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« When we first diagnosed Griffin’s cancer, » Dr. Alderman said, « the presentation was unusual enough for his age that standard practice required genetic testing, to check for underlying hereditary syndromes that might explain it. That testing takes considerably longer to process than the initial cancer treatment itself, so results only came back three weeks ago. »
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« What did they find? » I asked.
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« Griffin carries a mutation associated with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, » she said. « It’s a hereditary condition that significantly increases lifetime risk for multiple cancers, not just a recurrence of what we just successfully treated. We’re talking about a considerably elevated risk profile for the rest of his life — sarcomas, breast cancer, brain tumors, several others, often appearing at younger ages than typical. »
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I sat with that for a long moment, the relief from an hour earlier curdling into something considerably more complicated.
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« He knows this, » I said slowly. « You told him three weeks ago. »
« I told him three weeks ago, » Dr. Alderman confirmed. « During a solo consultation. You were working a night shift that day, if I remember the scheduling correctly. »
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I remembered that exact appointment. I’d apologized to Griffin for missing it, and he’d told me it was just a routine check-in, nothing significant enough to worry about rearranging my shift for.
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« He lied to me, » I said.
« I believe he was trying to protect you from information he hadn’t finished processing himself yet, » Dr. Alderman said carefully. « That’s not the same as lying with malicious intent, though I understand it might feel identical from where you’re sitting right now. »
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« Why are you telling me this? » I asked. « Doesn’t this violate his privacy? »
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« It does, » Dr. Alderman admitted. « I’m telling you anyway because Griffin sat in my office an hour ago and told me his plan to divorce you today, specifically because he didn’t want you, in his words, ‘wasting your life on someone who’s just going to get sick again.’ I don’t think that’s a decision he’s making with a clear head, Simone. I think it’s a decision he’s making out of fear, and I think you deserve the chance to respond to the actual situation instead of whatever version he’s decided to hand you without the full picture. »
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I sat there for a long moment, working through fourteen months of exhausted night shifts and careful meal planning and quiet nights sitting beside a man too sick to lift his own water glass, all of it apparently about to be erased over a decision he’d made entirely alone, three weeks earlier, without a single word to me about it.
« The parking garage, most likely, » Dr. Alderman said. « He mentioned needing time to think before he actually filed anything formally. »
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I found Griffin sitting in our car in the hospital parking garage, hands resting on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular.
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I opened the passenger door and got in without asking permission.
« Griffin, » I said. « Dr. Alderman told me about the genetic testing. About Li-Fraumeni syndrome. »
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His whole body went rigid.
« She wasn’t supposed to tell you that, » he said.
« She told me because you’re making a massive decision about our entire marriage based on information you decided I didn’t get to have, » I said. « I think, actually, she made exactly the right call. »
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« I didn’t want you to know, » Griffin said, his voice cracking. « I didn’t want you sitting there doing the math on how many more years of appointments and treatments and exhausted night shifts this is going to cost you, on top of everything you already gave up this past year. »
