by Piper Lennox
“Mel,” he snaps, getting close, face shadowed right above mine, “go. Please.”
His image blurs. I blink, but the crying doesn’t stop. “That’s honestly what you want?”
“Yes.” His voice is strained, breaking under the surface.
I know this isn’t what he wants. This can’t be it.
If it were, he wouldn’t be lowering his head. He wouldn’t put his hands on the sides of my face. He wouldn’t kiss me, like he’s doing now.
I fall into it, into him. The hall feels warm, and I relax.
Then he says it again, against my mouth: “I’m sorry.”
“Blake, no.” My lips are raw. I taste salt and can’t tell if it’s my tears or his, finally visible in the buzzing lights. “No, we can fix this. I want to help you, please…let me help you.”
My words can’t even make themselves louder than the sobs. My head can’t make sense of this—the pull of him away from me, when we’ve always, always been drawn together. The slipping of his hand from mine. The sight of those tears on his face, physical proof he’s the boy I knew, still, somewhere inside.
And when my legs don’t know how to turn, how to walk away—he does, instead.
Part Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Four
Blake
“So it’s not working. That’s what you’re saying, right? It was for nothing.”
“Not for nothing.” Dr. Gull temples his hands on his desktop, his signature move. Every doctor I’ve seen the last three years has one: Dr. Gunnar licked his lips. Dr. Webb cracked his thumbs inside his fists. Dr. Gull temples.
“Now we know we can eliminate that entire class of drugs as viable treatment options,” he explains, like that’s a good thing. I think about the night Mel and I puked all over the side of his carport, almost eight years ago. He has no idea I even knew his sons, let alone drank moonshine in his basement and slept it off under an afghan some beloved grandma probably made for them.
I look again at the chest X-ray on his desk: my angiosarcomas, virtually unchanged since their return last spring, after two months in remission. “What’s next?”
“They responded well to radiation,” he says, flipping through my file. “Not great, but enough where I’d consider surgical removal again.”
This catches my attention. “Dr. Webb said surgery at anything larger than 30% was too risky.”
“It is risky,” he says, “but I’m a high-risk surgeon. I’ve removed worse.” He slaps the file shut and stands, so I do, too. “Besides, it’s riskier to wait through another chemo course. We’re lucky the cancer hasn’t spread yet. Most patients in your shoes would’ve been dead by now.”
When I first got diagnosed, hearing a doctor say something like this would’ve kept me up all night with existential dread. By now, I’ve come to appreciate people who can shoot it straight.
“When do we start?” I ask, following him to the door.
“Tomorrow, if that works for you. I don’t want to wait on this.” He pauses and clears his throat, what doctors tend to do when they’re about to tell you something death-related. “The surgery isn’t fool-proof, of course. It just seems like the best course of action, given the circumstances.”
“A last-ditch effort,” I clarify. Dr. Gull nods.
He claps a hand on my back, a fatherly move of his that I’ve grown to like. I wonder if his sons think he’s a good dad.
“I don’t like promising things I can’t guarantee,” he says. “I’m a good surgeon, but this is serious. So...stay hopeful, but practical.”
“I know. I’ve got my will drafted, all that.” Actually, I had a will made up just a week after my diagnosis. It was surprisingly easy—my entire estate, left to my son when he turns eighteen. Just like Dad.
“Good.” He claps my back again, then takes his hand away. “Although you should know, I’ve got a good success rate going. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you wake up on that operating table, cancer-free.”
I smile. I believe him—not that I’ll come out of this okay, but that he’ll do his best. “See you Monday, then.”
Mel
“You told him no? What’s wrong with you?”
I look at Emma, Josh’s girlfriend, over the rim of my cereal bowl as I finish the milk. We’re doing a pantry week, something Emma saw on Pinterest to save money, which means dinner was between sugar-crusted cornflakes, or plain black beans and no rice.
“Calvin’s a nice guy,” I tell her, “but he liked me a lot more than I liked him. It wouldn’t have been right to take a trip with him—”
“But it’s Aspen!”
“—and his entire family,” I finish, giving her another look. “It was a huge step and...I’m just not that into him. I don’t want that kind of commitment, that’s all.”
Emma sits back and stirs her cereal, clinking the spoon against the bowl. “It seems like you’re never into the guys you date as much as they’re into you. You never want commitment. Don’t you think there’s a reason?”
My ego gets defensive, but I just take a breath instead of responding. I know Josh has told Emma all about Blake, and that they share the opinion I’m not over him. She seems to think it’s her job to probe my personal life like I’m one of her patients.
Josh met Emma when, during his second year of med school, he had a week of stress dreams and anxiety attacks. She was his therapist for just one month before they started dating. Living with them in Emma’s townhouse is fun, overall. But times like now, I wish I had my own place.
“Just haven’t met the right guy, I guess,” I mutter, as I take my bowl to the sink. Emma, wisely, offers no more advice.
I see him, sometimes. He still works at the ad agency, but moved out of Pike’s Landing. I’ve got no interest in learning where he lives now.
Or, more specifically, who he’s living with.
