to tell the difference.’
‘So…’ The girl’s eyes flew to hers, hope flaring. ‘This may well be just a waste of time. If it’s just a cyst, I can go home and forget it.’
‘Yes, but you can’t go home and forget it yet,’ Em told her. ‘Because you may be right in your first guess. Your age means that you’re in a low-risk group for breast cancer, but we have to exclude that possibility.’
‘But I don’t want to know.’ Anna put her hand to her mouth as if to stifle a sob. ‘If it is…cancer…then I want to be as normal as I can for as long as I can. I have three kids. I want to be there for them. Jonas made me come, but if it’s cancer then it’s better not to know.’
‘Well, that’s exactly where you’re wrong.’ Em handed Anna back her blouse—and a tissue—and waited until she was decent. Then she pushed back the screen so Jonas could join in the conversation. ‘It’s far, far better to know.’
‘Why? So you can cut off my breast?’
‘That hardly ever happens any more,’ Jonas growled. Unable to restrain himself, he rose and moved to give his sister a hug. ‘For heaven’s sake…Stoopid. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have eased your fears.’
‘By agreeing I may have cancer?’ She was looking wildly from one to another. She was very close to the edge, Em thought, and knew this visit was the culmination of weeks without sleeping. ‘No one’s easing my fears now.’
‘I can do that,’ Em said gently, but there was a note of iron in her voice. What Anna didn’t need was false sympathy or reassurance. She needed facts. ‘Sit down, Anna.’
And Anna sat, still looking like a hunted animal. She was like a tigress defending her cubs, Em thought, and suddenly realised that the comparison was appropriate. Anna wasn’t scared for herself as much as for the three small children who depended on her.
‘Anna, your brother’s a surgeon,’ she told her, casting a quick glance at Jonas. He could intervene any time he liked, but she sensed he wanted this to come from her. ‘He’ll back up everything I say, but I want you to listen.’
She held up her hand.
‘One, you’ve come very early, and the lump I’m feeling seems very well defined. That means it’s either a nice little cyst, which we can confirm with a biopsy, or, at worst, it’ll be a small cancer that we can remove. Now, I can’t make promises until the tests have been done, but if, as I suspect, it’s confined to the one small area, then there’ll be no question of you losing your breast, even if it is cancer.’
‘But I’d want…’ Anna gasped, then continued. ‘If it’s cancer I’d want it off. All off. The whole breast.’
‘Surgeons don’t remove breasts without very good reason,’ Em told her. ‘Even if it is cancer, with modern surgical techniques there’s usually no need. They’d simply take away the affected part. That means you’d be left with a scar and one breast a little smaller than the other.’
‘And that’s it?’ Anna looked as if she just plain didn’t believe Em. ‘What about chemotherapy?’
‘If it’s as early as I suspect it must be, then you’d undergo a six-week course of radiotherapy just to mop up any stray cells. Then you and the oncologist would decide whether you wanted chemo.’
‘But…’
‘The survival rate for early breast cancer is great,’ Em said firmly. ‘After surgery and radiotherapy it’s well over ninety percent. And it’s not the fearful experience it once was. Honestly, Anna, about the worst side effect of current chemotherapy is fatigue as your body copes with medication, and hair loss. And hair loss is no big deal.’
She grinned. She may as well be honest here. ‘You and your brother are so good-looking that having shiny scalps would only make the pair of you even more attractive. It’d just bring you back to be on a level with the rest of us ordinary mortals.’
‘And I’d shave with you,’ Jonas said promptly, and he finally succeeded in drawing a smile from his sister.
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Watch me!’
Em blinked. The thought of a bald Jonas…
Good grief. Once more, there was a wave of pure fantasy. Jonas bald…
She was right. They’d both be stunningly attractive, no matter what they did to their hair, or…or anything.
But Anna was back on consequences. ‘I don’t want to be bald.’
‘So you never need to be,’ Em told her. ‘The health system in this country makes sure you’ll get a wig if you want one, no matter what your income is, and wigs are great.’ She smiled at the pair of them. The tension was decreasing by the minute. ‘You know June Mathews?’
‘I…yes.’ Everyone knew June. She ran the local minimart. June was a stunning strawberry blonde. Or, to put it more truthfully, she was an interim strawberry blonde. Until she tired of it.
‘June doesn’t dye her hair.’ Em’s smile widened. ‘Whenever June tires of her hairstyle, she just buys a new one.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘I’m not kidding.’ Once more, Em’s voice gentled. ‘She doesn’t mind me telling people who need to know, as long as I ask that you don’t tell anyone else. June suffers from alopecia—hair loss—and she’s been wearing a wig for twenty years.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ This was clearly a side of June that stunned Anna, temporarily diverting her from more serious issues. Which was just what Em wanted.
‘Believe it. And I know there’s nothing June would rather do than help you choose a wig if it ever becomes necessary. She adores wig-buying. She told me once that choosing hair is better fun even than sex!’
Then, as Anna blinked in astonishment, Em pushed home her advantage. She smiled her most reassuring smile. ‘But, Anna, we’re crossing way too many bridges, and we’re crossing them way too fast. As I said, chances are we’re talking about a cyst.’
‘You’ll be fine, Anna,’ Jonas added, and Em heard the catch of emotion in his voice. This was his baby sister after all.
Em looked at Jonas and she realised with a sense of shock that he, too, was asking for reassurance. For facts! As a surgeon, he must know the statistics, but he wanted to hear them out loud.
Cancer was a frightening word, she thought, no matter who faced it, and the only way to lessen the fear was to confront it head on.
Help me, he was asking, and it was suddenly all Em could do not to put out a hand and touch his. Her smile died.
Because brother and sister were both afraid of one thing. Anna was taking a long, drawn-out breath, searching for courage for the next question.
‘If…if it’s cancer, it’ll come back,’ she said finally, and her voice was now strangely calm. ‘I’ll die. My kids… Sam and Matt and Ruby. Ruby’s only four. Who’ll look after them?’
