The end of dreams

4

The following morning Silvia was woken up by the aroma of good hot coffee, as it would happen each and every time Andrew had slept in her apartment. She found it pleasant, in spite of the nausea induced by her pregnancy; that aroma always succeeded in consoling her.

Michelle instead was woken by the usual hideous sentence, which brought her down to earth with the same brutality of a fall without parachute:
«Coffee-milk or tea?»
She was in hospital.
She opened her eyes but she would have paid any price if only she could have come back into her dreams, she would have sold even her soul as long as she could leave that nightmare. She couldn't stand the hospital any more nor could she stand living in a place like that anymore, with that horrible stench of death all around. She had spent more or less the last nine months of her life that way. She had deluded  herself into believing it was all over... They had tortured her but she had naively believed it all had been some use! In less than no time here she was again, in the middle of a ghastly nightmare but this new version of it had even an increased amount of horror; they all were too kind to her and that was no good omen at all.
«I'll have a tea, thanks» she said, endeavouring to sound kind.
An hour later an oncologist came in carrying a file folder filled with papers that concerned her. Her head started to spin as usual. Each time she expected them to tell her how many months were left over for her to live. 
It took her some seconds to find the courage to look him in the face, but when she did it she found an unexpected smile there.
«The blood test results are quite good... the total body scan turned out better than expected too. It's true, there's something in your head. During the breast surgery we must have let some cells escape.»
The oncologist had just begun to speak but the girl interrupted him immediately.
«What about all the chemotherapy you've made me take after the operation? And the chemo I took before? You have made me undergo a severe treatment! You had assured me I would be safe thanks to all that venom. You injected horse doses of  it into me! Not to mention the stem cells transplantation... the most devastating experience of my whole life... you might as well have killed me! And now you're telling me it all has been no good? You're telling me I have suffered like a dog just to end up finding malignant cells all around my body?»
Her voice broke on saying those words.
The doctor sat down by her side and stroked her head, on which her beautiful black hair had begun to grow again over the last month.
«It's not your time yet, Michelle.»
She used the back of her hand to wipe the tears trapped in her eyes; then she looked at him and smiled.
When a doctor says things like that you can' t but believe him.
«They are just very tiny nodules. We are not going to torture you anymore, I promise. Just forget about chemo or other invasive treatments, it will be unnecessary for this trifle. They're but three invisible tiny cells. Twenty days of radiotherapy will be enough for them to vanish as easily as they rose.»
Michelle thought she was dreaming.
«Are you telling me... I'm not going to die?»
«Sooner or later that day shall come for everybody!» the oncologist smiled at her «still your time hasn't come yet» he went on, looking her in the eyes even more intensely.
«Can I go back to my little girl?» she asked, getting free of her tears and smiling brightly.
The oncologist took a quick glance at the head nurse.
«Of course, you can go back home. We'll wait for you here the next twenty days for your little half an hour-treatment. It's all you'll have to do. I only regret ruining your vacations.»

Michelle felt born again. She would have loved to jump on the bed, shout, hug the doctor with all the might she had suddenly regained  and even kiss his mouth! She adored that oncologist, she and Silvia had renamed him "onco-cutie" as he was really an attractive, good-looking guy. She was feeling so happy that she'd have loved to tell him how cute he was, and she'd have also asked him to marry her but for the  sparkling wedding ring he wore on his finger!
She just thanked him and shook his hand.

A great change for the best had just happened, that very day she would be discharged. She could hardly believe it! The following morning she would wake up hearing the shrieks of her Gaia instead of the nasal voice of that hyper hideous male nurse.
«Coffee-milk or tea, coffee-milk or tea» she started imitating him, as soon as the oncologist left the room and her companion in misfortune, who was occupying the bed next to hers, burst out laughing.
«I hope I won't see you again, my dear little nurse!» she said laughing.
A couple of words of the oncologist had been enough to make her happy like she had never been before. Once that euphoria passed by, it had lasted but a few seconds, she began feeling gloomy again without understanding why.
"If my conditions had been serious they would have held me in hospital" she told herself, trying to soothe her new anxiety.
"I am in one of the most renowned oncology centers of Europe. They know I'm a young mother, they would do anything to save my life. In the year 2010 they are obliged to tell the patients the truth!" she thought.
«My case is not as serious as I feared» she told her old ward-mate, seeking supplementary confirmation in her eyes..
«I am so happy for you» replied the woman moved to tears «you see, I have lived my life. Of course I would gladly have avoided this finale, but one way or another I have to leave this world; I am seventy-nine years old! The fact that I am here is not a scandal. But you are so young... you shouldn't even had known this ward. It's time for you to say farewell to this place, my dear. Go, join your girl and grow up with her!»