He’s usually got his son by his side, a little brown-haired boy who looks just like the one that ran up to my mom that day in the mall. Every time I see them, I think about walking over, saying hi. Because the guy holding that small hand, showing him the world: that’s the Blake I know. The one that would’ve stayed.
But then, always, I realize how pale he looks. Rail-thin. Sick.
I wonder how many bottles he puts away every night, without me there to hound him. I’m sure he’s also never seen a therapist, or gotten a handle on his grief. If he had, I’d see a very different man. I’d notice the change, even at a distance.
So I don’t go up and say hello. I just stay where I am, and watch.
“Your mom called again, by the way,” Emma says, right as I’m heading upstairs to my room. “Something about this guy at her church, newly divorced. She said he’s your type.”
Of course she did. My mother has set me up on ten blind dates this year alone, each more boring and predictable than the last. Not that the few dates I’ve arranged for myself have gone any better. Maybe, unlike the other three years Blake and I didn’t talk, I’ve got standards.
Or maybe Josh and Emma are right, which is the worst possibility of them all.
Blake
“Catch it, Daddy!”
I smile when Banner grabs the baseball from the grass and pitches: more of a flail than a throw, and the ball veers out towards the ditch, but still.
“Nice job, bud,” I call, running after it. I loft it back into his waiting mitt, and his face lights up like Christmas.
This, right here, is what I think of when I picture fatherhood. It’s nice to have memories of a good dad now, even if they’re about myself instead of my own.
And I am a good dad. I mean, I try to be. It’s hard, with Banner splitting his time between my little rented house outside the city, and Cait’s parents’ mansion. They spoil him rotten and let him break every rule in the book, which means I spend about two days of each visit reestablishing manners.
He’s a good kid, though. I can tell he prefers this—spending time with me, doi
ng whatever, rules and all—to that house where everyone’s too busy, too far apart.
Banner pitches back and I dive for the ball again, exaggerating my motions to make him laugh. When that giggle peals across me and he falls into my arms, I forget about everything else.
“Risky. This is serious.”
“Stay hopeful, but practical.”
Dr. Gull’s words from this morning fracture the moment. I sit up and hug Banner until the knot in my stomach untwists, and I’m okay again.
“Daddy?” he asks. He’s got grass stains on his cheeks.
I wet my thumb and wipe the smudges off as best I can, while he laughs and wiggles away. “Yeah?”
“Why are your nails purple?” He takes my hand, holding it up for us both to see.
“What?” Sure enough, my nail beds are dark, like I’ve dipped my fingertips in ink. The dizziness hits when I try to stand, then sink to my knees again.
My heart’s struggling, I can feel it. It races, but every beat chugs along, incomplete.
God, please, I think, or maybe pray, not now.
“Uh...hey, let’s go inside,” I tell him, forcing a smile. My voice is hoarse. It scares him. “Lemonade,” I manage.
Banner watches me stumble to my feet, the baseball clutched in his grip. He follows me across the lawn.
“Hi, Mrs. Shoemaker!” he calls, waving to my neighbor while she takes her dogs, three fat Jack Russells, on their afternoon walk.
“Well, hi there, Banner!” she coos. Mrs. Shoemaker has the habit of treating Banner like a baby, which I guess he still kind of is, at three and some change. I see him as more of a kid-in-training.
Not that I’m thinking about that right now; I’m just trying to make it inside. Just get inside, I coach myself, then turn it into a mantra, even as my vision blurs at the edges. Every step blacks out a little more.
Banner tears away from my hand and runs for the dogs. I try to tell him to stop, but when I turn, my heart can’t keep up.
The last thing I remember is the grass on my face, sharp and cool, and the baseball right in front of my face, where Banner dropped it.
Twenty-Five
Mel
“Did you get that sci-fi review in yet?” Helen, my editor, raps her knuckles on my desk as she passes. “Doesn’t need to be long, does need to be on my desk by five.”
“Typing it up now,” I tell her, hitting the keys harder, as though the sound is proof enough. She gives me a thumbs-up over her shoulder.
I like this time of day: one hour left, everyone finishing up their projects and chatting about dinner or weekend plans. The printer whirs and everyone’s keyboard clacks at lightning-speed. It relaxes me, this end-of-day rush.
The Onyx isn’t a huge newspaper; it’s barely even medium. That small size, though, means I get to cover anything I want, from mainstream movies to indie films. I prefer the latter, but only because there are no crowds: just me, a couple people scattered in the darkness, and my notepad, jotting notes I can’t see until I emerge into the afternoon sun.
“Uh, hi, I’m looking for Melanie? Or, uh, Mel?”
I look up at the sound of my name. The back of a blonde head is pivoting, sweeping the floor.
“Hi,” I call out. “I’m Mel.”
She turns. I’m so surprised, my hands drop to the keys and create a string of nonsense.
“Caitlin-Anne,” I blurt, then blink and stand to shake her hand, remembering my professionalism. “Hi. How are you?”
“Hi,” she breathes, giving what I guess is meant to be a smile. It’s only now that I see a little brown-haired head below us, clinging to her legs. Looking up at me with big, icy blue eyes.
I wave at him. He smiles and hides his face.
