A sad smile appears on her lips as she looks down at our intertwined hands.
“Mom,” I say. She looks up at me. “You’re the brightest light I’ve ever known.”
She kisses my cheek and strokes it with her thumb.
“My daughter, you are much stronger than you give yourself credit for,” she says. “You can do this. Loves like this don’t always come around but every decade.” She winks. “You can do this. And so can he. I’m a call away if you need me, baby.”
26
Over the next three weeks, I’m a woman on a mission, moving on autopilot. I’m pulling double-time at the shop with Derrick and picking up Annabelle after work. I bring her home, make dinner for her and Ryder, give her a bath, and get her in bed. I take Ryder to his appointments, sit with him while they pump him full of the “better” poison, then sit with him for the next few days while parts of him are eaten away.
And every time, a piece of me goes right along with it.
It’s Sunday, and Derrick sends me home from the shop.
“My mom and sister are taking Annabelle shopping today,” he tells me. “The store is slow this morning. Go be with him.”
I look at him and smile.
It’s actually been weeks since we’ve just...been. All my interactions with Ryder over the last few weeks have been in the form of caretaking. All I’ve done is make sure he’s comfortable and has everything he needs.
I know why Derrick’s doing this, and it’s not for Ryder.
It’s for me.
I don’t think twice. I just get in my car and drive to Big Moon Drive.
When I get to the house, I’m surprised to find him up and cooking over the stove. His face lights up when he sees me.
“Hey, you,” he says, laying the wooden spoon down on the counter. “What are you doing here?”
“The boss gave me the day off,” I say with a smile. “Thought I might like to spend it with my favorite person. Well, second favorite person,” I say, eyeing a picture of Annabelle on the wall. He laughs and takes my hand.
He kisses my fingertips, then my wrist, then pulls me into him. I wrap my arms around him, and I almost gasp out loud at how much weight he’s lost. I guess being with him every day made it hard to see, but feeling his bones sends a chill down my spine. He lifts my chin and kisses my lips, and it gives me the umph I need to keep going.
“How are you feeling?” I ask him when the aftershock of the kiss dies down.
“Much better now,” he says with a smile before bending down to kiss me again. I tell him to go sit on the back deck, and I’ll bring him the soup when it’s done cooking. He grabs a hold of my butt as he shimmies by, and I smile. But before he reaches the end of the island, he stops and clutches a hand to his head.
“What is it?” I ask him. He freezes for a moment then slowly opens his eyes. He shakes his head.
“Just these weird headaches. I think it’s the chemo,” he tells me. “I’ll live.”
Will you?
I shake the thought from my head as I continue stirring the chicken soup he started making. I look around at this perfect little house. It’s funny how at home I feel here, despite the giant house I can stay in anytime I want across the lake.
But this one feels like him. Feels like home.
Just as I flick the stove off, I hear a crash from the deck. I put the bowls back down on the counter and run to the back door. I find him on his hands and knees. His eyes are wide open, but he’s feeling around with his hands.
“Ryder?” I cry. “What happened?”
I kneel down to him and reach for his hands. He jumps when I touch him.
“Ryder? Are you hurt?”
“Mila,” he says quietly, “I can’t see.”
27
I’m looking around the waiting room of the Emergency Room, noticing a lot of random shit. Like the fact that there’s one chair that is pushed out from the wall while the others are all lined up against it.
There’s a patch on the wall where it looks like something was ripped off, like a poster or something.
There are only two other people here, one an older man who came in with what I assumed to be his daughter, and another man who’s holding his hand wrapped in a cloth drenched in blood.
We came by ambulance, and they took Ryder for a brain MRI pretty quickly. So here I am in the waiting room. Just waiting.
I stare across the room at the wall in front of me, studying the patch, when I feel eyes on me. Derrick rushes across the room to me, pulling me to my feet and pulling me into his chest. I wrap my arms around him, but I don’t feel anything.
Alma rushes past us, showing her badge at the front desk and going through the doors.
We sit back down slowly, our hands clasped together like we’re saying a collective prayer between the two of us.
“So he just...blacked out? Or...what?” Derrick asks after a few moments of silence. I shrug, feeling the tears prickling at the backs of my eyes.
“He fell on the deck. Said he couldn’t see,” I say. “His vision hadn’t come back at all by the time we got here.” He nods slowly and sinks back in his chair. Then, he pushes himself back up.
“Hey, are you okay? Ya know...being here?”
I tilt my head and narrow my eyes at him.
Of course I’m not okay.
My boyfriend who has cancer currently can’t see. I had to help him to his feet, lead him to the couch, dial 911, and hold his hands as they loaded him up. Tell him it was going to be okay when I didn’t know shit.
But then I realize that’s not what Derrick means.
He means, am I okay here. In this hospital. In the hospital where my brother died.
I suck in a piercing breath and look around.
I hadn’t even thought about it. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that this is where they pronounced him dead. This is where I told Ryder I wished he had died.
I realize, in this moment, that I didn’t think about it, but not because I’m over my brother’s death. Not because I’ve forgotten him. But because being with Ryder brought me the peace I so badly needed all these years.
