This Is Not How It Ends

by Rochelle B. Weinstein

  “I already know. It’s the head. That’s why he’s jaundiced.”

  His arms crossed around the file, and he reluctantly nodded.

  The disturbing news strangled my voice. “Surgery?”

  “Too close to the portal vein.”

  I could barely breathe. My throat hurt from holding back my rage. I had never felt more powerless in my life, my entire body clenched with fear. This can’t be happening looped around my brain until I felt woozy.

  You can’t catch cancer. You can’t catch cancer.

  My eyes canvassed the linoleum floor when I asked, “When are you going to tell him?”

  He took in a sharp breath. “Philip knows.”

  The queasiness slithered through me, and I gasped. From this revelation, from Josie’s fingers sewing me back together. “I’m not sure I understand. It was a concussion! How did it turn into this?”

  “There’s no concussion,” he said. “A bad cut we already stitched up, some bruising.”

  I homed in on his narrow face and felt my voice thunder from the far reaches of my throat. “All this research they’re doing, all the checks Philip writes in my mother’s name . . . it’s all bullshit. You’re not even close to a cure . . .”

  He was watching me, afraid to interrupt.

  “I had no idea when my mom was diagnosed that it was a death sentence. None. But I remember the pity. The statistics are bullshit. No one survives this cancer. No one. You’re lucky to survive a few months.”

  Tears sprang from my eyes, but I refused to give in to them. Dr. Leeman said it was understandable for me to be angry. “It’s unfortunate about your mother. I’m very sorry.”

  My eyes were darts, and they sent spears in his direction. “You’re not sorry. If you really cared, if you were truly sorry, you’d fix this. Fix Philip.”

  Dr. Leeman didn’t quite know how to respond to me.

  “Look at the strides they’ve made with breast cancer . . . colon cancer . . . early prevention . . . detection . . . Why can’t they fix this?”

  I’d already decided I would never articulate the words pancreatic cancer again. To give the cruel disease my voice would be giving it something else of mine I’ll never get back. The monster had already taken enough.

  Josie was silent. She didn’t know what to say either. I didn’t care that she watched me, judged me, because I was not being very nice. By now, I was yelling at Dr. Leeman, and a vein in his temple was pulsing up and down. I wanted to break him, but he wouldn’t budge. Josie slathered a bandage across my new stitches, and I didn’t even thank her or look at the papers she had dropped in my lap to sign.

  She scurried away, and Dr. Leeman recommended I talk to someone.

  “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me there’s been a breakthrough. Tell me there’s a way to screen for it before it’s too late.” I stopped and wiped my nose. The pain behind my eyes was about to burst. “Please, Dr. Leeman, tell me Philip’s not going to die. I beg you. Not him. Not yet. Not us. He hasn’t had forever yet. How can you take away his forever?”

  By now, he could barely look at me. He was smoothing out his pants and likely regretting the fancy medical school with the specialty in oncology.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Myers.”

  Our eyes met, and if my stare were a weapon, he’d be dead.

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  CHAPTER 31

  September 2018

  Thirty-two is a supple number, an age that means you’ve lived, while young enough to enjoy the lessons that come with more time. At this sturdy age, my highlight reel consisted of watching two people I loved be afflicted with the deadliest of cancers. Like that, my history was mired in grief and my future spotted with the hollowness of life cut too short.

  Like most patients on the precipice of death, denial was one of the first emotions to reveal itself. I listened to Philip, who was cloaked in a veil of obvious confusion, wondering if he fully understood.

  “They told me it was treatable . . . the odds were in my favor . . . I was supposed to be one of the lucky ones.” He spoke in garbled sentences, and I assumed it was the drugs. Meghan glanced in my direction. She looked tired, like she’d been crying for days.

  “He’s not making any sense.”

  “I’m bloody fine,” he yelled. “They’re wrong. Stupid doctors.”

  “They’re not wrong,” I said. “I wish they were.”

  Philip trained his eyes on mine, and his lucidity returned. He grabbed my hand, keenly aware of what this diagnosis meant to me.

