“When you’re twenty-one, Soph.”
“That’s ages.”
“Yeah.”
She waited for exactly six beeps of heartbeat and then her smile blinked off.
“I think the doctors don’t tell you everything.”
“Why would they not tell me everything?”
“Because you might cry.”
She was watching Jack’s face for a reaction and Jack was careful not to show her one. He hugged her instead. “There’s nothing to cry about. You’re going to be fine.”
Later, when she drifted away from consciousness again, Kate called and Jack jumped up. The ringtone clashed with the rhythm of Sophie’s heart rate and breathing. It shattered the crystal of time that had formed in the room. The fragments scattered, displaced by this new kind of time that arrived in old-fashioned rings, sampled from the bell of a vintage Bakelite receiver and encoded into the software of Jack’s phone.
About to answer, he closed his eyes and listened to the dissonance. Heart, lungs, phone. The ringing went on and on, seeming to increase in volume and discord until there was nothing he could do but step outside the room to take the call out of earshot of the monitoring machines.
“Jack?” said Kate.
Her voice was beautiful in the sudden silence.
“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?”
He could hear her elation even through the bad connection here in the heart of the hospital, with her voice modulated by the rhythmic ticking of some urgent pulse in the phone mast.
“I won the first race,” she said. “I’m stronger than her today. I think I can beat her.”
“I knew you could do it.”
“I knew it too. We’re on again in five minutes. If I win this next one, that’s it. I’ve got to go now, okay? I’m not meant to have the phone, but Tom forgot to take it back off me. Don’t call it, okay, ’cause it’ll ring in my kit bag.”
He smiled. There was a lightness in his chest as his body responded to her voice, dumbly, as if nothing else was going on. The crystalline time of Sophie’s room was gone now, but here was a new kind of time that shone on them both, that radiated from the warm glow of their voices on the axis of the connection. They could live here, just for a moment, and be happy. These were the moments you lived in, after all, these rococo twists of time. You could make them last forever, or until you told the truth.
He glanced back through the wired safety glass. Sophie seemed completely peaceful. The heart rate monitor still said eighty-eight. The breathing monitor was still on twenty-two. Who was to say that she wouldn’t simply open her eyes again, and smile, and everything would be okay?
He forced back the urge to blurt out the truth, to tell his wife to come quickly.
“Good luck,” he said. “Go ahead and win it.”
After she clicked off the call, he went back into the room and sat by Sophie’s bed. He closed his eyes and imagined Kate, untroubled by anything except the race ahead. He smiled because he had given her something rarer than gold: an hour outside time.
National Cycling Centre, Stuart Street, Manchester, 12:29 p.m.
Zoe lined up on the high side of the track and watched Kate settling in to her left for the start of the second race. She knew Kate’s start line ritual by heart: the redundant checking and rechecking of the zip on the back of the neck of her skinsuit; the regular bilateral twitch of her heels to confirm that her shoes were solidly mated with the pedals; the soundless movements of her lips as she recited whatever calming mantra she used to empty her mind. Zoe watched her as she bowed her head and stared at the likeness of Sophie that stared back at her from the top tube of her bike. She watched Kate’s involuntary smile. She looked for weaknesses—for any telltale asymmetries in the way she sat on the bike that might indicate inflammation in a particular muscle group, or any deviation from her habitual start line behavior that could indicate a concern. There was nothing. If anything there was unusual confidence in the way she sat, a fluidity in the line of her back and shoulders that spoke of straightforward strength.
Zoe sniffed, and settled her gloved hands on the bars. Kate’s confidence didn’t bother her. If anything it gave her a pang of regret that Kate’s disappointment would be the sharper when she lost. Zoe had to win—she was going to win—but it didn’t mean she had to enjoy ending Kate’s career. It was just that winning was the overwhelmingly likely scenario. Zoe ran through her advantages. She was clearer-headed now than when she’d arrived. In the first race she hadn’t been properly warmed up and her tactics had been all over the place. Now she was back in race mode. As well as being psyched up, she knew she had to be less tired than Kate. In the first race Kate had led at full power for an entire lap while Zoe had hung in her slipstream and only shown her face to the wind in the last few yards. Even though she’d lost the first race, she knew she was fresher for this second round.
