Westchester County seemed light years away.
“Remove your shoes and lie down, please,” she said, pointing to the opening.
“In there?”
“Yes. On the sand.”
“Why?”
“Because I wish you to be in contact with the earth.”
Curiouser and curiouser, he thought as he sat on one of the chairs and pulled off his loafers and socks. I must be more desperate than I imagined.
He padded across the cool concrete of the floor to the makeshift sandbox, but paused on the edge like a hesitant swimmer contemplating a cold pool. Did she really mean for him to . . . ?
“You did say to lie down.”
“Yes, I did.”
She didn't look at him; she was intent on her metal things, handling them one at a time. Each ran about eight inches long, slim and cylindrical at one end, flaring and flattening to a rough, wavy triangular shape at the other.
“Flat on your back, please. Don't worry. It's dry. You won't catch a cold.”
A cold is the least of my worries, he thought.
Feeling slightly ridiculous, he stepped onto the cool granular bed and stretched out. As the back of his head came to rest on the sand, he realized he'd reap an extra benefit from the turtleneck shirt: no sand down his collar.
“How does it feel?” she said, stepping closer and looking down at him.
“Sandy.”
A flicker of a smile, and he realized he was pleased he could make her smile. He wanted to dislike her, distrust her—bunco or bonkers, either way she could cause harm to the wrong person—but found himself responding to, and envying, her aura of serenity.
Aura . . . listen to me. Been here ten minutes and already I'm starting to sound new-agey myself.
“Press your heels and your palms into the sand. That's your Mother you're feeling.”
“My mother died five years ago.”
“No, I mean the Mother of us all. The earth.”
Oh, boy, he thought. Here it comes.
“It is one of the tragedies of modern living that we never touch her. Industrial society has cut off its inhabitants from the living world. You live and work in structures made of dead material, travel enclosed in rubber and steel, and even when you stroll through the pockets of living things you call ‘parks,’ it is with your feet encased in rubber sneakers treading macadam paths. Think: when was the last time your body was in contact with the earth—when was the last time even the soles of your shoes touched her soil? Why do you see people lined up in their cars like steel lemmings heading for the beaches? It is the only time all year they actually touch their Mother. They come away feeling renewed after merely brushing her hem.”
“Ooookay,” Will said, wriggling his hands and feet into the sand. This woman might be beautiful but he feared her antenna was picking up the wrong channels. “There. I'm dug in.”
“Good. How does it feel?”
“Really good,” he said. He was tempted to add, Just like sand in a hole in the floor of somebody's basement, but didn't want to trigger another lecture.
“See? That is your Mother.”
He thought, I know who my mother is—was—and it's not a handful of sand.
Holding one of her metal things by its cylindrical end, she stepped onto the sand and squatted next to him.
“What's that?”
“This?” She held it up, twisting it back and forth, letting ruddy light reflect from the flared end. She plucked the tip and it gave off a faint musical note. “This is one of the four tines.”
“What's it for?”
“I am going to survey your chakras.”
“My what?”
“Your chakras—the energy centers of your body. Chakra is the Sanskrit word for wheel. Each of us has seven energy centers in our body.”
Only seven? he wanted to say. We have zillions. They're called cells. But he kept mum.
“I will check the first now.”
She held the tine over his groin, about two inches above the fly of his tan Dockers, and began moving it in clockwise circles.
“What's this telling you?” he said, a little uncomfortable with the area of her attention.
“Other than the fact that there is no woman in your life right now,” she said, utterly deadpan, “all is well here.”
Damn. She was right. Pretty risky for her to say that with nothing to go on. True, he wasn't wearing his wedding ring—he'd stopped after the divorce—but she could have found herself way out on a limb with that little declaration. In fact . . .
“What if I told you that I have been deeply involved with a woman for the past two years?”
“I would not believe you.”
“You can be that sure?”
“Not completely, but I can tell you that if such a woman exists, you are not having sexual relations with her. Your first chakra is very congested.”
Embarrassed, Will opened his mouth to make some sort of excuse but she cut him off.
“Please. Let me complete my survey and we can talk afterwards. I do not wish to be distracted.”
She now began rotating the tine over his lower abdomen. Once she seemed satisfied there, she switched to another tine, this with golden highlights, plucked it, and rotated it over his solar plexus. After a short stay there, she glided it up to his heart. A moment or two later, she gave a faint nod. No problem there, apparently.
Will held his breath as she plucked the tine that gave off greenish hues and brought it toward his throat. This is it, lady. This is where you blow it.
She poised the tine over his turtleneck collar, then—
“Oh!”
She blinked and snatched her hand back; he felt the tine drop against his throat.
“What's the matter?” he said, feeling an uneasy chill dance up his spine. Had she really sensed something?
“Wait,” she said. “Just give me a minute.”
She retrieved the tine and again poised it over his throat. He couldn't see the metal but he thought he heard its hum change in pitch. He watched her troubled expression. Finally she rose and turned away.
