She gave a last look at the door and turned to face the doctor. John tightened the grip on her hand.

"I'll get right to the point." He sighed and held up a single sheet from the file. "I'm afraid the results aren't what we were hoping for."

Not what they were hoping for? Panic shot a burst of adrenaline through Elizabeth's system, and she leaned forward. Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe. Beside her, a moan sounded deep in John's chest, but he said nothing.

Dr Steinman shook his head. His eyes met hers and held. "Elizabeth, your cancer has spread. We did a biopsy of your lymph nodes, as you know, and every test came back positive for cancer."

"No ..." She said the word so softly no one heard her, not even John. The scene kept playing out before her, the doctor's words coming at her like so many bullets. She closed her eyes, desperate for a way to outrun the news, to stop the doctor's pro 201.

kingsbury smalley nouncement before it got worse. No, God... no! Why is this happening?

"Elizabeth?" The doctor sounded tired, as if the blow he was delivering was aging him several years in as many minutes. She opened her eyes.

"Go ahead."

Beside her, John was staring at his. lap, his eyes vacant.

The doctor sighed. "On top of that, we compared the ultrasound and X rays we did the Monday after your treatment ended with an ultrasound and X rays we did yesterday." He set the first piece of paper down and picked up another. "We knew after the surgery that your cancer was in your lymph system. With this type of aggressive cancer, the lymph system often deposits cancer cells throughout the body. It appears that's what has happened in your case, Elizabeth. The cancer has spread to your lungs and possibly to your liver and pancreas as well." He pursed his lips and met her eyes again. "The CAT scan looked clean, so that much is good news. So far the cancer hasn't spread to your brain."

Good news? Elizabeth wanted to throw something at him, pound her fists on the wall, and break something on the floor. The cancer hadn't spread to her brain?

That was the good news? She sucked in'a quick breath and then another. The panic swelled within her, suffocating her. Another inhale and another.

"Elizabeth, breathe out, honey." John had his hand on her shoulder. He gently pushed her head down, the way she'd seen him do for the kids before. "It's okay, Elizabeth, breathe out.

on my hand."

She pursed her lips and tried, but only a whisper of breath came out.

Dr. Steinman was on the other side of her now, pressing a cool cloth to her forehead. She was hyperventilating, letting panic its way with her. She sucked in another breath, and then, her pounding heart, above the sound of Dr. Steinman's above the panic screaming at her from all sides, she heard only sound that could possibly restore her sanity.

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REUNION.

The sound of her husband praying.

"Dear God .... " His words were hushed, meant for her ears and God's alone.

"Please... give Elizabeth your peace, a peace that passes all understanding. Let her remember that you are a God of miracles, that you haven't ever stopped loving her and that you have a plan, even now."

John's words wrapped themselves around her like a shield, a cocoon. One breath at a time she could feel a change coming over her. The muscles that had refused to exhale only a moment earlier could now do so. Breathe out, she told herself.

Out... out . . ollt...

"How're you doing, Elizabeth?" Dr. Steinman had returned to his place at the desk.

How was she doing? Didn't he realize how ludicrous he sounded? Hadn't he just answered the question himself? She wasn't doing very well. She was dying, in fact, right? Wasn't that what he had told her? She lifted her head and looked at him. Why was she mad at him? It wasn't his fault. She felt her anger melt away like April snow. He was simply the messenger and he was waiting for an answer.

She gripped John's knee as she sat a little straighter. "Better, I guess."

"Good." The doctor put the file back together. Then he looked from her to John.

"You understand what I'm saying, right?"

The muscles in John's jawline flexed twice. He inhaled sharply. "I assume you're going to give us a treatment plan?"

Elizabeth wanted to kiss him. That was her John. You tell him, honey. Neither of them would ever settle for a death sentence- not now with Ashley's wedding and Kari's baby and Erin's and Luke's visits on the horizon. Definitely not.

"I... uh, well..." Dr. Steinman's face went blank and he fum bled a few seconds more. "Look, John, don't make this harder than it has to be."

"I want a treatment plan." John's tone was sharp, pointed.

203.

