Chapter 6: What the Doctor Said
The Northfield Oncology Center was a low, pale-brick building on the edge of the medical district, twenty minutes by bus from the motel.
Charlotte knew the route.
She had made the trip alone four times since December.
This time Diane sat beside her in the waiting room, in one of the blue plastic chairs, with a paper cup of bad coffee and a magazine she wasn't reading.
Charlotte's name was called at eleven-fifteen.
"You can wait here," Charlotte said.
"I know," Diane said.
She didn't move.
Charlotte looked at her.
Then she said, "All right.
Come on."
Dr.
Anita Reyes was a small woman in her mid-fifties with reading glasses pushed up on her head and the kind of calm that came from having difficult conversations every day for twenty years.
She had been Charlotte's oncologist since January.
She knew the full picture — the diagnosis, the kidney donation, the surgical waiver, all of it.
She looked at Diane when they came in together, then at Charlotte.
"This is Diane," Charlotte said.
"She's—" A small pause.
"She's family."
Dr.
Reyes nodded and gestured to the chairs.
She pulled up the scan results on her screen and turned it to face them.
"The post-surgical imaging came back this morning," she said.
"I want to walk you through it carefully."
Charlotte folded her hands in her lap.
"The tumor margins from December were clean," Dr.
Reyes said.
"We knew that.
What we were watching for was any change in the surrounding tissue following the nephrectomy — specifically, whether the surgical stress had affected the remaining kidney's function or created any secondary pressure on the site."
"And?" Charlotte said.
Dr.
Reyes looked at her directly.
"The remaining kidney is compensating well.
Better than I expected, honestly, given the timeline.
Your creatinine levels are within acceptable range.
The incision site shows normal healing.
There is no sign of spread."
Diane set her coffee cup down on the floor.
"So she's going to be all right?" she asked.
"The prognosis remains what it was in December — cautiously optimistic.
We'll continue monitoring every three months.
There are no guarantees with early-stage renal cell carcinoma, but what I'm seeing today is encouraging." Dr.
Reyes looked at Charlotte.
"You took a significant risk with the donation surgery.
I want you to understand that the outcome could have been very different."
"I know," Charlotte said.
"I also want you to understand that the outcome wasn't different.
You're here.
Your numbers are good." A pause.
"That matters."
Charlotte nodded once.
Dr.
Reyes closed the scan window and folded her hands on the desk.
"How are you sleeping?"
"Poorly."
"Pain level?"
"Manageable.
Three or four in the mornings."
"I'm going to adjust the post-surgical pain protocol.
I also want you to consider speaking with someone — a counselor, a therapist.
Not because anything is wrong medically.
But because you've been carrying a great deal alone, and that has its own cost."
Charlotte was quiet for a moment.
"I'm working on that," she said.
Dr.
Reyes looked at Diane briefly, then back at Charlotte.
Something in her expression softened slightly.
"Good," she said.
They scheduled the next appointment for three months out.
Dr.
Reyes walked them to the door of her office and shook Charlotte's hand.
"Take care of yourself," she said.
"The kidney you kept deserves the same attention as the one you gave away."
In the corridor, Diane stopped walking.
Charlotte looked back at her.
Diane's face was doing something complicated — jaw tight, eyes bright, the expression of someone who had decided not to cry and was losing the argument.
"She said cautiously optimistic," Diane said.
"Yes."
"That's good."
"It is."
"Charlotte." Diane's voice was unsteady.
"Why didn't you tell anyone?
Not just Frank.
Anyone.
Me.
A friend.
Someone."
Charlotte looked at her.
"Because if I told someone," she said, "it would have become real in a different way.
And I needed it to stay manageable.
I needed to keep moving."
"You could have stopped moving.
You were allowed to stop."
"I know that now."
Diane pressed her lips together.
Then she crossed the corridor and put her arms around Charlotte, carefully, mindful of the incision.
Charlotte stood very still for a moment.
Then she put one arm around Diane and held on.
They stood like that in the empty corridor for a while, under the fluorescent lights, with the sound of a distant elevator and someone's shoes on linoleum somewhere down the hall.
When they separated, Charlotte straightened her coat.
"I need to find somewhere to stay," she said.
"The motel is fine for now, but it's not—"
"You'll stay with me," Diane said.
"Diane—"
"Don't argue.
You just had a nephrectomy and you're recovering from cancer and you left your house four days ago.
You'll stay with me."
Charlotte opened her mouth.
"Don't argue," Diane said again.
Charlotte closed her mouth.
They walked toward the exit together.
At the glass doors, Charlotte stopped.
"Frank is going to call you," she said.
"I know."
"He's going to want to know how the appointment went."
"I know."
"What are you going to tell him?"
Diane pushed the door open.
"The truth," she said.
"That you're going to be fine.
And that he should call a divorce attorney before you have to ask him twice."
Charlotte walked through the door.
Outside, the sky was pale and wide and the air smelled like cut grass from somewhere nearby.
She stood on the pavement for a moment and breathed it in.
Then her phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
It was a number she didn't recognize.
A Minneapolis area code.
She answered.
"Mrs.
Miller?" A woman's voice.
Professional.
Careful.
"My name is Karen Holt.
I'm a fire investigator with the Minneapolis Fire Department.
I was hoping we could speak today about the property on Maple Grove Drive."
Charlotte's hand tightened slightly on the phone.
May you like
"Of course," she said.
"When would you like to meet?"