“Your fifth chakra—your throat—you are very ill.”
Will lay still a moment. How did she know? How could she know?
“What's wrong?” he said, trying to sound calm, hiding his agitation by pushing himself to his feet and brushing the sand off his clothes.
“There is a traitor in your fifth chakra. Mutiny.” She turned to him now, pain in her eyes. “You need to see a doctor.”
“I have. I've had all the necessary tests.” He pulled down the turtleneck collar to reveal the two-inch scar on the right side of his throat. “Even a lymph node biopsy.”
“What did they find?”
“A very aggressive tumor at the base of my tongue; it's already begun to infiltrate my larynx—my voice box.”
“Yes, I know.”
Will felt a hot blast of anger—Like hell you do!—but it cooled quickly as he remembered what she'd said a moment ago: There is a traitor in your fifth chakra. Mutiny. She was right. What else was a tumor but a traitor—a cluster of his own cells that had gone mutinous and turned against him?
“Can you help me?” he said.
She shook her head. “You must see a specialist. I can recommend some.”
That floored him. She was sending him away—referring him. A bitter laugh rose in his throat.
“Been there, done that,” he said. “I've been to the best.”
“It is incurable?”
“No. It's curable. But the cure is unacceptable.”
“What—?”
“I don't want to go into all that now. All I want to know is if you can do for me what you did for Savanna.”
Or what Savanna thinks you did for her.
How pathetic. Am I so desperate that I'll stoop to humoring a new-age nutcase on the outside chance that some sort of miracle lightning will strike?
Yes. He was that desperate. Because he had no othe
r options, nowhere else to go.
“I don't know,” she said slowly. “It is possible, but it will be especially difficult with one such as you.”
“What's that mean?”
“You are closed off—you are one of the most closed-off people I have ever met.”
I'll take that as a compliment, he thought. He seated himself and began slipping back into his socks and shoes.
“You must be open if I am to help you. I must think on this. May I get back to you?”
Will wasn't sure if he should feel disappointed that she was putting him off, or elated because he didn't have to decide right here and now whether or not to commit to a course of hocus-pocus medicine.
“Sure. But don't wait too long. One thing I don't have a lot of is time.”
“How long do you have?”
Will felt his throat constrict. “Well, if I don't go for the surgery and the umpteen radiation treatments it'll take to kill this thing— and I'm doing neither—they tell me that I've definitely seen my last Christmas tree. Maybe even my last Thanksgiving turkey.”
Will saw her shudder. He wondered how he'd looked when he first heard the news. He found himself still unable to accept the fact that the remaining months of his life could be numbered on one hand.
“Come upstairs,” she said.
He followed her back up to the front room. Her step seemed heavier than before, almost weary. She stopped by the desk and picked up his index card.
“‘W. C. Burleigh.’ Is that what they call you—W. C.?”
“You mean, like W. C. Fields? No. I go by Will.”
“Very well, Will. Can you leave me a phone number where I can reach you?”
He gave her his home phone and she jotted it down. Then she stepped to the door and held it open for him.
“I will call you tomorrow night.”
“What's going to change between now and then?” he said, slipping the cap back onto his head.
“I must do some . . . research.”
Research what? My Dun & Bradstreet?
Stop being such a cynical bastard.
“I'll be waiting for your call,” he said as the blinding wet heat from the sidewalk slapped him. “By the way, what's your name?”
“Call me Maya,” she said.
2
Bedford, NY
Will was sitting in the claustrophobic, chart-strewn dictation room of the hospital record department, signing off on the last of his open charts when Dave Andros popped in.
Just the man Will did not want to see.
“Hey, Will.” Andros, a short, portly bundle of energy, dropped into the chair next to Will and fixed him with his dark eyes. “How're you feeling?”
“Decent.”
He lifted Will's chin. “Let me see that incision.” Dave leaned close, tilting his head left and right, then nodded. “Damn, I do good work!”
Will laughed. “You do, Dave.”
“Yeah, I know.” He continued to stare at Will. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“What's the final word from Sloane?”
“You didn't get a report?”
“Not yet. What did they think?”
Will sighed. “Same as everybody else.”
Will had first noticed the lump in his neck a month ago while shaving: a firm, non-tender, subcutaneous mass about the size of the last phalanx of his little finger. No question—an enlarged lymph node. He'd watched it for about a week, fully expecting it to return to normal size.
Lymphomas, after all, happened to other people.
But the node did not shrink. In fact, Will suspected that it might be enlarging. And was that a second node he felt beneath it?
Uneasy now, he copped a hallway ENT consult from Dave, who said the fastest way to find out what was going on was to biopsy the node. And not to worry too much—even if it was a lymphoma, they were getting fabulous results these days.
Two days later, Dave removed the node under local in the outpatient surgical suite and sent it down to pathology for a quick read. As soon as the incision was sutured closed, Will headed for the path department where the frozen section results would be waiting for him.
