Chapter 32
Susanne
Nothing tasted right anymore, not even the ginger drinks Tavish made her with such care. Susanne sipped this one nonetheless, unwilling to hurt his feelings.
“You’re in pain.” He tucked another pillow behind her. “How bad is it?”
Sighing, she put the drink on the bedside table. “It feels as if my spine is crumbling inside me.” She hadn’t been to the oncologist again, already knew what he was going to tell her—the cancer had spread, likely to her bones. “Be a sweetheart and open up the curtains a bit more.”
Tavish moved to do as she’d requested, Singapore a spread of glittering buildings and water on the other side. “You should see Dr. Chua,” he said when he turned back to face her. “This is moving too fast. He said you’d have longer.”
Oh, but he was having a hard time handling her mortality. “It’s too late now, Tavish,” she said gently, and patted the spot beside her on the bed. “I can feel the disease eating at me in greedy bites.”
He came, picked up the drink. “Have a little more,” he coaxed. “You’re losing so much weight—I tried to bulk this up with protein powder and honey.”
Susanne took another sip to please him but couldn’t stomach the taste. Nudging it away, she said, “I’d have had maybe a twenty-five percent chance of beating this if I’d started aggressive treatment straightaway, but I chose another path, and unfortunately, I gambled wrong.”
It wasn’t that she hadn’t had some good time after the diagnosis, just that the time had been too short, the end of her life a sharp and jagged descent rather than a gradual slope. Now the only thing left to discuss was how she would spend her final days.
In pain, slowly losing control of God only knew what function.
Or…“Tavish, my sweet boy, I need you to do something for me.”