"We didn't come here to make funeral arrangements, so please, tell us what to do next. That's your job."

Dr. Steinman lifted his hands a few inches off his desk and dropped them again.

"We could operate on her lungs, and possibly her pancreas." He opened the file again. "The liver isn't operable without a transplant." His eyes scanned the sheet. "Any surgery would mean more chemo and radiation" he looked at John again-"which her cancer isn't responding to, frankly."

Elizabeth glanced at John, waiting for his response. But he was quiet, tense. He had one hand over hers and the other clenched in a tight fist. When he spoke again, some of his earlier fight was gone. "We'd like a day to talk it over, if that's all right."

The doctor released a slow breath. Exasperation showed in his eyes, and his voice was filled with a quiet pleading. "Please, John. Think it through. Quality of life has to mean something."

John made a tighter grip on her hand and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.

When he opened them, Elizabeth met his eyes and a pain took up residence in her heart. No matter how confident and authoritative John sounded, he was dying inside, every bit as much as she was.

He spread his free hand out on the doctor's desk and leaned forward. "If we didn't operate..." His mouth hung open. The next question seemed to take all his effort. "How long would she have?"

It was the question Elizabeth hadn't wanted to address, not or ever. But there it was. Out on the table for the doctor to up and run with. She leaned into John, praying for a miraacle. Begging God for another chance, a different diagnosis.

"Whether we operate or not..." Dr. Steinman closed the file head. His eyes were damp. "Three months, John. four. Not more than that."

months? Four? The numbers swirled in Elizabeth's and she buried her face in John's shoulder. Panic, fear, none of them could reach her. Not when her entire was numbed by the figures. Sixteen weeks? At best? that all she had left?

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Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her face, making the sleeve of John's shirt wet. She wasn't crying, not really. She was too numb to cry or feel or react. Rather her body was grieving all on its own, the tears leaking from her eyes without any weeping or sobbing or emotions.

Sixteen weeks?

John was saying something, going on about taking a day to decide and not giving up, about wanting the best for Elizabeth, and how they were willing to fight the cancer whatever the cost. And the doctor was responding, something about recovery time and weight loss and statistics.

Elizabeth let their words blur together.

In the aching, desperate places of her heart she was no longer sitting in a doctor's office receiving a death sentence. She was eighteen, dancing in John's arms at the University of Michigan summer mixer. But then the image blurred and she wasn't wearing a summer dress, but a simple white wedding gown and John wasn't teaching her to dance, but telling her he loved her. Forever and ever and always, he would love her.

But they weren't in a church anymore; they were in a hospital and Brooke was in her arms. Tiny and red-faced .and making the small bleating sounds of a newborn.

Elizabeth held her close yet when she looked again it wasn't Brooke at all, but Luke, and John was saying, "I knew God would give us a son one day, a son we could call our own."

John's words were still filling the room, but the two of them weren't in a hospital; they were walking beside a Realtor, leading all five kids through a freshly painted farmhouse just outside the city limits with views of trees and creeks and rolling hills and wheat fields as far as the eye could see. And John was saying, "We'll take it!" And he was framing her face with his hands and whispering, "We'll raise our children here, Elizabeth, and when they're grown, we'll have grandchildren here-the Baxter house. And one day we'll be buried-"

"Elizabeth." John's tone was sharp, flooded with concern.

205 2O5.

kingsbury smalley She blinked and looked at him. His eyes were intense, his expression fearful, the way it had been when Erin got lost at the mall one December. She glanced around and gave her head a slight shake. Where were they? Why was John... ?

The answers came at her almost in sync with the questions.

"Elizabeth, can you hear me?" He wasn't angry, just afraid. The way he looked so often these days.

"I'm sorry. I... I guess I didn't hear you." She sat up straighter and rubbed her eyes. "I was thinking back." She looked at the doctor's desk. "Are we done?"

"Yes." John breathed out and took both her hands in his. "Did you understand what the doctor was telling us? About the cancer?"

She didn't answer, couldn't. Instead she looked into his eyes. "We need to go home."