  “I never wanted you to go through this again,” he said through a whisper, tears sliding down his bruised cheek.

  Meghan started to cry, and when it was too much for her, she quietly left us alone.

  The realization slammed into me, flattening my will and sending the room for a spin. Hours ago, I was ready to let Philip go. The breakup was necessary and painful. But now, life without him was unimaginable. None of this made sense, and I scooted him over in the bed to be closer. I rested my head on him and thought of all the nights we’d lain together. The nights those breaths cradled me in sleep. You never thought the sounds would change, that they’d die down, eventually disappear.

  Dr. Leeman had explained it in clinical terms. Cold, empty words that meant nothing when the outcome was death. We went over options and treatment plans, and Philip slid back into stubborn denial. “No treatment. I’m done. I want to die in peace.”

  “Stop, Philip, you’re being ridiculous. There are ways to prolong—”

  “I saw what this cancer did to your mother, Charley. I won’t go through it. And I won’t put you through it either.”

  Compassion stung when it punctuated betrayal. The guilt was narrowing in, making it hard to think clearly.

  Meghan returned, and I quickly learned that she was a puddle when it came to emotional crises. “Don’t be a martyr, Philip. This pigheadedness doesn’t suit you.”

  “I’ve made my decision,” he said.

  She bent over and got in his face. “You can’t do that, Philip. It’s not an option.”

  “Meghan, please . . . this is between Charley and me.”

  She backed down, dropping into a nearby chair.

  His words floated above my head when he spoke again. “Charley, I intended to give you many things in this life. Someone to love you, someone to cherish that feistiness of yours, that innocence in your heart. I also chose to protect you from so many things. From pain, from loss, from having your heart broken. I’ll keep some of those promises to you. But not all.”

  I sat up and told him he was being foolish. “Forgoing treatment is choosing to die, Philip! How is that not breaking my heart?”

  “Listen to her, Philip,” Meghan agreed, blowing her nose into a tissue.

  He laughed. “Charley, I don’t have time. None of us have time. We only have moments. Strung on a string that can break at any minute.”

  “You’re being cruel.”

  “What’s the point, Charley?” He was broken, and his cracked lips were telling me lies. “The string’s bound to break. They all do.”

  Our faces were so close I could make out every line, every memory. “You don’t get to give up! Not on you. Not on me. Not on us.”

  He pulled me back down and rubbed my shoulders until they hurt. “That’s just it, Charley. It’s out of my hands.” And in typical Philip style, he joked about it. “At least Hong Kong’s off the table.”

  I didn’t laugh, and we lay there in silence, collecting our thoughts. Shock pooled around me, and I was still thinking I might wake up from this dream with a different ending. I could see it. My fingers reached toward it, flapping in the imaginary breeze. And then it disappeared.

  “Where’s your ring?” he asked, noticing my bare finger.

  I covered my hand and told him I left the Keys in such a rush that I’d forgotten to put it on after my shower. It reminded me that Ben’s DNA was about to collide with his. Could he smell his best friend in my hair?
What kind of person was I?

  “Tell Ben to put it away . . . Sunny would love nothing more than to devour it and deposit it in a pile of his shit.”

  “The ring is the furthest thing from my mind,” I said, steering us back to his stubbornness. “Philip, you can’t refuse treatment. You of all people! I’d think you’d want to be the one to tell cancer who’s boss.”

  He pressed against me. “The decision’s made, Charley. I told you how I feel about this.”

  Meghan was openly crying, her blonde hair pulled back in a long ponytail. Red blotches covered her cheeks. She didn’t even try to hide her sobs.

  Philip and I sat in an exaggerated silence, and I knew the denial would come to an end when we returned to Islamorada. The shock would wear off, and we’d be forced to face the awful truth. My almost husband was going to die. And there was nothing I could do to save him.

  Elise reserved a room for me at the Fontainebleau because there was no way of knowing how long Philip would be in the hospital. The memories crept up on me as I stepped through the lobby alone, and when I slammed the door to my room, I hardly made it to the bed before bursting into tears. Seeing Philip in that hospital bed, stripped of life, made it impossible for me to reconcile with what I’d done. Betrayal collided with an unbearable sadness. Philip was going to die, and I was going to have to watch him slip away as I’d once done my mother. No amount of praying would bring him back or erase the betrayal.

