Invasion of Privacy

better.”
    “Doesn’t make what better?”
    “Your story about the fumes.”
    Her expression hardened.
    I ignored it. “Now, what’s really going on?”
    Her face turned harder still, then cracked in a way I’d seen only once before. When she’d had to kill someone trying to kill me.
    “Oh, John...” She brought her face down to her hands, and began to shudder. “Jesus Mary, I didn’t want this.”
    In one motion, I shifted over to the couch and closed my arms around her. All the muscles felt clenched, and she began rocking, like her stomach hurt.
    “Nance?” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Nance, please tell me. Whatever it is.”
    She kept rocking and began crying. I stroked her back with my right hand, deeply, almost like a massage.
    Nancy lifted her face a notch, glancing at me rather than turning. “I saw my doctor, and she... examined my breast, and she said I ought to go for a... tissue sample.” I felt a little part of me die inside. “When are you scheduled?”
    Now Nancy turned toward me. “It’s already happened. The doctor sent me immediately, this morning right after the examination.”
    “And?”
    “It’ll be a while before we have any results. She told me she’d try to get the lab to rush it, but then...” A weak smile as Nancy looked away. “I guess she probably says that to all the women she treats, because we’d all want to know as soon as possible.”
    “What else did the doctor say?”
    “Oh, she was very good, John, very reassuring. She asked me if there was any history of breast... of it in my family, and I said no. But, Jesus, back then, I’m not sure I would have known if one of my aunts ever had something like that. I mean, nobody talked about it, and my mom sure never mentioned anything before she died.”
    I didn’t want to interrupt.
    “And then the doctor asked me when I first noticed the lump myself, and I had to tell her, I wasn’t sure.” Nancy turned to me. “And she tried, John, she really tried not to let the look show on her face, the look I try not to show the cops when I know they’ve been procedurally stupid in handling a suspect, and the officer involved begins to realize he or she may have blown the case.”
    “Nance—”
    “The doctor told me that given my age, it’s probably just a cyst, like I said when you found it. But I could tell she was doing the same thing I do with the cops, trying to restore their confidence about testifying—hell, about being cops, about doing their job, when they have screwed up royally. And then she said even if there was a problem, it might be just cancer in situ, not cancer per se.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “The way she described it, cancer in situ is kind of precancerous.”
    I said, “Which would be... good, right?”
    “Not exactly.” Nancy looked down at her hands, moving one then the other, as though she were weighing things in them. “The traditional treatment for that is mastectomy.” I tried not to react. “What else did the doctor say?”
    “She wanted to make me feel better about not having... examined myself, that the lump was probably growing there for years before I would have felt it by self-examination. But I could tell she was just saying that, the way I talk to the cops.”
    Nancy’s voice grew deeper, slower. “And then I went down to where they take the biopsy—the tissue sample, John—with this...” She faltered. “And after it was over, I had to get dressed again and go back to the office and back to the trial and back in front of the jury, in my nice suit and two-inch heels. Because that’s what the jury expects every female lawyer to wear, John, high heels, at least if she’s still... I was going to say attractive, but...” Nancy dropped her face again into her hands.
    I said, “Is that why you wouldn’t return my calls?”
    She looked up. “What?”
    “Is the tissue sample and all the reason why you wouldn’t tell me what was going on?”
    A deep breath. “Partly. But mostly it was…“ Nancy searched my eyes, curling her lips like someone without their false teeth in. “John, I know what you went through with Beth.”
    “Nance—”
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound that way. What I meant was, I knew that you’d been through all this once, and what it did to you, and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t tell you that it might be starting all over again with—”
    “ Nancy , stop.”
    She did.
    I said, “I don’t know much about