A sad smile flickers across my lips.
“Yeah,” I say, “I’m okay. I just need him to be.”
Derrick nods and squeezes my hand.
Alma appears through the big double doors again and calls us through.
“What’s going on, Mama?” Derrick asks. “Is he okay?”
“Waiting on MRI results,” Alma says, leading us down one long corridor after another. “They’re going to admit him in the oncology unit.”
I feel that knot start twisting in my stomach again as she leads us up a flight of stairs. After one more long hallway, she stops at one of the doors. She turns to us.
“He’s totally petrified, understandably,” she says. “We gotta buck up and be strong for him. He needs us, y’all.”
We nod and follow her in.
“Hi, baby,” she says. “It’s me. Derrick’s here.”
He turns to us, his eyes wide open but looking somewhere on the wall behind us.
“What about––” he starts to say.
“She’s here, too,” Alma says.
I walk up to the bedside and slowly let my hand take his. He jumps at first then lets his fingers entwine with mine.
“I’m here,” I whisper. I reach out and cup his face. “I’m right here.”
“And Annabelle?” he asks.
“May has her, baby,” Alma says. “Happy as a clam.”
After about an hour, Derrick perks up.
“I’m going to grab something from the cafeteria. What do you all want?”
Alma asks for a candy bar; I tell him I’m not hungry. But Ryder asks for a cup of the chicken noodle soup.
“You got it,” Derrick says.
He’s back within minutes, carrying a lot more than a candy bar and some soup. He hands the bar to Alma, plops his own stuff on the table, then goes to hand off the soup to Ryde
r. And then we all freeze. I take the cup from his hand and grab a spoon. I walk slowly to the bed.
“Here’s your soup, Ryder,” I tell him. I lean in a little closer as he reaches his hand up to try and find it. “Do you want me to...to feed you?” I whisper.
He lays his head back against his pillow for a moment and closes his eyes.
Then he covers his face with his hands and begins to sob.
Alma takes his other hand; Derrick pats his legs. And we all stand and cry.
A little while later, there’s a knock on the door.
A small woman in a white coat walks in. She can’t be much taller than five feet. She’s got big brown eyes, and her black hair is pulled back into a low bun. Wisps of gray peek out from behind her ears, and there are wrinkles next to her eyes.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Shidu,” she says. “I’m a neuro-oncologist here.”
“Hello,” we all mutter in unison.
“I see you’ve had a bit of a rough day,” she says to Ryder as she walks closer to him. He nods, his eyes moving around, unsure where to land. It breaks my heart each time, like he’s lost.
“A bit of a rough few months, actually,” she says, correcting herself. “I’ve reviewed your scans, and I’ve been in contact with your regular oncologist.”
“So, what’s going on?” Ryder asks.
Dr. Shidu looks right into his eyes, even though she knows he can’t see her. But it’s out of respect for him, and I can tell that Ryder can feel it.
“It appears the tumor has grown slightly,” she says. “So far, the treatment hasn’t had much effect. And it’s putting pressure on your optic nerve, which explains the blindness.”
I swallow.
Nothing she’s said so far makes me feel any better.
“It’s worrisome that the treatment hasn’t worked thus far,” she goes on, “so Dr. Chandler and I would like to schedule you for surgery to try and remove what we can. Following that, you’d go in for more treatment.”
We all let it soak in for a minute. Slowly, we nod.
“And if you’re able to remove it, and if the treatment works,” Alma asks, “his sight…?”
Dr. Shidu takes a breath and nods slowly.
“We’re hoping that removing what we can of the tumor will alleviate the pressure,” she says, “but there’s no guarantee that it hasn’t caused permanent damage to the nerve.”
“So...are you saying this…” Ryder says, motioning to his eyes, “this could be permanent?”
Dr. Shidu takes a step forward and reaches out for Ryder’s hand.
“I’m telling you that we’re going to do everything we can. And no matter what happens, there are a lot of resources. But our first goal is to get you cancer-free. In the meantime, we will have you meet with one of our ophthalmologists and a vision therapist. They will walk you through some basics on how to navigate right now. Hang in there,” she says.
She turns to Alma.
“I’ll have someone come in to schedule him for surgery,” she says. Alma thanks her.
When she leaves, we all sit in silence for a minute. Finally, I turn to him.
“Ryder, it’s gonna be––”
“Will you go to May’s and get Annabelle?” he asks, cutting me off.
“Oh, honey, I’ll grab her,” Alma says. “That way Mila can stay here with you.”
But Ryder shakes his head.
“No, please,” he says. “I want her to get to sleep in her own bed tonight. Please.”
I swallow and nod, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.
As I go to leave, he reaches for my hand and, by some miracle, actually catches it.
“Take care of her,” he says.
28
I wake up before the sun the next morning, that knot in my stomach twisting and turning and burning. Derrick will be bringing Ryder home today, and his surgery has been scheduled for early this coming week.
