“Mom!” Sarah cried, skidding across the floor.
“Let’s not move her,” Rosa said quietly. She sent Sarah for a glass of water and pillow to put under Ronnie’s head. When Sarah touched her mother’s shoulder, Ronnie groaned and opened her eyes.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“You fainted,” Sarah said.
Ronnie closed her eyes. “I was going to tell you,” she said.
“What?” Sarah asked. “Tell me what?”
Ronnie tried to sit up and groaned again, a horrible, pained sound.
“Don’t move,” Rosa said. “Just relax. Everything’s fine. We’re going to take good care of you.” Then the paramedics were there, thumping up the stairs with their equipment. Sarah watched as they lifted her mother’s body onto the stretcher and fastened the straps, carrying it down the stairs and into the ambulance. Sarah followed after them. In the driveway, she squeezed her mother’s hand and repeated, “I love you,” over and over, holding on tight, until the ambulance doors were closed.
“What happened? Did you see?” she asked Rosa. “Is she going to be all right?”
Rosa’s face was somber. “You should go to the hospital. They’ll know what’s going on.”
Eli put his hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “Go get your purse and your phone charger. I can drive.” He got into the car. Sarah took the seat beside him. She called her brother and told him what had happened as they followed the ambulance along Route 6 to Hyannis, and the Cape’s only hospital.
“Maybe it’s just stress,” Eli said.
“She is getting older,” said Sarah, and sat motionless and frozen, willing the car to go faster, staring at her hands, bunched in fists in her lap.
An hour after Ronnie was admitted, Dr. Dominguez ushered Eli and Sarah and Sam, who’d just arrived, into a conference room. The doctor wore a tennis dress and a matching visor over her dark-brown hair and had a dab of sunscreen on her nose.
“Why don’t we sit,” she said to Sam and Sarah and Eli, who had his arm around Sarah’s shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked.
“Your mom hasn’t spoken to you?” asked the doctor.
The twins shook their head. “She said she had something to talk to us about,” Sam said.
“But there was supposed to be a wedding tomorrow,” said Sarah. “She wanted to wait.”
The doctor nodded and opened a folder. “Let me get you up to speed: your mother signed a medical power of attorney stating that you both have the right to make decisions for her, in the event that she becomes incapacitated. There’s more here, spelling out her wishes, but—”
“Please,” Sarah said. Her voice was raw. “Please, just tell us what’s wrong.”
The doctor closed the folder and set her hands on top of it. “Three weeks ago, when your mother came in for her checkup, she was complaining of fatigue and stomach pain. When I did an exam, I felt a mass in her abdomen.”
Sam gasped. Sarah started to cry. Eli handed her tissues he’d found somewhere and put his hand on the back of her neck.
“I sent her right to the hospital for an ultrasound and some bloodwork. Her blood tests showed very elevated levels of calcium, which is one of the markers for cancer. That was what the ultrasound and the biopsy of her pancreas confirmed.”
“Oh,” Sarah whispered. “Oh, Mom.”
“We had surgery scheduled for next week, to remove as much of the tumor as we could. After that, our plan was to begin chemotherapy and radiation right away.”
“So what happens now?” asked Eli.
“They’re prepping her for that surgery. We’ll get a sense of what we’re dealing with. But, I should tell you…” She sighed and removed her visor. “Everything we’ve seen so far suggests that this is quite advanced.”
“Could it be benign?” Sarah asked, in a small voice. “Could the tests be wrong?”
“Anything is possible.”
“But not likely.” Sam’s voice was flat.
“No,” the doctor said, and shook her head. “Not likely.” She made eye contact with each of them, and said, “Your mom’s a wonderful lady. I’m so very, very sorry.”
Eli
In an alcove near a window, on the hospital’s second floor, there were chairs and a coffee table. Sam and Sarah sat down, staring at each other bleakly as Eli went to get them water and call home to tell Ruby what had happened.