Tomorrow Will Be Too Late by Ellen Wolf Page B

divorced, each of them pursuing new lives in either Europe or Indonesia. She had seen her father twice while in Australia. Both of the short meetings had convinced her that he wasn’t really interested in more than short phone calls and emails. He had remarried, his new wife and her large family absorbing him enough to sideline his children from his first marriage. It didn’t hurt that Jade, the beautiful Thai goddess with almond - shaped eyes and bee-stung lips, was thirty years younger. Her father worshipped the ground she walked on, doing his best to live up to her expectations. Her mom used to be around much more often, every time her new partner , Johann , had a business trip to the west coast. Still, for most of the year they lived in his native Holland, keeping in touch t h rough emails and Skype . She knew her mom was super excited to attend Alice’s wedding, even though they would be able to come a mere three days before the actual date. Johann ran a large gardening center back home, springtime being one of the busiest in his business.
    ‘I’m fine . ’ She smiled reassuringly, feeling oddly detached from the whole situation. Once again, she felt as if she were watching someone else, safe behind a glass wall that separated her from the ordeal.
    ‘ You see, I didn’t expect anything un usual when I sent the specimen to the lab , ’ he started again, clearing his throat and sounding more professional. ‘Just the usual procedure, you understand?’
    ‘Of course.’ She felt her impatience burn inside her like lava rising in a dormant volcano, unstoppable and destructive. She wanted to hear it, she thought desperately, even if it meant a division of her life into two distinctive halves, separated by this millisecond before she knew for sure what was wrong with her. It would be the beginning of measuring her life in terms of before and after the fact she was diagnosed with this unknown disease that set the dominoes into free-fall .
    S he wanted to know , t o hear it named out loud, if only to be able to shape her lips around the unknown cluster of vowels and consonants that would ultimately be her fate.
    ‘ It’s so rare, only a few people are diagnosed with this particular type of cancer every year.’ Did the doctor expect her to get excited to be so special and unique? Or was it her consolation prize—t he fact that not many others were contesting her for the title of being the most unusual patient of the year ? Still, it didn’t feel like a prize she was too eager to claim, Kate thought , making a conscious effort to remain focused.
    ‘It’s called subcutaneous panniculitis-like T-cell lymphoma, Kate.’ So, there it was. A mouthful, too difficult to repeat, let alone comprehend.
    ‘I’ve never heard of it, ’ she answered weakly, realizing that the doctor waited for her reaction. What was one supposed to answer to a revelation like that , anyway?
    ‘I’m not surprised, dear.’ The paternal tone was back in place, her cool reception visibly relaxing the doctor ’s tense posture. ‘ It’s the first time I ’ m dealing with something like that myself.’
    ‘How is it treated?’ S he braced herself for some grueling description of the treatment, the idea of chemo and radiation sending shivers down her spine. It would be the most difficult thing she had ever done, for sure, but she was a fighter. T herefore it came as a total shock to her when she saw the doctor shake his head, his expression growing even more wistful.
    ‘ Well , this is the thing, Kate.’ He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, then put them back on, the gesture doing nothing more than buying him some time. ‘ There is no treatment for this type of cancer that we know of right now . ’
    Icy coldness, numbing and painful at the same time, spread over her with lightning speed, slowing down her mental functions before bringing them to a grinding halt.
    ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her own voice