The official starter checked that his whistle was in position on the lanyard around his neck. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. Zoe knew he would soon begin counting down from ten. As always, she knew that Kate would choose that moment to look across at her for the first time. On impulse, she unclipped her chin strap and raked her helmet back on her head so that her eyes were visible beneath her reflective visor.
“Ten,” said the starter.
When Kate turned to look at her, Zoe was staring straight back. She watched the visible recoil as Kate saw her exposed eyes, then the rapid flick of her head as Kate looked straight ahead once more. Zoe tipped her helmet forward again, secured the strap, and noted the tension that had come into the line of Kate’s shoulders.
“Three,” said the starter.
Zoe flexed her thighs, then her calves, jiggled her legs to loosen them up, then stood up in the pedals.
“Two,” said the starter. “One.” Time built up against a dam as he lifted the whistle to his lips, then flowed again as the sound released it.
Zoe let Kate take the lead and tucked in behind her. For the first lap she focused on unsettling Kate by ducking out of her line of sight whenever Kate turned around to look at her. By using Kate’s own body to block her view, Zoe kept her wondering whether she was about to accelerate through her blind side. The result was that by the time they started the second lap, Kate was hanging deep in the well of the track, hugging the inner limit so that Zoe couldn’t sneak up the inside channel. She was watching Zoe over her right shoulder, and Zoe began imperceptibly climbing up the gradient of the track and slowly increasing her speed so that she began to draw level with Kate.
Zoe found herself smiling. She loved this. She’d given Kate only two tactical options, and both of them were shitty. Kate could ignore the inexorable way that Zoe was gaining altitude on her, in which case it would eventually be too late and Zoe could simply use gravity to accelerate down the slope and cut in front of her. Or if Kate began inching up the slope to cover against just that move, then she would be leaving the inside channel open and Zoe could dive down behind her and sneak through it.
Kate craned her head back nervously, and Zoe watched as her rival’s indecision mounted. Sooner or later Kate would have to break out of the trap Zoe had set for her in the only possible direction: forwards, by putting down the power and starting the sprint proper. The problem for Kate was that she’d burned out her legs in the first race, so the earlier she launched the sprint, the more advantage she’d be conceding to Zoe.
Three quarters of the way around the second lap, Zoe forced the issue by suddenly powering up and climbing right up to the lip at the apex of the curve. Kate was half a pedal stroke too slow to cover the move. Instead, seeing that Zoe’s height advantage was too great, she dived down into the well of the track and powered up her pedal stroke to maximum. With gravity on her side, Zoe swooped down into Kate’s slipstream and tucked in effortlessly. Kate pushed forward frantically in an attempt to create a gap between them. By the time they took the bell for the start of the final lap, moving at top speed,
Kate was still leading out but Zoe knew she would catch her. She could see from the gradual wilting of Kate’s posture on the bike that Kate knew it too. Zoe relaxed into her pedal stroke, conserved her energy around the last two bends as Kate began to slow, then popped out of her wind shadow on the last straight to take the race by a wheel-length.
She dropped down in front of Kate as the pair of them gradually slowed, making sure that her rival only saw her back wheel. She kept her posture strong on the bike, not allowing her head to drop as she gasped for air. She projected effortless strength until they both came to a halt, then she hopped off the bike as if the pair of them had been for nothing more tiring than a ride to the shops.
Later, warming down on the stationary bike, she looked across at Kate on the opposite side of the isolation zone Tom had set up between them. Kate was watching her back. Kate dropped her eyes and Zoe looked away as the truth of their situation sparked back and forth across the vacuum between them. Zoe’s tactics had controlled the first two races and now, even though they had one victory apiece, Kate would go into the deciding race depleted.
Zoe knew that she should feel exultant. Instead her legs felt suddenly heavy, as if an unseen hand had dialed up the resistance on the stationary bike.
Pediatric intensive care unit,
North Manchester General Hospital, 12:35 p.m.
