We'll Get Through This

Part 4

Maya made her way to City Hall where the SFD fire chief's office was. She went up to the floor where his office was, not really looking forward to the conversation she was about to have.

"Chief Bishop-Deluca," the secretary said, smiling at her as she walked up, "Chief Rodriguez is just working on paperwork. He said to send you in when you got here."

"Thanks Lisa," Maya said, smiling as much as she could as she walked back to the chief's office.

She stopped outside the door, taking a deep breath before knocking.

"Come in," Chief Rodriguez called, Maya opening the door, "Chief Bishop-Deluca. Nice to see you. Have a seat."

"Thank you Chief," Maya said, biting her lip as she sat down.

"What's going on Bishop?" the chief asked, a name that many people in the department still used when referring to her without her title, "You said in your email that you needed to see me urgently. Is everything ok in your battalion?"

"Yeah," Maya said, "My battalion is fine. They are all doing great, actually. I have done inspections on 23 and 70 this week and they were both excellent. But, um, I have something more personal I need to talk to you about."

"Go ahead," the chief said, nodding.

"Um...," Maya tried to start, "Sorry. I haven't told anyone about this and it's a lot harder than I thought it was going to be."

"Is this related to why you canceled the inspection at 88 yesterday?" the chief asked, grabbing a box of tissues off his shelf, putting them within Maya's reach, seeing the tears in her eyes.

"Yeah," Maya nodded, taking a deep breath, "Um, I was getting ready to come in and do the inspection yesterday when I got a call from Carina. She had gotten back some results from a routine test and um...the results weren't normal so I spent yesterday at the hospital while she had tests run to try to sort things out and we found out yesterday that..."

Maya tried very hard to get the words out, but instead started crying, the chief coming around his desk, sitting down next to Maya.

"Take your time Maya," he said gently.

This was something that Maya truly appreciated about her boss. He didn't think emotions made people weak and he put a lot of value on family. Maya took a minute to compose herself before wiping her eyes.

"Sorry," she said, taking a deep breath, "I knew this was going to be hard, but I didn't think it was going to be this hard. Yesterday, after some tests, Carina was diagnosed with stage 1 cervical cancer."

Actually, saying those words out loud caused Maya to break down again, the chief placing a comforting hand on her back.

"Maya, whatever you need, the entire department is behind you," Chief Rodriguez said, "You and Carina and the girls."

"Thank you sir," Maya said quietly, looking at him as she wiped the tears from her cheeks, "I don't totally know what is going to happen, but Carina is having surgery next week, on the 15th, and I was hoping to take some time off to be with her. The day of the surgery for sure and then I think she will be in the hospital for two or three days so I could probably work then, but then I need to be home to help her for a few days. And then she has to recover from that for 6 weeks and then she has 8 weeks of radiation which I don't even know exactly what that entails, but I will know more soon. We have a meeting with her doctors in two days to talk more about all of this. They seem very optimistic that once all of this is done, that Carina will be fine, though."

"Bishop, take the whole week off, starting on the 14th," the chief said, "Spend time with your family. Make sure Carina is ok. Take care of those adorable girls of yours. You have plenty of vacation time."