Chapter Twenty-Four Will
Chapter Twenty-Four
Will
“Hey,” I say, hugging my mom the second I walk into my dad’s hospital room.
Dad rolls his eyes. “Such a waste of time and money. I’m missing work for this.”
Mom releases me and returns to his bedside, resting her hand on his. “You’re retired, dear.” She eyes me. “The tests on his heart came back fine. It might have just been anxiety.”
“What? I can’t hear you,” Dad grumbles.
I feel instant relief, even if Mom seems disappointed. She turns away and quickly wipes her eyes. Why is she crying? He’ll be fine.
“Where did that cute nurse go?” Dad asks.
Mom winces before grabbing her purse and exiting the room. I reach for her, but she pulls away.
“Where’s she going? Bed? She goes to bed so early. What time is it?” Dad asks. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Whatever is causing his mental decline hasn’t gotten better.
“Dad, it’s morning. She’s not going to bed. I think she needs some fresh air is all.” I sit on the chair beside his bed.
“I never cheated on her. I had many opportunities, but I never did.” He narrows his eyes, staring at the whiteboard on the wall below his TV. “Even when I had pennies in my shoes, I didn’t cheat on her. Will you tell her that?”
“Sure, Dad.”
“My daughter sent me cookies. A whole box of chocolate chip cookies.”
“Leah didn’t send them, I did.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I think Leah did.”
I open my mouth to argue, but shut it just as quickly. What’s the point?
He makes a circle with his fingers. “They were little ones. One bite. I ate the whole box.”
“Leah’s the best.” I nod slowly.
“All the contacts in my phone are out of order.” He looks around. “Where’s my phone?”
“I don’t know. Mom probably has it. I’m sure your contacts are still in alphabetical order.”
“Every time I call someone they are the only one I can ever call.”
“Maybe you’re going to recent calls on your phone instead of your contacts.”
He sighs, closing his eyes. “I don’t want to go back to jail.”
“You’ve been at a care facility, not jail.”
His eyes pop open. “I can’t go anywhere on my own! It’s jail!”
“Shh . . . calm down.” I rest my hand on his arm.
Again, he closes his eyes. “Just let me die.”
“I find any excuse not to go see him,” Mom confesses over lunch in the hospital cafeteria. “I’m a terrible wife.”
“He’s not himself. You’re not a terrible wife.” I squeeze ketchup onto my burger.
She stares at her salad.
“Eat,” I say. “You’re looking too thin.”
“I’m exercising.” She rolls her eyes.
“That’s great. But you’re not eating. Eat.”
She frowns, picking up her fork. “I don’t regret you or Leah, but I really should have married a younger man. I feel like I’m getting the short end of the stick with the ‘sickness and health’ part of our vows.”
“He’s agreed to raise your baby even though it’s not his.” I take a bite of my burger and smirk.
“Oh, be quiet.” She reluctantly laughs.
We focus on eating, content with letting the harsh reality of Dad’s situation hang over us like a rain cloud. But there is no umbrella to be had. No shelter in sight. The effects will be felt, and there is nothing we can do.
“It’s cancer,” Mom says.
I slowly set my napkin aside and clear my throat. “Excuse me?”
She lifts her teary-eyed gaze and swallows. “There’s a mass on his liver. We’ve known about it, but your father didn’t want to say anything. So we chose to wait.”
It takes a few seconds after she stops speaking for my brain to replay her words. Cancer?
“What do you mean ‘we’ chose? Dad thinks you’re pregnant. He’s not in his right mind to make choices like fighting for his life or giving up. So what you’re saying is you chose. And you didn’t say one fucking word to your adult children? What is wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?” She narrows her eyes.
I feel five years old again, taking my frustration a step too far. But this isn’t a dispute over another hour of TV before bed. It’s a human life. Eighty years is not an afterthought. There’s no room for making the wrong decision.
She picks at the other half of her salad I know she’s not going to eat. “They think it’s hepatocellular carcinoma. It’s spread to his bones. We can get a second opinion, but—”
“Then we should.”
Mom doesn’t look at me.
“Right?” I ask.
“How’s your roommate?”
I set my empty plate on the tray and wipe my mouth with the wadded napkin. “Don’t change the subject. You can’t drop this on me, then ask about my roommate.”
“William.” She sniffles. “I am barely hanging on. We’ll talk more about this later. Please, just give me something else.”
I rub my hands over my face and sigh. “She’s fine. And we’re not done talking about Dad. So be ready to discuss this later.”
“She?” Mom’s eyes widen, ignoring my comment about Dad.