The antibiotics dripping into her arm should save Sophie, this was what Dr. Hewitt said. Jack wanted to believe it. She was still pale and drifting in and out of sleep. Jack held her hand and squeezed it from time to time, a submarine sending a sonar pulse, checking for the return pressure.
“Alright?” he whispered.
“Alright,” said Sophie. Her voice was still tiny inside the capsule of her oxygen mask.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I sound like Vader with this mask.”
She squeezed his hand, and Jack felt better.
Dr. Hewitt pulled up a stacking chair and sat down at the bedside, facing Sophie and Jack.
“I’ve got good news and more news for you, Sophie. Can you listen carefully for a minute?”
Sophie nodded, a small movement against the green pillow with the name of the hospital printed in purple ink on the selvage of its case.
“Well, the good news is that we’ve run your bloods and they’re really, really good. I’m delighted, and you should be too. I know this might seem odd to you when you’re feeling so poorly, but your counts of bad cells are way down and if I had to take a bet on it, I’d say it looks as if the chemo is working.”
Sophie whispered, “So why am I like this?”
“The immediate issue is that the chemo has made your body very weak. There’s an infection in your Hickman line, and that’s what’s been making you poorly. Ideally we’d have spotted it earlier.”
Jack groaned. “I’m so sorry, Sophie.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. Often the symptoms are indistinguishable from the general fatigue. This is the problem. The infection can sit around the axis of the line for ages, and then for whatever reason it accelerates. We’re going to take the line out and clean up a bit. Because the line’s been in for a while, there’s been quite a bit of tissue formation around the insertion point, so we’ll need to put you under for a few minutes while we whip it out. Okay with you, Sophie?”
Sophie hesitated, her eyes wide and worried above the mask.
“It’s not a big deal,” Dr. Hewitt said. “First we’ll clean your skin with a special wipe to kill any nasty germs that may be lurking there. Then we’ll just make some little incisions, with a very small knife. You’ll be under anaesthetic, which means you’ll just be dreaming.”
Sophie stared at Dr. Hewitt. “What will I be dreaming about?”
The doctor looked at Jack.
“Star Wars,” Jack said quickly. “I promise.”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
Dr. Hewitt said, “We’ll draw the Hickman line out slowly, and once it’s clear of the vein, we’ll flush an antibiotic through the line as we withdraw it, which will treat the site of the infection. Then you’ll need a couple of little stitches, and we’ll put a dressing over that.”
Sophie’s hand was trembling. Jack wished Dr. Hewitt would stop.
He squeezed her hand again and she looked up at him, stared for a few seconds without any expression, and then, suddenly, she smiled the widest, most perfect smile. Jack beamed back. There was no choice in it: his body just responded. It was the strangest feeling to have your courage given back to you by your own child.
“After the Hickman line is out, we’ll take you down to radiology and the nurse will take an X-ray picture of your chest, to make sure that we haven’t left anything inside. Then we’ll bring you back up here and give you the once-over.”
Sophie grinned at Jack again, and he made a face. She giggled. The moment had a certain persistence. The April light from the windows seemed to Jack like the clearest light ever to fall. The rhythms of the monitoring equipment were better than any of the music on his iPod. The tiny pulse that went whum-whum-whum in his ears. Beep, beep, beep. Pulse, pulse, pulse. And AH would walk five HUNdred miles. Sophie laughing. Him laughing back at her.
Dr. Hewitt had said that the chemo was working. It dawned on Jack, only now, that this really was what he had said.
“After the operation, Sophie, you’re going to feel very poorly, I’m afraid. Your chest will feel a bit burny and you might have a headache and feel tired and sick. You might even be sick, but that’s perfectly normal and you mustn’t worry about it. It just means the antibiotics are doing their job.”
Sophie crossed her eyes at Jack. “Bleurgh!” she whispered. “Sick!”
That set them both off, faces hot with laughter. Dr. Hewitt talked louder, struggling to assert himself.
“Sorry, Jack. Sorry, Sophie. Are you listening?”
They were gone. They had the giggles.
Dr. Hewitt smiled and shook his head. “You two are really something else, you know?”
“Sorry,” Jack said. “It’s just been a really hard time.”
