| General Fiction posted October 16, 2025 | Chapters: |
...22 23 -24- 25... 
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A conversation with Cedric, and the grandmas meet
A chapter in the book Beating the Devil
Beating the Devil - Chapter 24
by Jim Wile
| Background A cancer researcher invents an early cancer detection system. |
Recap of Chapter 23: Julia accompanies Marie to her first visit with the oncologist, Dr. Renee Houlihan. She asks about the different options, including chemo and palliative care, and the doctor gives her the straight facts. Marie asks if she will be able to continue playing the violin, and it looks doubtful.
On the way home in the car, Julia and Marie talk about it, and Marie confesses she won’t have the stamina for continuing to play. Julia invites her to stay with the Kendricks since there doesn’t seem much point in returning to New York. Julia expresses the family’s love for her, and this puts her into a reverie about their past relationship and the 13-year estrangement they’d had. The chapter ends with Marie saying she’ll think about it.
Chapter 24
“Hello, Cedric. How are you?”
The call took him by surprise, especially the manner of the greeting. Outside of their lessons, she always called him Cecil, and he called her Ms. Schmidt. Lessons were to be taken seriously, though, and they used the correct names for those.
Not that they didn’t also have some fun at his lessons. They were the highlight of his week, in fact. She was tough but fair, sparing with her compliments such that when he received one, he knew he had earned it.
He often thought about the day, long ago, when she decided to take him on as her student. He had been half-joking about wanting to learn to play the violin, but when she offered to give him lessons at age 21—a rank beginner with little music experience except for singing in his church choir—he wondered why she would do that. He was a nobody, and she was an outstanding violinist and member of a highly elite orchestra. She had agreed to teach him with only one condition—that he take it seriously and practice.
“I’ll drop you like a hot potato,” she had said if he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain.
He asked her once why she’d been willing to teach him. She had given him a dismissive look and said, “Don’t you know?” but never said any more about it.
He thought he knew now; as unlikely as it seemed, they had become friends. He loved her for all her gruff, demanding exterior, and he thought the feeling was mutual.
When he heard that “Hello, Cedric. How are you?” he had a sudden feeling of dread, similar to how he’d felt at their parting two weeks ago when he’d dropped her off at the airport.
“I’m fine, Dr. Schmidt. How are you?”
There was a long pause before he heard her say in a strangled voice, “I’m afraid I can’t be your teacher anymore. I won’t be returning to New York.”
There was another long pause, and he knew to be silent and let her continue, although he was fairly certain of what she would say.
She must have gotten control of her emotions because the rest came out in a rush. “The cancer has come back, Cedric, and I’m afraid there’s nothing much that can be done about it. In fact, I’m not going to do anything about it except let it take its course. I’ll be living here with my family, who have generously offered to have me stay with them.”
“Oh, Dr. Schmidt. I am so sorry.”
She told him of the accident on the escalator and how that had led to the cancer diagnosis. They spoke for a long time, and she opened up to him about her fears of becoming a burden to her family and of her deep-seated feeling that her cancer was karma for being such an awful, self-centered person for most of her life. She spoke of her regret that it had taken so long to come to this realization and for all the lost years of a relationship with her daughter.
He mostly just listened because he didn’t know how to respond to a lot of it. He could hear the regret in her words and in her tone about how she had lived her life, but much of it seemed alien to him because it didn’t mirror his own experience with her.
The return of the cancer, although he knew it would be back one day, hurt more than he imagined. Damn! He had already lived through it once with her and seen the toll it had taken then. But his sympathy went deeper still when he learned of her feelings about herself that he’d never really been privy to. His love for her was strengthened even more by this conversation and her willingness to share these feelings. They truly were friends.
When at long last they said goodbye, he began making plans to visit. He didn’t tell her he would, but he wanted to see her at least one more time before the end. Next to his own family, Dr. Schmidt had become the most important person in his life, and he owed her a proper goodbye.
“Goodbye, Gramsy.”
“Goodbye, Sugar. You be good for Miss Julia now.”
“I will.” Samantha and Lindsay ran off with Earl at their heels.
“Miss Lettie, can you stay for a couple of minutes?” asked Julia, who had greeted them at the door. “I’d like you to meet my mother, Marie.”
“I be happy to meet yo momma, Julia. Samantha tole me she fell an’ broke her back. I hope she up for visitin’.”
“I think she’d love a little company.”
They went through to the Florida room, where Marie was sitting in a comfortable-looking recliner with her feet up, looking at a magazine.
Letitia Roberts or Lettie was Mal’s mother, who moved with the family when they left Charlotte to be closer to Cherryville and Brian’s house and lab. She cared for Samantha while Mal and his wife, Tanya, worked. She was a big woman who towered over both Julia and Marie. She had short gray hair and a friendly face. By contrast, Marie looked very small and frail down in her recliner.
Julia introduced them.
“Lindsay was certainly looking forward to playing with Sammy today,” said Marie.
“Yeah, them girls like two peas in a pod. Listen, I’m real sorry to hear about yo back. I think you in good hands here, though.”
“The best.”
“Lindsay tell me her grandmomma play da violin jus’ like her momma and she do too, and that you teach her momma to play. I think that’s a nice tradition. I hear Lindsay once, and that girl can play! You mus’ be a good teacher to teach Julia here. I know this girl can play!” she said, putting her arm around Julia’s shoulders. They all laughed.
“Perhaps one of my only talents in life,” replied Marie. “Thank you for saying it. I understand you’re living with Sammy and her family now in Shelby. A little different from Charlotte, right?”
“You could say that again. Julia say you from New York City. I never been, but I ‘magine this a whole lot different out here in the country.”
“It’s growing on me. I lived in North Carolina for a while when Julia was growing up, and I guess it’s now my home again.”
“Well, we glad to have you back, Marie. That Lindsay’s a sweet chile, an’ so’s Julia here,” she said, giving Julia a squeeze. “I bes’ be gettin’ home now. Been real nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Lettie.”
As Julia walked her to the door, Lettie asked her quietly, “How she doin’, Julia? She lookin’ kinda peaked.”
“She has cancer, Miss Lettie. She was in remission for seven years, but it’s back now.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, Julia. She gone be stayin’ with you?”
“Yes. She won’t be going back to New York.”
“Well, that’s real nice that y’all be takin’ care of her.”
“We’re pleased she chose to stay, and no one more than Earl. He is the greatest comfort to her. He even spends most nights with her. It’s uncanny.”
“Isn’t that nice? Lindsay tole me you trainin’ him to be a therapy dog. I guess he gettin’ some good practice right here.”
“It’s really quite something the way he’s taken to her. He seems to sense that she needs him.”
“Well, he soun’ like he gonna be a great therapy dog an’ help a lotta folk.”
She had no idea how prophetic those words would prove to be.
 Recognized |
Brian Kendrick: A 43-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 43-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 8-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 6-year-old daughter
Earl Kendrick: The Kendrick's chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 67 and a brilliant mathematician
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Tanya Roberts: Mal's wife
Samantha (Sammy) Roberts: Mal's 6-year-old daughter
Letitia Roberts (Lettie): Mal's mother
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician
Cedric (aka Cecil) Washington: Marie's premier violin student and friend
Maddy McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo McPhail: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Dr. Renee Houlihan: Marie's oncologist
Picture courtesy of GPT-Image-1
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