Could it be that his struggle to maintain the status quo was what was holding her back? If that was the case, he’d have to do something pretty damn quick to rectify that.

* * *

“Did you get a raise or something?” Kate said when he walked in the front door. She was dressed and waiting for him. The abysmal aftereffects of the treatment had finally run their course a couple of days ago. And now here she was, dressed and ready for more.

“Why do you say that?”

“You’ve got a smile on your face like someone just gave you the winning lottery numbers.”

“I, my dear crip, have put myself in a positive frame of mind for your doctor visit today.”

He extended his hand to help her off the daybed. “That makes one of us,” she said.

“Hence the big ol’ smile. I have to be positive for two.”

As he helped her into the car, she said, “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”

He blew into her face. “What does that smell like to you?”

She waved at her nose. “Like you’ve been to that deli that makes those meatball parm sandwiches that give you indigestion.”

“I can’t help it. They’re addictive.”

“Even Buttons can’t stand to be around you when you eat those things. I mean, it’s like something dies in your stomach.”

Andrew laughed, keying the ignition. “Buttons licks his own butthole. I wouldn’t use him as an arbiter of what smells bad or not.”

Kate chuckled. She was pale today – paler than usual – but there was a tiny spark in her eyes. He knew she was terrified, so he did his best to keep her mind off things, blabbing the whole ride about dumb things he overheard people say at work. Because Kate hadn’t been well enough to work for so long, she yearned to hear about office life. What he found to be mundane, she couldn’t get enough of. It should have made him appreciate what he had when it came to his career, but it didn’t. It only made him sad for her.

The doctor saw Kate right away.

Sitting under the television, Andrew tried reading a magazine, but his mind kept wandering to fantasies of being freed from his job. The thing he feared losing second most after Kate, it turned out, was nothing to fear at all. They would persevere. He would find another job. Medical insurance was a disaster for everyone, so it wasn’t like his current plan was irreplaceable. Their medical bills would be paid off right around when he turned nine hundred and seventy. What difference did a few years make?

“Andy?”

He hadn’t realized he’d dozed off.

Kate waited for him by the receptionist’s desk. She didn’t look to be in agony. In fact, she was smiling.

“I need the co-pay,” she said.

“Oh, yeah.”