“Yes. She’s a psychiatrist.”
“You’re living with a female doctor?” For the first time since I’ve arrived, there’s a hint of something in her expression that’s not doom and gloom.
“Jamie used to work for her. Her house is the one that burned down with the bird inside.”
“Oh. Yeah, I remember. Is she pretty?”
“I don’t know. She’s my roommate. It’s not my place to decide that.”
“William, it’s an opinion, not a decision. You’re not blind. Either you think she’s pretty or you don’t.”
“Where do you think we should take Dad for a second opinion?”
“Oh dear. You like her.”
I roll my eyes. “She’s fine. Easy on the eyes. Whatever. Why don’t you want Dad to get a second opinion?”
“Does she have a boyfriend?”
“Mom.” I frown.
She deflates like I’m sucking what little joy she has left in her soul.
“I’m not ready to let him go,” I whisper, threading my fingers through my hair, head bowed, elbows on the table. “You’ll go on and remarry. Leah has a family, a husband who’s a father. But I can’t replace him.”
“William, I don’t want to replace your father. I may never fall in love again. But I don’t want to watch him suffer for . . . what? A few extra months?”
“A few months?” My eyes widen as my heart hits the bottom of my stomach. “Is that how long he has?”
“Three to six months without treatment. A year with it.”
I stay in Somers until Dad is released from the hospital and returned to the skilled care facility two days later. My friends (and Everleigh) text me and try to call, but I’m not ready to talk about anything.
Thursday evening, after I return to Missoula, Everleigh comes in the back door with a bag of groceries. I glance up from my laptop at the kitchen table. I’ve been researching my dad’s cancer.
She eyes me as if I’m supposed to say the first word.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.” She sets the sack on the counter and drops her tote to the floor by the door along with her shoes.
I rehearsed this in my head so many times on the drive back to Missoula.
My dad has cancer. It’s spread to his bones. He has three to six months to live. He’s back at the care facility. Hospice could be called soon.
Everleigh washes her hands. “Fitz, Jamie, and Maren are worried about you. I told them everything moves at a snail’s pace in a hospital. Tests. Results. Diagnosis. Treatment plan. I said you probably weren’t responding because there was nothing to share yet.”
I close my computer and scoot back in my chair, hands laced behind my head.
She tosses the towel aside and leans against the counter. Everleigh is beautiful, gifted, kind, and probably a million other things I’ve been too angry and stubborn to see. But our timing is all wrong.
“But I think either something has already happened to your father, or he doesn’t have much time left,” she says with a sad smile.
I clear my throat. “Why do you think that?”
She lifts a shoulder. “Just an educated guess.”
I haven’t cried, and I’m not going to. He’s not dead. Why can’t she be annoying? Why didn’t she leave the kitchen a mess or run into the mailbox? I need to stay angry.
“I start my last shift tomorrow. Then I’m moving to Somers.”
She swallows.
If I’m not crying over my dying father, she can’t get emotional over my leaving.
“You can shrink me all you want. I’ll take Dr. Reichart right now. Just not . . .” I can’t even say her name, so I pinch my lower lip and slowly shake my head.
“I have the next three days off,” she says, standing straight, shoulders back, hands folded in front. “What can I do to help?”
I open my computer again. “It’s cancer,” I say without losing my shit. “He’s not treating it. They don’t want a second opinion. I’m not trying to save his life. I just want to understand it. To prepare for what’s to come. Can you help me understand it?”
She steps behind me, looking at the screen over my shoulder. I smell her floral tones and feel the warmth of her body.
“Of course I can help you understand it,” she says, resting her hand on my back.
In the next breath, her hand disappears, and she sits in the chair opposite me. “What kind of cancer?”
“Liver. It’s spread to his bones.”
She folds her hands on the table. “What do you want to know? What symptoms to expect? The progression? How they’ll treat the pain?”
I reach for my opposite shoulder, massaging the tension from it. This is an awful conversation. And I never thought I’d have it with Everleigh Reichart. “I want to know how I’ll know when he’s close to dying.”
“Do you want it sugarcoated?”
I shake my head.
“Okay. These are common progressions.”
As Everleigh lists complications including fractures, anemia, jaundice, hypercalcemia, heart attack, stroke, spinal cord compression, paralysis, organ failure .
. . it triggers a headache. I hold on to some things she says, such as cool, mottled skin, loss of appetite, extreme fatigue, breathing patterns, confusion, potential “rallies,” and I tuck them away in my memory so I’ll know when I see them, it could be close to the end.