Love Letter Duet: The Encore Edition

by Callie Anderson

  “She’s not dating. End of story,” I reminded her.

  Emilia giggled again, but her laughter was interrupted when Suzy, the nurse who injected the radioactive tracer, tapped on the door.

  “You two seem to be having a lot of fun in here,” Suzy said. She wore colorful flower–print scrubs, and her black hair was pulled back into a low ponytail.

  “Weston refuses to let our daughter date until she’s thirty.” Emilia gave Suzy a kind smile and then looked over at me.

  “Oh, if she resembles you two, you are both in for some fun times fighting off the boys.” Suzy brushed her hand toward me and winked. She helped Emilia off the table and then turned to me. “It will take about an hour. You can wait in the waiting room or in here if you’d like. Either way, as soon as she’s done I’ll come get you.”

  I stood and walked over to Emilia. Kissing the top of her head, I whispered, “I’ll be outside. I love you, my yellow gel.”

  Her brown eyes peered up into mine. “I love you, too.” Her words were no louder than a whisper.

  “Are you ready?” Suzy asked, holding Emilia’s elbow. I held the door for them as Suzy walked Emilia out of the examination room.

  I turned to the left, exiting out into the waiting room, and then I continued outside. It had been a long time since I gave Jeremy an update.

  I wasn’t a smoker. The urge to bring paper and burning tobacco to my lips didn’t appeal to me, and I never understood how that could relax you, but as I paced outside Dr. Marino’s office, I wanted a cigarette. I wanted something to calm my rapid heartbeat.

  I scrolled through my contacts until I found Jeremy’s name. Hitting the send button, I brought the phone to my ear.

  “Hello?” Jeremy answered after a few rings.

  “Hey.” I cleared my throat. “It’s Weston.

  “Is she okay?” he asked. There was no point in dragging out the conversation.

  Inhaling all the oxygen my lungs could take, I closed my eyes and exhaled. Jeremy didn’t know about the ovarian cancer. “She’s getting a PET scan at the moment. About two weeks ago, I found her unconscious on the bathroom floor.”

  “Fuck.”

  “She has ovarian cancer. The doctors say she has a sixty–five percent chance of survival. They’re giving her new chemo, which makes her very ill, but she’s strong.”

  “Why are they doing the scan now?” His voice was low on the other side of the phone.

  “They want to see if the chemo is working. Apparently, ovarian cancer is very hard to detect because you only feel the symptoms after it’s already there. I guess with the uterine cancer they caught it early so it wasn’t a difficult situation, but this one they’re not sure of because of how fast it’s grown.”

  “Fuck!” I heard Jeremy slam his hand down. “And Lyra? How is she?”

  “She knows her mom’s sick, but she doesn’t know the extent of her illness. Leslie has taken some time off of work to help out around the house, and my mom’s here two weeks a month. Everybody is trying to keep Lyra’s life as normal as possible.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “If you have a spare lifeline hanging around, now is the time to use it.”

  “Can you call me after the scan and let me know what the doctors have to say?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  My conversation with Jeremy lasted five minutes. I still had fifty–three minutes to go before Emilia would return from her scan. Fifty–three minutes. Three thousand, one hundred and eighty seconds.

  I sat on the bench near the entrance, my head hung low, my gaze focused on the little rocks that had been mixed with the cement when they put in the sidewalk. Each minute was torturous. My feet tapped on the ground. My hands slapped my knees in rhythm to my feet, and I inhaled and exhaled heavily every few seconds until I began to feel lightheaded.

  It was the longest hour of my life.

  When there were only ten minutes left on the clock, I returned inside. I made it halfway through the waiting room when Suzy opened the door and called for me from the scan room to go back to the examination room. My heartbeat accelerated.

  This was the moment of truth.

  The scan would tell us if the chemo was working. It would tell us that we were one step closer to beating this terrible fucking disease.

  Emilia returned to the exam room and I rushed to her side. Her hands rested on my cheeks as I brought my lips to hers.

