The next morning, I barely slept.
Maya was taken for additional imaging while I waited outside.
Every few minutes, I checked the clock.
Then the doors finally opened.
A technician came toward me.
“Mrs. Reynolds?”
I stood immediately.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Hawkins would like you to come with me.”
My legs felt weak.
I followed her down the hallway.
Dr. Hawkins was standing beside a computer screen.
Several images were displayed in front of him.
He motioned for me to sit.
“I want to explain what we’re seeing.”
I nodded.
He pointed toward one of the images.
“There is a significant mass in Maya’s abdomen.”
I stared at the screen.
“How big?”
He gave me the measurement.
I couldn’t process it.
“But you said you don’t know what it is.”
“We don’t know yet,” he repeated. “The next step is a biopsy.”
I swallowed.
“A biopsy means…”
“We need to take a small sample and have it examined.”
My hands went cold.
“Are you saying it could be cancer?”
Dr. Hawkins didn’t answer immediately.
“We have to consider that possibility.”
The room seemed to disappear around me.
Cancer.
The word I had been terrified to hear.
I thought about Maya at seven years old, running through the backyard.
I thought about her soccer games.
Her school dances.
The ridiculous jokes she told at breakfast.
The way she used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms.
How could all of that suddenly feel so fragile?
I covered my face.
Dr. Hawkins waited patiently.
Then he said something I wasn’t expecting.
“There is another concern.”
I lowered my hands.
“What?”
“Maya’s condition suggests this didn’t happen overnight.”
My heart dropped.
“What are you saying?”
“Whatever is causing this has likely been developing for some time.”
I immediately thought about all those weeks.
The dizziness.
The stomach pain.
The weight loss.
The exhaustion.
And Robert’s voice.
She’s exaggerating.
I suddenly couldn’t sit still.
“I need to call my husband.”
Dr. Hawkins looked at me carefully.
“Before you do, there’s something you should know.”
He turned the computer toward me.
And what he showed me made me realize that Robert hadn’t simply underestimated Maya’s symptoms.
He may have known far more than he ever admitted.