He angled his head, looking straight into her soul, telling her what his words could not. That he was sorry, that this was never how he'd pictured it ending, that he would do anything to change the facts, to turn back the hands of time and find a way to the place where she was well and the tomorrows spread out before them like the never-ending stream behind their house.

After a minute, John's voice strained, he pointed toward the door and said, I'll get you a chair." He had turned to leave when she stopped him.

"John!"

He spun around, more fear in his eyes.

"No chair." She met his eyes. "I want to walk with you, beside you.

At first he looked as if he might disagree, insist on the wheelchair because of her condition. But he knew her heart even now. went to her, looped his arm through hers and, as always, he led her. Through the office, down the hallway, outside and to the parking lot.

They were halfway to the car when she stopped and hung her head.

"I can't, John."

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REUNION.

"Okay, stay here." He was about to run back for a chair when she shook her head.

"No." She turned to him and searched his eyes. "I can't be dying, John. I'm not ready. I love you too much."

As he studied her face, Elizabeth watched his expression fill with frustration, regret, futility. Then, in painful slow motion, he took her face in his hands the way he'd done so often over the years. His eyes grew watery as he gave the slightest shake of his head. "I'm so sorry, EliZabeth. I wish it were me."

"John ..." She clung to him, grabbed handfuls of his navy pullover, and pressed the side of her face against his. The tears started up again, and this time they came from a place in her heart even she hadn't known about. A deep, anguished place that had somehow always known their story might end this way, a room Elizabeth had never dared to enter, with feelings so raw and terrifying they threatened to take her life there on the spot.

He smoothed his hand over her knit cap, down her back along the bones that stuck out more all the time. "Elizabeth, hear me." His words were determined, spoken through clenched teeth. "We can't give up. You have to fight it."

She sobbed, and the sound was louder than she intended, more like a series of deep coughs, each one shaking her, hunching her over as she held on to John.

"I'm sorry. I... want to. I don't.., know how."

They stood there that way, holding each other so they wouldn't fall, until her sobs became shallow jagged breaths, until the tears gave way to a round of sputtering coughs, and John started them moving toward the car again.

The feel of his body at her side, his legs still strong as they moved in rhythm with hers, brought a strength Elizabeth hadn't felt all morning. But still every step seemed to rattle off her prognosis. Cancer. Spread. Other organs. Liver.

Pancreas. Three months. Four. All the while the doctor's words acted as a backdrop, a running feed that colored every other aspect of her con"

207.

kingsbury smalley dition. Whether we operate or not.., whether we operate or not... whether we operate or not...

The tears still fell from her eyes, but a new sort of peace filled her heart.

Why would she agree to a surgery if half her organs were already affected with cancer? She was already bone thin. More surgery? The ordeal might leave her bedridden for the remainder of her days.

An image grew in her heart and filled her mind. Ashley on her wedding day, standing at the altar in their family's church, Pastor Mark marrying Ashley and Landon while everyone they knew or loved filled the building. And where would she be? In a hospital bed, too weak to even get dressed?

No, she wouldn't have it. Yes, they'd asked for a miracle, and God could still give them one. She was still afraid to die, still certain that somehow she'd survive even this type of cancer. But they'd also prayed for wisdom, hadn't they? As long as she was breathing, God could improve her condition. But the doctor had change given them all the wisdom needed this they at point.

B!.

Whether we operate or not, three months, maybe four. They reached the car, and John helped her inside. When he climbed in beside her, she searched his eyes.

God... let him accept what I'm about to say. Please, God.

"John..."

"I know." He slipped the key in the ignition and started the car.

"We can talk at home."

"No." The calm in her voice surprised even her. "Please. I have something to say."

shifted sideways and slipped his fingers between hers. r." A knowing filled his features, and he almost winced as '.th tilted her head and willed him to see it her way. "I operation, John."

shoulders fell an inch and his expression wilted. "What if doctor's wrong about the liver? Lots of people function with I. lung, and the pancreas can be removed."

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REUNION.

"It's in my lymph system. You and I both know that means cancer cells could show up anywhere, anytime." She lifted her chin and gazed at the sky for a moment.