  “It was just a scan.” She looked up at me and smiled a full, beautiful white smile. It was one of the many reasons I’d fallen in love with her.

  “I know, but I missed you.” I leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose.

  “You two are so stinking cute,” Suzy said while she wrote down a few notes on Emilia’s chart. “Emily, you get dressed and then you can go over to Dr. Marino’s office so he can discuss the scans with you.”

  I examined Dr. Marino’s office a little closer than the last time I was here. I wanted to see what kind of person he was because Emilia’s life was in his hands. I needed to know everything possible about him.

  His office was painted cream, and his mahogany furniture matched the picture frames of his multiple degrees and certificates on the wall. A large desk sat in the center of the room, and a bookcase filled with medical journals and pictures of who I presumed were his wife and kids stood behind it. His wife was very attractive with blonde hair and blue eyes, and his three sons seemed to be very active in baseball, football, and basketball. I was confident that we were in good hands with Dr. Marino. He was a family man. He understood the value of having both parents in a child’s life.

  I held Emilia’s hand, my thumb tracing a heart over her knuckles as we patiently waited for him to arrive with her results. I’d thought three thousand one hundred and eighty seconds were long, but the two thousand and one hundred seconds we had to wait felt like an eternity. Each second that passed dragged longer than the one before.

  I sighed and threw my head back dramatically. “Why is time moving so slowly today?”

  “Tell me a story.” Emilia’s eyes were glued to the nameplate on the doctor’s desk.

  “A story?”

  “Yes.” Emilia looked over at me and a sad smile appeared on her face. “Tell me about the moment you fell in love with me. Tell me about when you knew I was your yellow gel.”

  I brought her hand to my lips and kissed her soft skin. “You were mean to me.” Her eyes widened and I laughed. “Girls came easy to me, but not you. You had these rules.”

  “You were a musician and a womanizer.” She giggled.

  “I wasn’t a womanizer, but I did go out of my way to have a girl around me anytime I saw you. It seemed to piss you off and, let’s be honest, you’re cute when you’re mad.”

  Emilia slapped my knee. “Jerk!”

  I chuckled. “But you never took the bait. I went to Sparrows and you brushed me away as if I was nothing. So after a few months, I took matters into my own hands and stole your phone number.” A smile grew on her face as she remembered. “The night of my birthday, something changed. You finally let me in. The way you took care of me, the way you made sure you gave my keys to Axel—I knew right then and there you would be mine.”

  “A little presumptuous, don’t you think?”

  “No.” I reached for her hand, our gazes locked, and I hoped she understood how much I loved her. “I’d been searching for you all my life. And now that I’d finally found you, I wasn’t letting you go. I called in so many favors to make sure you had the best twenty–first birthday. And when you finally let me kiss you...” I pressed my lips to hers. “I was a goner. You had me.” Emilia reached up and cupped my cheek. “But do you want to know when I fell in love?”

  “When?” she asked.

  “When I took you home to meet my mother. It was the way you hugged her and Mama that confirmed you were my yellow gel. You had the purest heart, a
nd I knew that if I let you go, I’d be a fucking idiot.”

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  “Not nearly as much as I love you.”

  Dr. Marino tapped on his door before entering through it. I think in medical school they’re taught a blank stare so patients don’t know what they’re thinking. It took him five steps, five seconds—each an eternity—from the time he opened the door until the time he sat on his chair. He cleared his throat and swallowed.

  I knew he didn’t have good news. Deep down in my soul I knew he was about to drop the biggest bomb of my life.

  “We have the results of your PET scan, Emilia,” he said calmly.

  Emilia gripped my hand. This was it.

  “The cancer has spread.”

  The cancer has spread . . .

  The. Cancer. Has. Spread. Again.

  There wasn’t enough air in the world to mollify the pain I felt. I’d been punched in the gut and was gasping for breath.