He looked up at Sophie then, and he had never felt so tired or so happy. The machines bleeped. The afternoon light poured through the windows. The light was made in the core of the sun, thousands of years before Sophie fell sick. It had reached this point at the same moment that she was getting better. It seemed to Jack like first light.
When a suitable time had gone by, Dr. Hewitt said, “Right then, Sophie. Shall we wheel you through to theater?”
Sophie shrugged. “Whatever, Trevor.” Her insouciance was a mist in the breathing mask.
Jack walked with Dr. Hewitt behind Sophie’s bed as two porters pushed it along the corridors.
Dr. Hewitt leaned in to him and said in a low voice, “There are certain risks involved in the procedure. Fingers crossed she’ll be fine, but she’s weaker than we’d like. I just want you to be aware.”
Jack’s stomach twisted. “What does that mean? How big are the risks?”
“Obviously we do everything we can to mitigate. We use the lightest anaesthesia, and we have a crash team standing by.”
Jack nodded. His hands twisted together as they walked the long corridors under the superstitious eyes of hospital visitors. Jack knew what they were feeling. A child like this—bald, frail, and breathing through a mask—made the corridors quieten and onlookers draw back. Sophie cleared minds that had been filled with thoughts of mortgage payments, and unpleasant duties, and difficult conversations overdue. After she had passed they would reconvene, in groups of two or three, and confide to strangers that the moment had marked them. It makes you think, doesn’t it? It puts it all in perspective. These are the things they would say.
In the operating theater a smiling nurse handed Jack a surgical gown with a stylized dinosaur printed on it. She helped Jack to lift Sophie down from the bed and into a wheelchair, and she showed them to a little cubicle with a nylon curtain where Sophie was to change.
<
br /> “I can do it myself,” Sophie said, when Jack tried to help her.
Sitting in the wheelchair, she took off her Star Wars T-shirt. She put on the surgical gown and Jack did up the laces at the side. He tried not to think about them unlacing the gown and exposing her skinny chest with the Hickman line growing out of it.
On the cubicle wall there was a sticker from a sticker book. Someone had tried to remove it but they’d only managed to tear the edges. It was blue-and-red Spiderman fighting black Spiderman. Sophie stared, transfixed.
“Am I going to be okay, Dad?”
Jack knelt down and turned his daughter to look into his eyes.
“Of course. Look at me? Of course you are.”
“Really?”
He smiled. “You’re going to be fine. I promise.”
This is what he said.
They let Jack hold her hand while she went under the anaesthetic. The anaesthetist pushed home the plunger on the syringe and told Sophie to count to ten.
Sophie stared up at Jack with defiance in her eyes. “I’m going to count to a hundred,” she said.
Jack stroked her face. “Start with one, Sophie.”
“One …” said Sophie, and fell soundlessly asleep.
Outer Rim Territories, 50,250 light-years from the Galactic Core,
Sluis Sector, grid coordinates M-19, region of space
colloquially known as the Dagobah System, 12:55 p.m.
An X-wing chased a TIE fighter through the infinite darkness of space.
National Cycling Centre, Stuart Street, Manchester, 12:57 p.m.
With the match tied at one race each and his girls lining up on the start for the decider, Tom climbed the stairs and sat in the seat high up in the stands where he’d eaten grapes with Zoe thirteen years before. Up here it was easier to resist the temptation to coach her, to give her the nod of his head and the cyclonic motion of his hands that meant she should simply go hard straight off the start line. If she threw the playbook out the window, went to one hundred percent power right off the whistle, and opened up a gap on Kate, he knew Kate wouldn’t have any answer. Kate’s legs were shot, but Tom knew Zoe. She would still be thinking tactics. In the last race she’d used her head, conserved her power, and resisted the temptation to blow Kate away completely. She’d kept her powder dry and won by the tiniest margin she dared. She’d won elegantly. The way Tom saw it, the danger was that she would try to win that way again. Putting down the power right from the whistle would be ugly and brutal, but it would get the job done. He wanted to tell her that, but this was the thing with coaching: you had to step back at exactly the moment you ached to step forward.