Waiting

"That's the trouble," he sat back against the wall with a heavy sigh, "you think you have time." He pulled the thin laptop across the laminate countertop to type a few numbers into the chart.

"You forget I'm a doctor, too," She retorted. "Besides, you've practiced medicine for centuries now, you would know time well."

"Seventy years is not quite a century, Doctor Adams." The older man said, raising an unkempt white eyebrow.

"How are you still so healthy after living through the chemical experiments of the fifties and sixties? Didn't you guys used to eat weedkiller or something?"

"I'm not the one with a tumor the size of a golf ball in my brain." The doctor exited with a shake of his head.

"I'm home!" She shouted to the beige walls of her house. "James?" It was unusually quiet for a Thursday evening. Her fiance usually invited his lab partners over to study; the library closed early on Thursdays. He was almost finished with his master's degree.

She tossed her handbag on the coat rack and kicked her shoes into the closet. "James!"

She walked up the first set of stairs in the narrow townhouse, rounded the corner and ascended the second set. Their offices were upstairs.

"Maria!" James stepped out of the office, flicking the light off. "I had my headphones in, I didn't hear you." He kissed her gently. "So, did the doctor figure out what was wrong? Do they know why you have been fainting?"

The photocopy in her back pocket of the brain scan and its damning evidence felt heavy enough to make her fall again. But she leaned against the half wall. "No, they still don't know why." James' face fell. "But we're still ruling out possibilities. I'm not pregnant or anything."

He nodded. "Well, we will pray that their investigation concludes. I don't need you fainting at the top of a staircase or somewhere dangerous. Come, I'm making shrimp scampi. I promise it will taste better this time." he laughed.

Maria gave him a bland smile and followed. So far, she'd fainted twice at work, once in a taxi and three times in the shower. She wasn't sure how much longer she could fool James. Maybe it was awful of her, but she didn't want her last days with James to be filled with tears for her inoperable condition. The success rate of the surgery required was too low. She wanted the last few days with her fiance to be peaceful.

The doctor had been right. She'd always thought she had time. She'd waited to get her degree, she'd waited to move in with James, as she'd waited for everything in her life. Always too cautious. And now she was out of time. Yet she still waited. Maybe she'd never have to tell James. Maybe they could live in ignorance and she could wait the tumor away.

Maria watched as the carpeted stairs swam and she fell headlong from the top.