  Memories were everywhere I looked. In the sheets, in the view outside my window, in a vault I kept inside my heart. Mom’s diagnosis was one I’d held tightly guarded, afraid to feel the feelings, but now the film was playing, and I couldn’t break away. I couldn’t press “Pause.” I couldn’t hit “Delete.” Philip and I leaving Cabo in that tiny plane. Saint Luke’s Hospital. Mom being rolled into an ultrasound, scratching at her skin like a rabid puppy. Dr. Deutch and his outdated feathered hair and rounded glasses. It was no wonder I had no recollection of our ever being on a date, but he remembered me, and that kind of memory brought comfort. I asked, “Could it be the cholesterol meds? Would they make her skin turn yellow?”

  “Your mother’s liver enzymes are elevated,” he had said. “Could be the cholesterol medicine, or not.” The indifference shook me. Philip had sensed my unease and stepped in. “Can you be frank with us, doctor? What are we dealing with?”

  Dr. Deutch avoided my eyes. “We’ll know more after the ultrasound. Right now we can only speculate.”

  “Is my mom going to die?”

  This got him to look at me. “I can’t answer that just yet.”

  If you’ve ever wondered how quickly a bad reaction to cholesterol medicine could turn into a burial, just sit in a hospital while worst-case scenarios played in your mind. There was no finer line than that between life and death. And imagination was a powerful tool when it held your mother’s life in its hands.

  Philip wriggled out of his jacket and placed it around my cold shoulders. He had tried to get me to eat, but I couldn’t get food down. The fear had planted itself in my gut. There’d been no doubt in my mind there was something very wrong with my mother. I’d felt it in my bones, how my body became infected by her plight.

  Dr. Deutch had come out and taken a seat across from us.

  “Mom’s ultrasound showed a dilated bile duct, which means there’s likely an obstruction. A CT scan . . .”

  I didn’t like the way he referred to her as Mom—as though he knew her, knew anything about her. “It’s not her meds?”

  Philip had drawn me closer. “Hold on, Charley. Let the man finish.”

  “A CT scan will tell us a lot more.” I must have looked confused, because he said, “It’s a sophisticated X-ray. We get a much closer look at the soft tissue . . .”

  “What are you looking for?” But I’d already known the answer to the question. They were looking for something bad. A tumor. A physical obstruction to explain why my mother’s bile duct had been dilated. I was no medical doctor, but this piece of the puzzle had been too easy to fit.

  The buzzing phone startled me from the memory. It was Ben, and I hit “Ignore.” He texted. How’s Philip?

  My fingers trembled, and I could barely type the answer.

  He’s fine.

  You?

  Tired.

  I’m sorry about earlier. Can we talk?

  My head fell back on the pillow. I hated Ben, but I needed him, too.

  Sure.

  The phone rang, and I answered without saying a word. Our silence was altogether comforting and painful.

  His voice in my ear confused me. “How is he?”

  It would’ve been so easy to tell him instead of holding the aching lump in my throat any longer. Ben would’ve known how to fix it. He would’ve taken the pain away. But saying it aloud made it real.

  “We’ll be home in a few days. They want to keep him for observation. It was a nasty fall.”

  “I feel terrible, Charley.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I told Claudia we need a break. I can’t be with her after last night.” I blocked out his words. I didn’t need to be reminded of our bodies wrapped around each other.

  “You’re going to come home, Charley. Philip’s going to heal. And then he’s going to leave again . . . and you’re going to keep wanting things that he can’t give you . . .”

  A tear slipped down my cheek and spotted the white sheet.

  “Charley?”

  “What, Ben?”

  “Tell me what’s going on in your head.”

  Had he asked me that hours ago, I would have curled around him and let my body give him the answer. I’d have told him I wanted to engrave his skin into memory, the way it felt against mine. I’d have told him I wanted to explore all the secret places he hadn’t shown me, that I wanted more of him, and I didn’t know how to quash it.