Alma is coming to pick up Annabelle for a girls’ day. We’re not quite sure how she will react to Ryder’s not being able to see.
I still don’t know how I’m supposed to react. Not sure how a four-year-old should.
I make sure everything is spotless––I realize he won’t be able to tell, but it’s more for his safety. I make sure all the princesses and dolls are picked up from the floor, all the furniture is exactly where it normally is so as not to throw him off.
Finally, I hear Derrick’s tires in the gravel outside the house. I meet them at the front door. Derrick hops out and walks around, holding out his arm for Ryder to grab hold of. I almost smile at the sight of them. They are more like brothers than anything else. Loyal to the death.
He leads Ryder up the steps and to the door where I’m waiting. Derrick carries his bags inside while I reach my hands out to him and cup his face.
“I love you,” I whisper to him. He closes his eyes and presses his forehead to mine. “We are going to get through this.”
He smiles quickly and nods then uses his foot to feel for the doorway. I help him into the living room and ask what he wants for lunch.
“I’m not really hungry,” he says. I nod and close the fridge.
“Okay, all your things are back in your room,” Derrick says, emerging from the back.
“Thank you, D,” I tell him.
“Do you guys need anything else?” he asks. I shake my head, but Ryder calls his name.
“Can you help me out onto the deck?” he asks.
“Oh, I can do that,” I interject. Ryder shakes his head.
“No, it’s okay. D, do you mind?” he asks. Derrick looks at me then to Ryder.
“Of course,” he says, walking toward him and helping him across the room. I watch as he leads Ryder to one of the chairs on the back deck. Ryder says something to him, and I see Derrick’s body go straight as a board. He asks Ryder something then he nods. He comes back into the house. He goes back to Derrick’s bedroom then back onto the deck. He hands Ryder some sort of envelope then claps him on the back. Ryder reaches a hand up, and Derrick squeezes it.
Derrick makes his way back into the house and grabs his keys off the island.
“He, uh, asked if you could go out there,” he says. He looks like he wants to say more, but he presses his lips together and walks out the front door.
Loyal to death.
I take a deep breath and walk out onto the back deck.
It’s fairly warm for a winter day in Meade Lake, but I still pull my sweatshirt around me tight. I scoot a chair up next to him and look out at the frozen water.
My first instinct is to comment on the view, not for the cliché of it all, but because it really is breathtaking. I love living here.
But then I remember he can’t join in on that, so I switch gears.
“Annabelle was great last night,” I say. “She ate all her mac and cheese and went right to bed. I may have let her watch another episode of Sofia the First first, but then she went to bed.”
He smiles as his green eyes stare out at nothing.
He doesn’t say anything; he just reaches for the envelope that’s on his lap and hands it to me.
“What is this?” I ask. He motions to it, and I take it slowly. I open it and pull out a thick stack of papers. When I flip them over, I feel my heart rate accelerate.
It reads CUSTODY AGREEMENT in thick, black letters.
“Ryder...what is this?”
“I need you to read it,” he whispers, closing his eyes and folding his hands in his lap.
I swallow and look down at it.
I can’t comprehend a lot of what I’m reading. I’m not sure if it’s the legal jargon or the fact that my name is all over this thing.
My eyes speed from word to word across the pages till I get to the bottom.
Where it has my name listed as the guardian—of Annabelle.
“Ryder, what the hell is this?” I ask, holding it up, hand shaking. He takes in a deep breath and turns to me.
I don’t know how, but hi
s eyes find mine, and even though he can’t see me, I can still feel him looking right through me.
“What is this?” I ask, my voice shaky and soft.
“I had it written up after that first appointment at Dr. Chandler’s,” he says, “when I got the diagnosis. In case the cancer wasn’t...in case it isn’t curable.”
I swallow.
“After seeing how she is with you, how she gravitates toward you, how much the two of you love each other...I knew it had to be you. I was going to wait to see how my first scans went post-treatment,” he goes on, “but I guess we know.”
“Dr. Shidu said they have a plan. After surgery, after treatment...your prognosis is fine. You will be okay. We can’t think…” My voice trails off, panic taking over and silencing everything.
“Shh,” he says, reaching a hand out. Reluctantly, I reach out to meet his, and he pulls my hand to his lips. He kisses it, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Why are you giving this to me now?” I ask, tears streaming down my face. “You’re not dying. You’re going to be okay.”
A sad smile flickers on his lips.
“I might not die from this,” he says, “but I’m not going to be ‘okay.’”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“You heard Dr. Shidu,” he says. “I might be like this for the rest of my life. Which is why...I need you to take her now.”
It feels like a blow to the chest.
“What?” I cry out.
“Just listen to me, please, Mila,” he whispers, his voice cracking. “I know this is so much to ask. And you don’t owe me any favors... God, with our history, it should be the other way around. I know. But I can’t take care of her like this.” He motions to his eyes. “I can’t help her take a bath, brush her hair, put a damn bandage on her skinned knees. I can’t do anything like this. And she deserves everything. And so do you.”
Back to Shore (Meade Lake Series Book 1) Page 17
