem odd or masochistic?”
“Therapeutic,” I told her. “Not every one of my patients dies. Some, like you, have a very good chance of seeing their disease through. They do that because I’m damned good at what I do, and I’m determined to do it. But it also means my patients have to trust me and listen to me.”
“Which you clearly believe I should start doing.”
“Yes.”
She clicked her tongue, turning to stare at the opposite wall. “So this is your way of combating the very thing that took your family from you.”
“This is my way of learning to deal with losing everyone of meaning when I was too young. And my way of maybe helping other people not to lose their lives, or the lives of the people they love before it’s time,” I told her softly. “This is not a crusade on my part, Miss Perkins. This is my chosen mission.”
“Mission,” she repeated softly, and I was quietly surprised at the lack of scorn.
“Which makes your life my mission,” I told her, setting the bag on the table beside me and waiting. I could see by the expression on her face that she was calculating, probably breaking down everything we’d talked about and the effect it would have on the rest of her affairs. I’d come to learn that for all her decisiveness, she was a careful and analytical person.
