Page 5 of True Blue

“Five months,” I say quietly. “Maybe seven with treatment.”

Barbara’s gaze shifts over my left shoulder as she processes the news. Various expressions cross her face—stages of grief blending together before, inevitably, acceptance.

Barbara sighs with a short, humorless laugh.

“Well...” she says, leaning back in the chair. “That’s a hell of a way to start my Tuesday.”

“I am so incredibly sorry, Mrs. Greene.”

She waves a hand dismissively. “Nah. Don’t waste time feeling sorry for me.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you,” I shake my head. “That’s an insult. I feel sorry that this happened to you.”

Barbara smiles at me after a few moments, a genuine one.

“I liked you from the start, kid.”

Kid. I haven’t been a kid since I was eleven, maybe ten. When I started cooking my own dinners because my parents were out at the bar.

Barbara leans back, glancing out the window. The sun is high in a cloudless sky. I guess this is as good a day as any for the worst news. If only we could all be so lucky.

“Life moves fast,” Barbara muses, her voice barely above a whisper.

I wonder if she’s talking to me anymore, but I stay quiet, listening fully because maybe that’s what she needs right now.

“One day you’re a hot young thing with your whole life ahead of you,” she glances at me with a crooked smirk, “and the next you’re an old bird with months to live. Though you’re probably used to this, huh? Telling people they’re going to die.”

I don’t tell her that, while you do get used to telling patients the bad news, it never gets any easier.

There’s something strange about working with a deadly disease: you end up forming a relationship with death itself.

I keep my voice soft when I ask, “I’m assuming you don’t want to move forward with treatment.”

“No,” Barbara shakes her head firmly. “No, my time is running out. I don’t want to waste it here with you—no offense, Dr. Miller.”

“None taken,” my lips twitch.

The sense of humor always gets me. The way I can deliver horrible news to someone, and they can crack a joke after. It feels like superhuman strength.

“I’m going to go home. I’m going to spend every goddamn second with my family,” her face collapses for a moment, and I’m already moving, grabbing the tissue box and pushing it toward her. “God. How am I gonna tell my kids? My grandbabies...”

Barbara sniffles and wipes her nose, taking her glasses from her face and dabbing at her eyes.

Give them time to cry. It’s a part of the process. It’s your body's way of releasing your emotions. Just be there with them, because crying by yourself can feel lonely.

“I think,” I start once Barbara’s crying has softened. “Many of us don’t choose how our lives end, but we get to choose who sits beside us while it does. I think your family will just want to be by your side. And I think that’s what matters most.”

The corners of Barbara’s lips curve into a small smile, and she nods.

“Thank you, Doc.”

I nod stiffly, reaching out and awkwardly patting her hand. She snorts at my jerky movements and flips her hand over, grabbing mine and squeezing lightly.

There’s something that happens in skin-to-skin contact. It’s why we have newborns do skin-to-skin with their parents after birth. It’s calming.

After a few more minutes, I walk Barbara to the front desk. She gives me a smile, and it hits me as I’m walking away that it’s probably the last time I’ll ever see her.

When I walk into the next patient's room, I paint on a bright smile.