Page 46 of Three Times You

“This way, please. Dr. Flamini is waiting for you.”

“Thanks.”

She walks in, and the doctor looks at her and nods. “Good morning, Ginevra. Please, have a seat.”

“Thanks.”

He sits down in his turn. “Now, then…”He opens a folder. “Have you been uncomfortable? Pain? Nausea? Do you feel particularly tired?”

“Well, yes, tired and exhausted, actually..”

The doctor takes off his eyeglasses, sets them down on the desk, clasps his hands together, leans back in his chair, and shuts his eyes for a brief moment. Then he opens them again and looks at her. Gin suddenly stiffens, realizing that something’s not right.

The doctor tries to smile, but even his mouth looks uncertain. “There’s a problem.”

Gin feels her heart start to pound fast. She can’t catch her breath.

“With the baby girl?”

“No. With you.”

And then, absurdly, she’s suddenly calm again. Her heartbeat slows, as if deep inside she had said to herself,Oh, all right. In that case, everything is fine.

The doctor puts his glasses back on and takes a sheet of paper out of the file folder.

“At first everything seemed fine, but then I spotted a tiny swelling caused by a swollen lymph node. So I ordered further tests. I was hoping I was just being a stickler, that it was just a minor inflammation, but that’s not the case. You have Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”

Suddenly, Gin has a pang, and she immediately feels herself trying to sense what she’s feeling inside. She searches for the least discomfort, but there’s nothing. Nothing at all. She looks up at him, stunned, and is tempted to ask, “Are you sure there hasn’t been some sort of mistake?” But she says nothing and instead starts turning her questions to a higher force, to fate and to destiny.Why me? Why now? Why now that I’m expecting Aurora?The doctor looks at her, and she sees in his gaze not the slightest chance of a mistake.

“I ran your tests twice. I was hoping against hope that I’d made a mistake, that the data were wrong. But I hadn’t, and they weren’t.”

They sit in silence for a few seconds, and Gin sees everything she’s done in the past few months flash before her eyes, her wedding, pictures with her guests, the honeymoon, the sonograms—as if everything were suddenly drained of color. Then she shakes herself, trying to snap out of that state of torpor, trying to regain equilibrium and lucidity.

“Well, what are we going to do now?”

The doctor smiles at her. “We’re in luck. These pregnancy exams have allowed us to catch it in time. We’re in an early stage. So we can start immediately with a series of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. It should clear it up completely.”

“What about the baby girl?”

“If we are to begin this course of treatment and beat the tumor, we’re going to have to interrupt your pregnancy.”

Gin is stunned. To lose Aurora, to lose her like this, after just seeing her for the first time, after hearing her little heart race, after hearing those first few tiny kicks. Never to see her, ever again, at all, in the first place. Never to have met her at all.

“No.”

The doctor looks at her in astonishment. “What do you mean, no?”

“No, I don’t want to lose my daughter.”

After a moment, he nods. “It’s your decision. Do you want to think it over for a moment? Talk it over with your husband, with your family?”

“No, my mind is made up. What could the consequences be if I wait out the next few months?”

“Well, that’s hard to say. The lymphoma might follow a very slow course. In that case, it wouldn’t be hard to start treatment after your daughter’s birth. But it might turn out to be quite aggressive, and then it would be much more challenging. Still, you need to think carefully. This cancer is no laughing matter. I would prefer to insist and have you start treatment immediately.”

Gin shakes her head. “No.”

“If we start now, we’d have an eighty percent chance of remission. In five months, that percentage will drop to sixty.”

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