  “The PET scan shows that it has spread to your liver, spleen, and your lymph nodes. You’re at stage four ovarian cancer. ”

  Stage four . . .

  “There are a couple of clinical trials we can apply for.”

  She’s dying . . .

  I was losing her . . .

  “There is a study being done in Switzerland where a patient like yourself receives a high dose of chemotherapy followed by a stem cell treatment.

  The floor was being ripped out from underneath me.

  There were so few options. I had done my research. I had read every single possible article about ovarian cancer.

  Stage four . . .

  The cancer has spread . . .

  Based on articles I’d read, her chance of survival was ten percent. Ten.

  How could I explain to Lyra that she was losing her mom?

  How could I explain to my soul that it would roam the earth on its own never finding a soulmate again?

  I couldn’t think like that.

  It was ten percent. But it wasn’t one percent. If we had to go to Switzerland for a clinical trial, then that’s where we would go. We would fight this. This was no longer a bump in the road. It was a fucking mountain, but together we would climb it. We would get over it.

  Because we still had ten fucking percent.

  “No.” Emilia’s words ricocheted off my body. “I just want to go home.” My eyes blinked rapidly.

  I looked over at her as she was wiping the tears that were streaming down her face.

  “Em, what do you mean you want to go home? We can do something!” I’ll go to the end of the world for you. We can fight this. It’s ten percent.

  Emilia shifted her body toward me. Her heart must’ve been broken because I could see it in her face. Her eyes were filled with tears, her nose was red and her lips quivered as she tried to talk. “This took my mother from me. My mother died in the hospital where I couldn’t say good–bye, where she couldn’t hold me. She died in a hospital bed at two in the morning while I was asleep.” Fresh tears ran down her face. “I don’t want to die in a hospital room. I don’t want to get a high dose of chemo and random treatments. My cancer has grown so much in two weeks. How much more is it going to grow in another week, Weston?”

  She took my hands in hers. “I don’t want Lyra to remember me sick in a hospital room. I don’t want her to remember her last days with me being shoved around from country to city to wherever.” I shook my head. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I want her to remember me, her mom, tucking her in at night, reading her a bedtime story, watching movies, and playing games. That‘s how I want Lyra to remember me. So no, I don’t want to join a clinical trial. I want to go home. I want to die at home.”

  I bowed my head as tears ran from my face. I had begged God to save her. And he didn’t. What the fuck was the point of having faith?

  “Emilia, are you sure about this?“ Dr. Marino asked.

  “Yes.” She nodded. “I want the ports out of my body. I want to feel human before I die. I don’t want to be connected to a machine as a take my last breath.” Her voice trembled. “How long do I have left? If I stop treatment, how long do I have?” Her words felt like fire burning on my skin.

  “Six months, maybe less.”

  “Will it hurt?” Emilia asked.

  “You’ll have hospice care. It will give you better quality days.”

  “Fuck this!” I pushed off the floor and kicked the chair back. “I’m not going to sit here while you two discuss how you’re going to fucking die. You’re not supposed to die! I’m not going to bury you. You’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with me. We’re supposed to grow old together! We’re supposed to watch Lyra have kids of her own. Be the grandparents who spoil their grandkids and retire to fucking Florida! You two want to sit here and have this fucking conversation about how you’re going to be comfortable when you die? Well, I’m not listening to this bullshit.”

  I yanked the handle of the door and stormed out of his office.

  Broken.

  Alone.

  She wanted to die.

  I slammed the car door shut. Burying my face in my hands, I screamed. I screamed until my voice was hoarse and my throat felt as if it was on fire.

  Why was life being so cruel?

  Without even looking at it, I grabbed my vibrating phone out of my pocket and slammed it against the windshield. A spider web crack grew on my windshield even as my phone shattered into tiny pieces.

  My body was numb as I stared at the glass, wondering how my life had changed so much in a year. Then it dawned on me how different my life would be a year from now. How different the world would be a year from now when Emilia was no longer in it.

