The Golden Willow by Harry Bernstein Page A

furious. He said it was wrong. We had no right to keep it from her. But I was just as angry. What good would it do to tell her? I wanted to know. Would it cure her leukemia? Would it make her feel better to know that she had an incurable disease and might die soon?
    “Yes,” he shouted. “She would reconcile herself to what is going to happen and it would give her peace of mind.”
    “Nonsense,” I shouted back. “It would put her in a nightmare of horror with that hanging over her. She would be more peaceful not knowing. And that's the way it's going to be. You're not going to say a word to her about it.”
    Fortunately, Ruby was not in the house when we were discussingthis. Adraenne had taken her out shopping when Charlie came from his home in Pennsylvania. When I told Adraenne about the argument later, she was silent for a moment, then said, “Perhaps Charlie was right. Mom should know. But I want to tell her myself, and there's something else I will tell her that will help a good deal. You too.”
    She had done a good deal of investigation with doctors and had learned of a study that was being made of cases like Ruby's at Mt. Sinai Hospital. They were experimenting with a new form of chemotherapy that had none of the side effects of that in use now, and thus far the results had been promising. The study was only open to a certain number and all the slots had already been filled, but Adraenne had pulled strings and Ruby was to be admitted.
    “So you see,” she said, “I'd have to tell her that she has leukemia in order to explain to her why she has to go into this study.”
    I no longer had any objection. It had changed the whole picture for me. I now had hope. And after Adraenne had her talk privately with her mother, I felt better yet. Ruby had taken the news calmly and with her usual intelligent understanding. Actually, she was no stranger to leukemia. Two of her cousins had died from it when they were very young. I worried that this might have had an adverse effect upon her, but on the contrary, she dismissed it lightly.
    “They were just kids when they got it, not even married, and here I am, an oldie, with a full life behind me, and a good life, and a husband I love, and a marriage of many years that many other women would envy, with children and grandchildren. So I am not complaining. If I died now, I would be satisfied. I have had everything that any woman could want.”
    “You are not going to die now,” Adraenne said, and told her about this new program at Mt. Sinai Hospital that she could go into.It would not require her to stay in the hospital. She would have to go there once a month to be checked, but otherwise the treatments, consisting simply of injections of the chemotherapy, could be given at home, and Adraenne herself would give them. “But you don't have to do it, Mom,” Adraenne said. “There is no guarantee that the injections will help, but there is a chance that they will. It's up to you.”
    Ruby sat quietly for a while, thinking, then said, “I'll try it. I want to live. I'll fight this thing.”
    S O FOR A WHILE it seemed as if the nightmare was over, and we were jubilant over the results of the first few treatments. Adraenne came every week to give them. It required the mixing of two different chemicals to make the solution that she injected, a process too complicated for even Blake to have handled, and certainly not me.
    In addition, in order to maintain the proper blood count, Ruby had to receive blood and platelet transfusions at the local hospital, sometimes as often as twice a week. I would always go with her and sit beside her bed while the blood or the platelets would drip slowly into her arm. She would lie back comfortably and read a book or magazine, and I would read too. It would take several hours and a pleasant, smiling nurse would bring us both lunch, and we would chat as we ate. This was how we spent a good part of the months that were left to us, and I would