  I ran my fingers through my hair. It was greasy and limp, and I longed for a hot shower. “I can’t,” I said. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know the severity of Philip’s condition.

  “Did you think I’d sleep with you one time and be satisfied? Did you think it would be enough for me?”

  I was crying, but he had no idea. And his words made me cry harder than before because I knew it was more than a nasty fall, and Ben wasn’t being entirely heartless and cruel for bringing this up.

  My response was dull and empty. “We made a mistake. It was all a mistake.”

  His quiet filled the phone. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do.”

  “You’re scared. It’s understandable, but Philip’s going to be all right. We can sort this out. We’ll tell him the truth.”

  I was shaking my head against the pillow, picturing Ben miles away.

  “I need you, Charley. I won’t give up.” I knew of his quiet suffering. How he punished himself for not jumping after her, for not being quick enough. “You’ve gotta tell me what you want.”

  “I don’t know anymore.” I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow.

  Ben was in my ear. “I’ll love you forever, Charley, and every minute in between. You feel it. It’s real. This. You and me.”

  I finally broke down. “Ben, Philip’s dying.”

  He was silent, my words sinking in. “What did you just say?”

  “Philip’s going to come home, but you’re wrong about his leaving. He’s never leaving again. He can’t leave. Because he’s dying, Ben. Philip is dying.”

  CHAPTER 32

  September 2018

  Hot, streaming water eased the tension knotting my body, but did nothing for the spiraling hopelessness. Philip was going to die. Once upon a time, Philip was supposed to be my husband. Philip and I were supposed to spend our lives together, to grow old until eternity. I watched the water swirl around the drain, taking the illusion of Ben with it. Ben touching my body. Ben loving me. Ben ruining me for anyone else. To say that everything had changed would be a gross understatement. Leaving Philip was no
longer an option.

  My eyes closed, and my neck stretched back, allowing the warm water to slide down my face, erasing my tears and our sins. There was nothing left for us to say. Ben dropped the question of what I wanted because what I wanted, or what he wanted, really didn’t make a bit of difference anymore. We were Philip’s family. And we would put aside our feelings to mend what we couldn’t fix. And we would try. For Philip, we would set aside our feelings and try.

  When we’d hung up, the distress in his voice was unmistakable. There was so much more he’d wanted to say. I could hear it, though he held it inside. I’d wanted to tell him what that night meant to me, but I couldn’t. And I’d already known what it meant to him, which made having to hang up that much harder.

  Too exhausted to dry my hair, I let the humid Miami air turn it into big, bouncy curls. I packed for the hospital and dressed in jeans and a light sweater. Philip didn’t want me spending the night in an uncomfortable cot beside his bed. “There’s no sense in the two of us being miserable.” But I’d refused him, and I returned to his room as promised.

  Meghan was there by his bedside, holding his thin fingers. “Without him, I’m an orphan,” she solemnly stated.

  I placed an arm around her shoulder, and she leaned into me. I’d been an orphan for years and was about to lose another anchor. This notion clung to me as my father’s reappearance took on new meaning. I reminded Meghan she had me and Myka and her work, though I knew nothing ever replaced the people we’d lost. I urged her to go to the hotel and get some rest. She hugged me, and it filled me with sadness to be connected in this battle.

  “You’re so strong, Charley,” she said before slipping out of the room.

  I didn’t feel strong. I felt angry and broken.

  Philip was asleep, and I kissed his forehead. A nurse changed his IV. It was Josie, the one who’d stitched me up. “I showered with the bandage,” I told her. “Did I screw everything up?” She checked underneath, eyeing me with newfound compassion. “It’s fine. Next time cover it in plastic.”

  The battered arm was the least of my worries. She explained that there was inflammation in Philip’s belly and they were pumping him with high dosages of meds to control the pain. I spent time on his face, remembering the morning he’d left town. It felt like months ago. The wrinkles on his skin were drawn and pronounced. His cheeks sagged; he appeared older than his age, and he’d hate it.