  I sat there for a few minutes unable to breathe, my heart shattered. Emilia tapped on the passenger side window, startling me before she opened the door. She didn’t say anything as she sat and gazed out the window.

  I turned the car on and pulled out of the parking spot. The interior was silent as we listened to the passing of the cars around us and the tires pressing against the asphalt. I couldn’t breathe. It felt as if the oxygen in the car had been vacuumed out. The car began to shrink. I couldn’t hear anything as my thoughts kept screaming at me. She was dying. There would be a world without Emilia. Unable to breathe or think clearly, I pulled off to the side of the road, slammed the car into park and kicked the door open.

  My breathing was irregular and I gasped for air. My fingernails ran across my scalp as I attempted to calm myself.

  “Weston, where are you going?” Emilia shouted from behind me.

  “I just need some time.“ I shook my head, begging for the pain to stop. My hands braided together behind my neck as I continued to walk down the side of the road.

  “You can’t do that.” I heard her footfalls behind me. “You can’t walk away from me!” Her voice cracked and I turned back, unable to stay away. With a few long strides, I reached for her and gathered her in my arms. “I get my strength from you. You can’t walk away from me! “She slammed her hands against my chest. “I need you now more than ever! You have always been my rock, and if I lose you now, I don’t know if I can mentally prepare myself for the next few months. I’m dying, Weston. I am dying! And I’m so fucking scared.”

  I held her close as the realization set in for us both. She was dying.

  When her crying stopped, I lifted her chin up to me. “The days I have to spend with you are numbered, but I don’t want to spend another minute fighting.” I brought my lips down to hers, tasting the salty tears on her lips. “But I’m so scared of losing you.” I pulled away and looked deep into her brown eyes. “I’m sorry I walked away.”

  She looked down at my chest; her tears ran like a waterfall down her cheeks. “I will always be right here.” She placed her hand over my chest. “Always.”

  Inhaling deeply, I pulled her close to me and kissed her lips again.

  The air between us had shifted.

  We both under
stood what lay ahead. The future was inevitable, but I could cherish every second I had left with her.

  I pulled the car into the driveway and shifted it into park. Exhaling, I leaned my forehead on the steering wheel.

  “Let’s go down to the beach,” Emilia suggested.

  I turned to face her. Her finger rested between her teeth as she gently bit on her skin. She blinked and a tear dripped from her face.

  “I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to dwell on what’s going to happen. I want to enjoy every last day I have.” She swallowed, her gaze refusing to meet mine.

  “It’s a perfect day to go to the beach,” I agreed.

  Emilia’s eyes finally found mine. A small grin appeared on her face.

  Foregoing our usual spot by the pier, we settled for our own backyard. I jogged inside to grab a blanket and then led Emilia down the stairs from the rocks above to the sandy beach below.

  Holding the blanket by the corners, I tossed it in the air and let it come to rest on the warm sand. She leaned back into my chest on the center of the blanket, and I wrapped my arms around her. Surfers swam in the ocean before us, taking turns to catch the next wave.

  “Teach Lyra how to surf. I love the beach, but I never learned, so make sure you both learn.” Her voice was calm and she tilted her head upward toward the sun.

  “How am I going to do this without you?” The tips of my fingers ran up her arms.

  “You’ll find the strength,” she whispered.

  “But I get my strength from you.” I closed my eyes and inhaled her scent. I wanted to imprint every second in my mind. I wanted to capture this moment for a day in the future when I desperately needed her.

  “I’ll always be with you. Even when I’m gone, I’ll be all around you. In your heart. In Lyra. As long as you need me, I’ll be here.”

  “What if I become a bad dad when you’re gone? What if I don’t know how to comfort her?”

  Emilia shook her head and scoffed. “That’s impossible. You are so good with her. She idolizes you.” Neither of us spoke for a few moments. “I made a few videos for Lyra.” Emilia sniffled. “So she still has a part of me as she grows up.”