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I’m going to be a widow.
That word— widow —still catches me off guard. It seems like a word reserved for someone who has lived a long life—someone with kids, grandkids,
and decades of memories. Someone who is closer to the end of their journey, not the beginning.
Ben says something I don’t hear. His hair is growing back, highlighting green eyes laced with flecks of gold. I focus on his
thick black lashes, the cleft in his chin, the way his eyes crinkle when he’s looking only at me. It seems like yesterday
that we got married and had our whole lives ahead of us. What I wouldn’t give to go back.
“What did you say?”
“I said, I have a crazy idea.”
I fumble for a response. “Define crazy.” I nurse my beer and stab another tortilla chip into the guacamole before shoving
a fat glob into my mouth. It’s Taco Tuesday, but Ben’s plate sits untouched, his once sturdy body hollowed out and sucked
dry from doctors, chemo, endless treatments, and flimsy hope in sterile hospital rooms. Still, there’s a glimmer of mischief
in his eyes that tells me he’s up to something.
Though we’re in pajamas, in our condo, in the middle of the city, with some terrible reality show blaring in the background, it feels like what he’s about to say is important and I should listen. I cross my legs and feel a little lightheaded from the beer.
Ben places his warm, large hands around mine, his skin pale where it had once been browned from the sun. The chemo made him
sensitive to the sun (and a million other things), so even though he’s stopped treatment, he has to be careful. “I want you
to just listen first. Listen to what I have to say before you say no.”
I laugh. “How do you know I’m going to say no?”
He drags his thumb back and forth over the skin of my hand until it burns. “Because this idea, while totally brilliant , is also really, really crazy.”
“Out with it, Foster.” I feel a giggle bubbling up my throat in anticipation. This is the most normal conversation we’ve had
in weeks.
“Okay.” He takes a shaky breath and rubs a hand across his stubbly head. “I want you to find someone else... before I go.”
The giggle I’ve been suppressing bursts from my throat until I feel hysterical. He doesn’t respond, doesn’t laugh in return.
“No,” I say, squinting at him. “What is it, really?”
He levels me with a look, and I swallow.
“You can’t be serious.” I glance at my watch, a present from Ben for my last birthday. He had it engraved to say, You’re the only woman who makes me forget about time . The hysteria turns to outrage, and I shift, spilling tortilla chips onto our comfy fort of pillows and quilts. “What is
this really about?” I rack my brain. Has he met someone else? Is he tired of me? Is this some lame attempt at distracting me from what we both know is coming?
After our honeymoon, we took Ben to get tests, and then an oncologist delivered words you never want to hear. Ben has stage
four advanced pancreatic cancer... the type of cancer that often doesn’t present symptoms until it’s far too late. The
tumors were too big to remove and had already spread to his lymph nodes and liver. The chemo couldn’t shrink the masses enough
to even attempt surgery. So, despite all the treatments that made him feel sicker than the cancer, here we are, facing the
end.
“Harp.” He pats the stack of pillows on the floor, our lazy pallet for food because Ben gets too exhausted sitting upright
at the table and is more comfortable on the ground. Sometimes he falls asleep mid-bite or curls up in my lap, and I stroke
his short hair while he naps for hours. And then I cry, trying not to drip tears and snot onto his cheeks.
I move closer to him and cross my arms. “Explain.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I know you are an independent, capable woman who most certainly does not need a man, but I want to do this for you.” He looks deeply into my eyes until I want to scream. “I want you to be okay when
I’m gone.”
“Well, I’m not going to be okay,” I say. “You’re dying.”
That word is an affront. Ben is one of the most vibrant humans I know. The man you want beside you in a physical emergency.
The friend you ask to help move furniture. The guy who goes for a thirty-mile bike ride and then plays a pickup basketball
game with friends. How can he be dying?
“But you’re not, Harper. I want you to live your life.” He threads his fingers through mine and searches my eyes while tears
fill his own. “I want you to find love again.”
My nostrils flare, and I rip my hand free, gathering my long, auburn hair into a bun and securing it with a rubber band from my wrist. “Have we met? I don’t want anyone else but you. I barely like people. That’s why I waited almost thirty-five years to get married in the first place. You know this.”
“This is precisely my point. We both know you won’t ever find someone if I don’t find him for you.” He produces a composition
notebook he’s been hiding under one of the pillows and flips it open, stabbing the page. At the top, it says, “Master Plan:
Find Harper Someone to Love Before I Go.”
Tears spring to my eyes as I see the numbered points beneath it.
Get Harper to agree to my crazy idea.
Once she is done telling me I’m an idiot, explain crazy idea.
Come up with a time line for crazy idea.
Find dates for Harper.
Find dates for Harper who don’t make her want to gag.
Find dates for Harper who aren’t sociopaths, psychopaths, or just lame.
Find the one for Harper who can make her laugh and take care of her the way she has taken care of me.
Remind her that I will be watching from beyond the grave... so she better not love him too much.
“Ben...” Tears stream down my face faster than I can flick them away.
“Look, if the situation were reversed, you’d do the same for me,” he says. “Right?”
I bark out a laugh. “Absolutely not . I’d want you to love me and only me and be miserable for the rest of your long life.” I grin through my tears, because we
both know that isn’t true.
“Just think about it, okay? That’s all I ask.” He reaches for my hand again, and I let his fingers entwine with mine, fingers
that have held mine as our whole big, shiny plan for our lives has been decimated by the dreaded C word. These are the hands I held while saying vows, fingers I’ve kissed through chemo and doctors’ visits and making love.
I can’t tell him I’ll think about it, because there’s nothing to think about. I want to scream. I want to tell him this is
not okay. I want to explain that our love story, in my mind, is still unfolding, so no, Ben, I am most definitely not open to finding someone else.
As my outrage gains momentum, just to spite him, I vow, right here and now, never to love another man as long as I live.
Sensing I don’t want to talk anymore, he turns back to his plate of food and tentatively takes a bite. My heart aches, as
it so often does, in seeing his lack of appetite, not just for food but for life. That hunger used to define him, define us .
How can someone so excited by life suddenly be on the tail end of it? It doesn’t seem fair. I bite back my pain. No pity party
today. Instead, I tuck back into my tacos, though my appetite is gone.
“Three things,” Ben says softly now.
I lower my plate and look at him. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Too bad.”
“Fine.” I adjust to look at him. “Tacos, tacos, and more tacos.”
He laughs. “Fair enough.”
“You?” I ask.
“Tacos, of course.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “Being here with you. And meeting your new future boyfriend.” He nudges me with his shoulder.
In response, I smack him lightly on the arm.
“Careful,” he says. “I’m fragile.”
Though he’s joking, I feel like crying. “No, Ben,” I say, turning back to my food. “You’re not.”