“It’s Blake,” Caitlin-Anne says, looking around like she just realized we’re in a bullpen, not a private office. Her voice lowers. “He’s in the hospital.”
“Oh, my God.” I cover my mouth, feeling my breath catch. Then I remember I’m not supposed to have that kind of reaction. It isn’t my place, anymore. He isn’t mine. “Um, is he...okay?”
She glances at her son, who’s distracted with a paperclip I dropped on the floor. “He’s sick,” she whispers.
“Sick, how?” Like her, I keep my voice low, although I’m not sure I could speak any louder if I tried. Not if I want to stave off the panic, building in my gut. “Is it…you know, the drinking?”
“What?” She tilts her head, then shakes it. “No, no, he’s been sober ever since Banner was born.”
“Sober?” My brain can’t accept this. It’s a good thing, I know it is. But it’s not what I knew, what I’ve believed for all these years. Stupidly, I think, She’s gotta be wrong.
He would have told me. He would have stayed.
“It’s cancer,” she says, and her mouth presses into a tight line. I think I see her eyes film over.
My lungs feel like they’re filled with ice water. I try to ask her more questions, but all I get out is “no.”
She nods, pulling a scrap of paper off my desk as she composes herself. She writes the hospital and room number on it before hoisting her son onto her hip. “I know you guys haven’t spoken in a long time,” she says, “but he’s been asking for you, and...and I think it would mean a lot to him. To see you.”
“Okay,” I choke out, taking the paper and holding it with both hands, like it’s made of glass. “Um...thanks.”
Caitlin-Anne nods again, gives a small wave, and leaves. The little boy waves, too, the paperclip still clutched in his hand.
Blake
The ambulance ride sticks with me in pieces. The paramedic, reading my stats; another setting up a bag for fluids. The siren, sounding faraway yet right inside my ear, all at once.
“Banner,” I try to ask. There’s no way they can hear me, but they must know what I mean, because one tells me, “Your neighbor has him, don’t worry.”
I relax. Mrs. Shoemaker has Caitlin-Anne’s number. She keeps a freezer stocked with ice cream, and an attic filled with toys. He’ll be fine.
My vision pinholes again, even though I’m lying down. I fight it, but my eyes slide shut.
I dream about Mel.
It’s a jagged, vibrant dream, like a high-contrast photo torn into squares I can’t fit together: Mel as a little girl, in the mall with her mom and brother; Mel and me at seven, playing Rock, Paper, Scissors in the pews of her church.
Us at eighteen, the way she looked at me and smiled when I told her we weren’t virgins anymore. The sting of the tequila. The way she arched her back and said my name to the high ceilings, her voice stuck there forever.
At twenty-one, the sight of her at my dad’s funeral jarring and sudden, but also familiar, grounding me. “What happened to you?” The pink glitter she left in my carpet that managed to dig itself in so deeply, it was still there the day I moved out.
At twenty-two, when I gave her that diamond pendant but still couldn’t get the words out: “I’m sorry.”
Getting wasted. Her face when I threw that stupid lamp across the room. She really didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t, either.
And then, finally, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do: telling her to leave, one last time, and making myself walk away when she refused.
“Mel,” I say, or try to. The paramedics and doctors or whoever’s working on me right now—how long has it been?—talk to each other, not me.
After that, it’s dark. I’m floating in it. I wonder if I’m dead, but decide I’m in too much pain for that.
It feels like years that I’m stuck here in this thick, black place of nowhere. Is this purgatory? I remember all the stuff we read about it at Mel’s church, and how that scared me even more than the stories about fire and brimstone and eternal damnation: eternal nothing.
But then I feel something warm slip into my palm. Another hand, I’m sure, even though I can’t see it.
“Blake,” the voice says, “Blake, I’m here...can you hear me?”
>
It sounds like Mel. It can’t be, but I’m happy to pretend.
I try to answer, but can’t get my mouth to move. So instead, I squeeze back.
Twenty-Six
Mel
I show up at the hospital soaking wet.
A storm erupts just as I get out of my car. I run through it with my head down and my pulse thrashing against my eardrums like the thunder. My shoes are slick on the lobby floor; I almost careen into the elevator.
Outside his room in the ICU, I start to really panic. Three years. Again.
This time, it feels like it’s been even longer. This time, when one of us walked away, it felt permanent.
When I open his door and see him, I don’t recognize the voice that says his name. It’s mine, but terrified and broken and small, because this isn’t the Blake I know, either.
He’s thin, which I knew from faraway glances, but in the hospital bed it’s even more pronounced. His hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat, and his eyes look sunken. They flutter, but don’t open.
I take his hand in mine. It’s like a sick bird: thin skin, every bone visible.
“Blake,” I say, and swallow hard, trying to sound brave. “Blake, I’m here...can you hear me?”
He doesn’t answer or open his eyes, but after a minute—the longest one of my life—I feel his fingers close tighter around mine.
Blake
“Hey.”
Mel starts when she hears my voice; she was looking out the window at the rain. “Hi,” she says, smiling and exhaling at the same time, hand pressed to her chest.
We stare at each other a while. A machine beeps in the silence. I notice the blanket on the chair, her wrinkled clothes. She slept here.
