Chapter 5 #2
The phone screen lit up in the elevator, and the notifications stacked the second the screen came alive. Twelve missed calls, mostly Cade and Mom, one unknown, and one from my friend Theo.
A text from Cade, one minute old.
Cade
Imaging back. Get here.
A text from Mom underneath.
Mom
Please come.
I stood in the elevator, and the orchestra in my head went quiet.
I didn't go to the bar for my car. Instead, I got into a cab and went straight to the hospital.
The room was at the end of the corridor.
I stopped at the doorframe.
Dad was sitting up eyes closed—hair flat where he had been on the pillow.
Mom was in the chair beside the bed, both her hands wrapped around one of his.
Cade stood by the window with his arms folded.
Suzanne was next to Cade, her hand at the small of his back.
And by the wall opposite the window, in a black coat that hadn't been here last night, was Theo.
He saw me first, crossed the room, and pulled me into him hard, one hand on the back of my neck.
"Beau."
I gripped his shoulder. "Theo."
He held me there for a beat after, looking at my face.
"When did you fly in?" I asked.
His hand stayed on my shoulder. "Last night. Couldn't get you on the phone."
I swallowed. "Yeah. I—yeah."
I had no explanation. He didn't ask.
Cade turned from the window and gripped my shoulder hard and didn't speak. Suzanne squeezed my arm. Mom looked up—eyes red, makeup from last night still ghosted at her lashes. She let go of one of Dad's hands, pulled my face down, and kissed my temple. Her hands were cold, and her mouth was warm.
"My boy. We were worried about you."
I pressed my forehead to hers for one beat. "Hey, Mom. I'm alright. Sorry for disappearing suddenly yesterday."
I didn't go to the bed. I stayed on the linoleum at the doorframe, and the bed was eight feet away.
Dad raised a hand off the bed. "Beau."
I couldn't move. Only nodded.
The doctor came around the corner behind me. She looked tired, glasses pushed up into her hair, clipboard against her chest. Two nurses were with her. She nodded at me as she came past.
"Mr. Cross, we have the imaging."
I moved out of her way. She entered the room. I stayed at the doorframe.
She introduced herself to Theo, the new face and skipped the rest. Then she turned to my father.
"Mr. Cross, the mass on the right frontal lobe is a high-grade glioma. The biopsy confirmed glioblastoma."
Hearing it from the doctor again made it hard to breathe for a second.
Mom went very still. Cade didn't move. Dad looked at the doctor with the face he used at the firm when somebody was telling him bad news about a quarter, a face already moving past the news to what he was going to do about it.
"How long?" he asked.
Mom's hand went to her mouth. "Henry."
The doctor looked at her clipboard, not because she needed to read it. "With aggressive treatment—radiation, chemotherapy, possibly clinical trial enrollment—twelve to fifteen months on average. Some patients do better. Some—"
Dad cut her off. "Without."
"Mr. Cross—”
"Without."
"Three to six months."
The room stayed exactly as quiet as it had been.
I stood at the doorframe, and my shoulder pressed into the wood.
I needed something to distract myself from reality. Anything. Anyone
The image came up sideways—a kitchen counter, wet hair clipped at the nape of a neck, the space between her mouth and mine that had been, for one full second, available. Then the picture frame on the wall was hanging straight.
I didn't know why my brain had gone there, but I was grateful it had, so I held it.
Dad's voice came across the room. "Beau."
I walked in, crossed the room, and went to the bed. Mom moved her hand. I took my father's. His skin was warm. The skin on the back of his hand was thinner than it had been a year ago.
I sat on the edge of the bed. "It's going to be okay, Dad."
He looked at me, steady. He brought his other hand up, rested it on top of mine, and patted twice. He patted just like that the first time I'd come home from school crying about something I wouldn't now remember.
"Yes, son."
Mom reached up, put her hand on the back of my head, and ran her fingers through my hair slowly. She had been making the same gesture since I was four.
"Beau." Dad called me close and spoke in a hushed tone. .
"Yeah, Dad."
He squeezed my hand and whispered, "Bring me the good whiskey from the house tomorrow."
The doctor opened her mouth. He waved at her without looking. "If I'm dying, Doctor, I'm not dying sober… Beau."
"Yeah."
"The Macallan. It’s the one behind the cookbook."
"Yeah."
He lowered his voice. "Don't tell your mother."
Mom made a sound that was half laugh, half sob, and pressed her face into the bed beside his hip. Her shoulders shook. Dad ran his free hand through her hair. Two hands in two heads of hair, mirrored across the bed.
"Vivvie. Behind the cookbook."
She lifted her head, eyes wet. "I've known about that bottle for fifteen years, Henry."
Dad let out a single dry laugh. "Damn it."
She kissed his hand.
Cade hadn't moved from the window.
I stood up. "I'm going to get coffee. Anyone want coffee?"
Theo started to say yes. He looked at my face and stopped. "I'll come with you."
"No."
It came out faster than I'd meant. I softened my voice. "No, I—let me just. Let me just go. I'll be back."
He nodded.
I walked out and went down the corridor, past the nurses' station, the visitors' waiting room, and the elevators without looking at them. At the end of the hall, I found the exit stairs and pushed through them.
The stairwell was concrete, cold, and echoing. I sat down on the second step from the top, with my back against the cinderblock wall, my elbows on my knees, and my hands hanging.
I cried.
It came up all at once. There was no decision to it. My shoulders went forward, and a sound came out of me I didn't recognize. I put both hands over my face. My breath came in ugly pulls. My back shook.
The stairwell was empty, but it wouldn't be empty for long because anyone could come through the door any second and find me.
I cried anyway—until the shaking got smaller, until the wet pulls evened out into shallow, regular ones, until my hands and face were wet, and the cinderblock against my back was the only thing holding me up.
I cried until I was empty.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told myself and let out a breath.
The lie was still the same.