Dr. Derdon's "discussion" sounded like he wrote it out and had a lawyer approve it. Doctors lips move, but we usually only hear the lawyer's voice. I have always had a good ear.

"Susan, I'm going to be straight. The news is bad." Outside the cracked door, a nurse's nylon covered thighs rasped. "Your cancer has spread, something we were concerned about, as I discussed with you." He paused, waiting for me to shake my head. I did not. "I think you know that when we first removed this tumor, we opted not to remove the surrounding lymph nodes because that would have been drastic given our estimations of the stage of cancer we were dealing with?" A patient out in the waiting room coughed up a bunch of phlegm. "While we didn't detect any cancerous tissue at the time, we mentioned the need for follow-up. You recall?" I finally nodded so he would feel legal relief. "Unfortunately, Susan, this cancer has spread. We also see a spot in your lung and on your liver."

Now came the options, strategies, time frames. Blah blah blah. His conversation was careful, his demeanor empathetic. Lawyers do such a great job with these guys. I can see the pin-striped, tasseled loafer friend, probably his golf partner--"look into her eyes, Tom, and lower your voice. Patients who feel intimate with their doctors are less likely to litigate."

I do think Dr. Derdon felt horrible. My boy needed surgery and had autoimmune issues. He had been in and out of hospitals since he was three. My husband gave up after a few years and left us. My boy needed me. Dr. Derdon knew this. What he didn't know was that no one had ever needed me before I had this boy.

The tick of the clock seemed to skip a beat; it wasn't one, two, three, but one, pause, two- three.

Dr. Derdon pulled out several pamphlets from his file cabinet and put them on his desk. Time for the neurotic dark road that would lead me into myself, away from my boy: cancer support groups, chemotherapy research, alternative medicine research, herbal specialists, wigs, hats. Months of work on cancer benefits so everyone would say, "She is such a great sport. Look at her, dying and still working in the community." (You have to do that or they will call you a victim). And then someone will drag me off to a church where they will try to convince me that God "only gives tragedy to those who can handle it." That is what an assistant minister told me when we found out about my boy's life threatening syndrome. It's kind of the reverse of the Darwin theory of evolution. If you are strong, then dirt is thrown down upon you, and you die. Only the weak survive in the Christian world.

"I'm going to consult with Dr. Redman about possible surgery. You may want to look into Mass General. They have done some amazing things with liver transplants. If you need one, of course. One step at a time."

A shoe tapped a fast beat on the floor outside, then slowed to a shush.

The clock: one... two-three.

The shoe: tap, whisper tap.

"I have some material here you might be interested in." He picked up the pamphlets and dropped them on the table by my hands. They hit the varnished surface with a slap.

One...two-three. Tap, whisper, tap. Slap.

I stood up.

"And I think you should seek counseling."

I walked to the door.

He kept talking, something about knowing the news was tough, or life was tough, or maybe he said rough, it was rough. I don't know. His voice sounded like a thump of a low bass note.

In fact, as I walked down the hall, the buzz of the intercom, trill of the phone, whisper of nurses, squeak of my tennis shoes, all came at me like a blues song I once heard in front of a beach campfire, back when I was eight, and my granddaddy had taken me to listen to "real music." He had said, "Real music opens up wounds stored in your soul. It only comes out of a face that looks like Rufus. Happy people don't know a thing about music." I looked at Rufus hugging his guitar, his body rocking slowly in front of the flames, his sorrowful words rolling off his tongue. I stared into those eyes, red and dazed, pulled down by his puffy black cheeks. I didn't want to forget what good music looked like.

I imagined my boy and me, our faces like Rufus, raising our arms as we released our song to the world.

Debbie Ann Eis's work has appeared online and in small print, most recently Flashquake (as Diane Gold), Salome, Word Riot, Elimae, and others. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, two boys and English bulldogs. She is excited to be a part of this publication.