'Well, it's farther from the sun? '
'One hundred forty million miles!'
'So? four hundred days?'
'Lots more. Six hundred eighty-seven. I'd like to live on Mars, wouldn't you?'
'Longer to wait between Christmases,' she said. 'And between birthdays. I'd save a bunch of money on gifts.'
'You'd never cheat me. I know you. We'd have Christmas twice a year and parties for half birthdays.'
'You think I'm
'Nope. But you're a real good mom.'
As if he sensed her reluctance to return to Dr. Chan, Barty had kept her occupied with talk of the red planet as they approached the office building, had talked her off the street, along the driveway, and into a parking space, where finally she relinquished the fantasy of an endless road trip. At 5:45, long past the end of office hours, Dr. Chan's suite was quiet.
The receptionist, Rebecca, had stayed late, just to keep company with Barty in the waiting room. As she settled into a chair beside the boy, he asked her if she knew what gravity was on Mars, and when she confessed ignorance, he said, 'Only thirty-seven percent what it is here. You can really jump on Mars.'
Dr. Chan led Agnes to his private office, where he discreetly closed the door.
Her hands shook, her entire body shook, and in her mind was a hard clatter of fear like the wheels of a roller coaster rattling over poorly seamed tracks.
When the ophthalmologist saw her misery, his kind face softened further, and his pity became palpable.
In that instant, she knew the dreadful shape of the future, if not its fine details.
Instead of sitting behind his desk, he settled into the second of two patient chairs, beside her. This, too, indicated bad news.
'Mrs. Lampion, in a case like this, I've found that the greatest mercy is directness. Your son has retinoblastoma. A malignancy of the retina.'
Although she had acutely felt the loss of Joey during the past three years, she had never missed him as much as she missed him now. Marriage is an expression of love and respect and trust and faith in the future, but the union of husband and wife is also an alliance against the challenges and tragedies of life, a promise that with me in your corner, you will never stand alone.
'The danger, Dr. Chan explained, 'is that the cancer can spread from the eye to the orbit, then along the optic nerve to the brain.'
Against the sight of Franklin Chan's pity, which implied the hopelessness of Barty's condition, Agnes closed her eyes. But she opened them at once, because this chosen darkness reminded her that unwanted darkness might be Barty's fate.
Her shaking threatened her composure. She was Barty's mother and father, his only rock, and she must always be strong for him. She clenched her teeth and tensed her body and gradually quieted the tremors by an act of will.
'Retinoblastoma is usually unilateral,' Dr. Chan continued, 'occurring in one eye. Bartholomew has tumors in both.'
The fact that Barty saw twisty spots with either eye closed had prepared Agnes for this bleak news. Yet in spite of the defense that foreknowledge provided her, the teeth of sorrow bit deep.
'In cases like this, the malignancy is often more advanced in one eye than the other. If the size of the tumor requires it, we remove the eye containing the greatest malignancy, and we treat the remaining eye with radiation.'
I have trusted in thy mercy, she thought desperately, reaching for comfort to Psalms 13:5.
'Frequently, symptoms appear early enough that radiation therapy in one or both eyes has a chance to succeed. Sometimes strabismus-in which one eye diverges from the other, either inward toward the nose or outward toward the temple-can be an early sign, though more often we're alerted when the patient reports problems with vision.'
'Twisty spots.'
Chan nodded. 'Considering the advanced stage of Bartholomew's malignancies, he should have complained earlier than he did.'
'The symptoms come and go. Today, he can read.'
'That's unusual, too, and 1 wish the etiology of this disease, which is exceedingly well understood, gave us reason to hope based on the transience of the symptoms? but it doesn't.'
Be merciful unto me according to thy word.
Few people will spend the greater part of their youth in school, struggling to obtain the education required for a medical specialty, unless they have a passion to heal. Franklin Chan was a healer, whose passion was the preservation of vision, and Agnes could see that his anguish, while a pale reflection of hers, was real and deeply felt.
'The mass of these malignancies suggest they will soon spread-or have already spread-out of the eye to the orbit. There is no hope that radiation therapy will work in this instance, and no time to risk trying it even if there were hope. No time at all. No time. Dr. Schurr and I agree, to save Bartholomew's life, we must remove both eyes immediately.'
Here, four days past Christmas, after two days of torment, Agnes knew the worst, that her treasured son must go eyeless or die, must choose between blindness or cancer of the brain.
She had expected horror, although perhaps not a horror quite as stark as this, and she had also expected to be crushed by it, destroyed, because although she was able to survive any misery that might be visited upon her, she didn't think that she possessed the fortitude to endure the suffering of her innocent child. Yet she listened, and she received the terrible burden of the news, and her bones did not at once turn to dust, though unfeeling dust was what she now preferred to be.
'Immediately,' she said. 'What does that mean?'
'Tomorrow morning.'
She looked down at her clutched hands. Made for work, these hands, and always ready to take on any task. Strong, nimble, reliable hands, but useless to her now, unable to perform the one miracle she needed. 'Barty's birthday is in eight days. I was hoping?'
Dr. Chan's manner remained professional, providing the strength that Agnes required, but his pain was evident when his gentle voice softened further: 'These tumors are so advanced, we won't know until surgery if the malignancy has spread. We may already be too late. And if we aren't too late, we'll have only a small window of opportunity. A small window. Eight days would entail too much risk.'
She nodded. And could not lift her gaze from her hands. Could not meet his eyes, afraid that his worry would feed her own, afraid also that the sight of his sympathy would shake loose her perilous grip on her emotions.
After a while, Franklin Chan asked, 'Do you want me with you when you tell him?'
'I think? just me and him.'
'Here in my office?'
'All right.'
'Would you like time by yourself before I bring him to you?'
She nodded. He rose, opened the door.
'Yes?' she replied without looking up.
'He's a wonderful boy, so very bright, so very full of life. Blindness will be hard, but it won't be the end. He'll cope without the light. It'll be so difficult at first, but this boy? eventually he'll thrive.'
She bit her lower lip, held her breath, repressed the sob that sought release, and said, 'I know.'
Dr. Chan closed the door as he left.
Agnes leaned forward in her chair: knees together, clasped hands resting on her knees, forehead against her hands.
She thought that she already knew all about humility, about the necessity of it, about the power of it to bring peace of mind and to heal the heart, but in the following few minutes, she learned more about humility than she had ever known before.
The shakes returned, became more violent than previously-and then once more passed.
