Secret, The by Beverly Lewis Read Free Book Online

the end she’d wished there had been time to pursue an alternative treatment method. But Mom didn’t have the luxury of time. And she had numerous symptoms, Heather thought, wanting to quell the memories.
    Still holding Moe, she got online and found a bunch of emails from friends. The only one she really cared about was from her fiancé, who was still frustrated about having been sent to Iraq. Looking on the bright side of things, though, today Devon had some good news. His tour of duty would be completed by Thanksgiving!
    She hadn’t forgotten the night six months ago when he’d made the upsetting announcement about his deployment. Back in his college days, he had thought it a good idea to join the National Guard and had assumed he’d only be gone on some weekends. But when his unit was called up and he was shipped off to Iraq via Texas, she’d inwardly recoiled, not wanting him to know how frightened she was.
    Now she kissed Moe’s furry head and decided not to tell Devon about her recent trips to the doctor. In fact, the more she considered it, the less she wanted to tell anyone. Especially not Dad.
    He was still struggling over his grief—her depressing news would surely send him spiraling back down into a black tunnel of despair. She must spare her father that if possible.
    Getting up, she went to pour some apple juice from the fridge and noticed a picture of the three of them, a magnet framing her parents and herself on the occasion of her college graduation. The grand brick buildings of William and Mary created an idyllic collegiate backdrop. The second-oldest school in the nation, it counted Thomas Jefferson among its distinguished graduates.
    She flashed through her memories of her first year. She’d been so wet behind the ears and unsure of herself, looking back made her cringe at times.
    “You never know what you’ll accomplish if you don’t take the first step.” That was her dad’s mantra, and a good one to live by, too. Heather had succeeded as she lived out her academic dream at the challenging college. How she’d loved the feel of the old campus and the engaging professors—so much so she sometimes fantasized about becoming a perpetual student, maybe working toward her doctorate.
    But then her mother had gotten sick . . . really sick. Heather had deferred her admission to the master’s program and managed to get out of her apartment lease and move home, driving to and from work near Williamsburg. Based on the oncologist’s prognosis, she’d had high hopes for her mother’s recovery. All three of them had.
    Even now, reflecting on the past, a plan began to churn in her head. The idea was quite appealing, actually. Why couldn’t she simply drop out of her world for a while? With Devon serving overseas, who else would really notice?
    Well, there was Dad, of course. He might notice if she disappeared, even though he was always preoccupied with work now that Mom was no longer around. He and Heather rarely bumped into each other at the house, which was just the way she liked it.
    Frankly, her biggest obstacle to running away from it all was the timing. She was so close to the end of her final semester—just another week away. It would be smart to finish her work first, to keep her credits.
    I’m fine, she reminded herself. They just got my lab results mixed up.
    Second-guessing was her forte. What if someone else had gotten her report by mistake? She’d read about the frequency of misdiagnoses enough to know she wasn’t borrowing trouble, yet . . .
    Me and my overactive imagination. Most likely, they’d only misinterpreted her lab results . . . the other tests, too.
    But what if they hadn’t?
    I have plenty of time to sort this out, she decided. Besides, from what she’d observed with Mom, if dying prematurely was absolutely in the cards, you couldn’t argue with fate anyway. When your number was up, it was up.
    Setting Moe down, she closed her laptop and headed outside to the two-tiered