He rapped on the door frame of Alex Reed's office. “What's the word, Alex?”
Reed was the hospital's chief pathologist. He was pushing sixty and his build mimicked his name; he sat folded in his chair, wrapped in a white lab coat with sleeves that were inches too short for him. He didn't smile when he looked up from his desk.
“Oh, Will. Have a seat. And close the door, will you?”
Something in the pathologist's eyes started a cold, sick dread growing in Will's gut. He closed the door but remained standing.
“What is it, Alex? Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma?”
“No. It's squamous, Will. The node was packed with squamous cell carcinoma.”
“Oh, shit.” Will's knees suddenly felt rubbery. He lowered himself into the chair. “You're sure?”
“Very. I'll be able to give you more details after I examine a full prep, but even in the frozen sections this appears to be one very aggressive-looking tumor. I suggest you get rolling on therapy right away.”
“But where the hell's the primary?”
“Could be anywhere in the head or neck. You want my guess? I'd say the tongue.”
Stunned, Will had stumbled out of Reed's office in search of Dave.
No more hallway consults now. Dave had Will come to his office where he did a thorough oral exam. He found what he thought might be the primary tumor far back at the base of Will's tongue.
“No symptoms?” Dave said. He looked a little gray; they'd been friends a long time. “No difficulty swallowing or a feeling of fullness back there?”
“No,” Will told him. “Not a thing.”
“They can be sneaky.”
Will leaned back and closed his eyes. He felt as if the walls were caving in on him.
“Why, Dave?
“You don't smoke, do you?”
He knew where Dave was going: the major causes of oral cancers were smoke and alcohol.
“Quit cigarettes in medical school, although I smoked a pipe for awhile afterward, and I still have an occasional cigar.”
Dave shook his head. “What asshole is responsible for bringing that foul habit back into vogue? How about booze?”
“Some red wine with dinner. Other than that . . .”
Why me? Will thought.
He'd seen hundreds of patients ask the same question. Usually the answer was obvious: they smoked too much, drank too much, had a family history that they'd ignored. But sometimes tumors simply happened. Will had taken decent care of himself over the years . . . this didn't seem fair.
He straightened and looked at Dave. No use miring himself in pity. He needed to attack this thing right away.
“Okay,” he said. “What am I looking at for treatment?”
“Radiation and surgery,” Dave said.
Will felt his intestines writhe at the words. “How much surgery?”
“I'd like to see an MRI before I answer that.”
The final path report was ready the next day, and it confirmed Reed's initial impression: an aggressive squamous cell Ca. The MRI brought worse news: the tumor was already infiltrating around the larynx.
A very distressed Dave Andros had then told Will what he would have to do to save his life.
Will had recoiled, unable to accept what he'd heard. At Dave's urging he took the tissue slides and the MR films out for a second opinion. The matter of where was a no-brainer: Memorial SloaneKettering in nearby Manhattan had an international reputation.
“They said the same thing you did, Dave, only some of them want to toss in a little chemo for good measure.”
Dave shook his head. “I wish there was another way, Will.” He paused, then, “When are you going in?”
Will had been dreading this moment. Last week, while driving back from his consultation with the Sloane-Kettering team, he'd come to
a gut-wrenching decision. During the ensuing days he'd reconsidered it from all angles, but the decision held. Since then he'd been avoiding Dave. He knew his old friend cared about him, knew how he'd react.
Bracing himself, Will took a deep breath and said, “I'm not.”
Dave's eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said: no surgery, no radiation, no chemo. Nada.”
Dave shot out of his chair and began pacing, which wasn't easy, considering the confined quarters of the dictation room.
“You can't be serious! You won't last three months!”
“Probably not. But it's better than living years with what I'll have left after the surgeons and radiologists get through with me—all without a guarantee that I'll be tumor free.”
“But you'll die horribly, Will! It's a flip of the coin whether the tumor will close off your larynx or your esophagus first. If you don't choke to death, you'll die of starvation and dehydration.”
Will stared at him. “No, I won't.”
Dave stopped his pacing. “Oh, great! Just great! You think you're going to do a Kevorkian on yourself? What's it going to be? Morphine overdose? KCl? A .357 Magnum?”
Will hadn't chosen a method yet. He hadn't reached that point in his planning.
“Let's just say I won't die of starvation and dehydration.”
Dave sat again and placed a hand on Will's arm. “You're not thinking straight, Will. I know it's scary, but you can't run from this. You've got to face it down and conquer it.” He squeezed Will's arm. “The alternative is to sit and let the tumor rot you from the inside.”
“I'm not going to sit. I'm going to travel—tumor and all—and go all those places I put off seeing while I figured I still had a long road ahead of me.”
With a heavy heart, Will closed the chart before him and rose to his feet. He didn't want to argue with Dave, didn't want to see the anguish in his friend's eyes.