Karen and Rhonda returned, and while his sisters settled themselves around him, the medical assistant strapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm. She chatted with him as she worked, reading off his blood pressure and pulse aloud when she wrote it down. “Perfect numbers.”

“Look at that, healthy as a horse,” he said. “You know, except for the cancer.”

Karen averted her eyes, and Jeni glared at him. A fresh wave of tears came from his mother.

Andrew shrugged. “Not ready to joke about it yet? Okay.”

Karen gathered up her equipment and offered him an unsure smile before she left.

A tall blond nurse in blue scrubs soon approached, pushing a rolling cabinet with several drawers and a kit of supplies on the top.

“Hi there, I’m Mandi,” she said in a southern drawl. “You must be Andrew.”

“That’s me.”

“Looks like you’ve got a nice cheering section started over here,” she said as she took in the overcrowded space.

“That’s a nice way to put it,” Andrew remarked.

“He’s right. We’re more like squawking hens than a cheering section,” Jeni said.

“I resent that,” Valerie said. “I’d prefer to be called a mother hen.”

“If anyone’s the mother hen, it’s me,” his mom said, wiping her nose.

“One’s enough, thanks.” Andrew leaned his head back against the cushion. He felt a headache coming on.

Mandi widened her eyes in Andrew’s direction, almost as if she were commiserating with him.

“First thing I’m going to do is access your port, okay?” Mandi frowned. “Unless you want to stretch out the neck of your T-shirt, you’ll need to lift it up for me. Next time try to wear something with buttons for easier access.”

Andrew hadn’t even thought of that. The device had been surgically implanted into the right side of his chest just three days ago, and it was still sore. He’d chosen the softest shirt he owned, hoping to avoid irritating it any further.

Mandi put on bright pink gloves and bent over the tray, getting the equipment ready. She held up a little plastic stick with a round pad on the end. “This is for cleaning the skin around the port before I use the needle.”

Andrew lifted his shirt up to his neck, baring the entire right side of his abdomen and chest. Mandi leaned forward and eyed the circular lump underneath his skin, and lightly touched around it with her glove-tipped fingers. The light pressure was painful, and Andrew held as still as possible.

“Sorry, it’s probably still tender. That’s normal. The incision is healing well, and it looks good.” She scrubbed the moist pad all around the area, and an antiseptic stench rose to Andrew’s nostrils. She turned back to the tray and faced him once again with a large, thick needle.

“Holy shit, that’s a big needle,” Jeni said loudly.