"Thank you Jesus," she quietly whispered as she went back to what she was doing.
* * * * * * * *
It felt like a heavy weight was crushing against his chest. It felt like someone had sucker punched him in the gut. Jacob couldn't breathe; it felt like a heart attack. He couldn't believe what he was hearing so he asked her to: "Say it again?" Jacob felt his legs giving out from under his weight. This was a nightmare. His wife's words were all lies- they couldn't be true. He hit the sofa with a thud at the realization of what she was saying. He blinked allowing her words to sink into his mind so that he could make sense of what she was saying.
"Say it again Louise. Could you please repeat yourself?" He whispered to himself still in shock and feeling numb at her revelation. Louise sat down beside her husband and took his hands into her own.
"Jacob don't be like this. You can't go falling apart. If you fall apart who's going to be here for the children? Markus is beginning his third year, while Dinah is going to start next year."
"We can get a second opinion." He asserted still unwilling to accept her words.
Louise quietly shook her head no, "Already done that. Had two biopsies also; with the same results." She stopped short of saying that it was hopeless as she swallowed against the painful lump in her throat. She blinked away the tears. She couldn't fall apart right now. She had to be strong for Jacob's sake.
"Louise…" He whispered against her hair as he tucked her into his warm embrace. His act of love almost unraveled her; she trembled in his arms willing herself not to cry out.
"Should we tell them?" He asked worried for his children. "We don't want to alarm them, do we?" He asked already afraid that the news would devastate them.
"Why don't we just wait and see how things come out. The doctor told me it's only in stage two and it doesn't appear to have metastasized. However he couldn't be certain until after going in." She told him regarding her diagnosis of breast carcinoma. She fought back the tears trying to be calm. She knew that her husband was probably grieving more than she. He loved her more and she knew that he would be greatly troubled by her news. She had tried to stall it off for as long as she could, however she couldn't see any way around it considering she was going in for a mastectomy the following week.