by K Larsen
“Morning, honey,” Jess coos when she sees me. Honey. I like it. I mosey over to her and kiss her forehead. “Morning.”
“There’s coffee ready and your breakfast will be up in just a minute,” she tells me.
I fix myself a mug of coffee and sit with the kids at the table. “Morning, guys.”
Luke grunts through his food and Angie and Andrew say hello. “Did you two sleep alright?” I ask.
“Yes, perfectly. It’s so nice here. Quiet and peaceful,” Angie says.
“I’m glad you like it. You know you’re welcome anytime.”
“Ty, do you think we could come to Luke’s football game tonight?” Andrew asks.
“You a big football fan, Andrew?”
“I played in high school.” I smile at him. Luke beams at me.
“Of course. You are all welcome to join me. It’ll be cold, so bundle up,” I tell them.
Jess saunters in with two plates. She sets one in front of me and sits down with the other one. “Bon appetite,” she says smiling.
Luke’s team won the game, in overtime. It was an incredible game, both teams equally matched. Angie and Andrew are sharing a hot chocolate. They look hilarious wrapped up in scarves and baggy knit hats from the closet chest at home. Jess’s cheeks are tinged red, as well as the tip of her nose. I pull her to my chest to warm her up. We’re waiting at the locker room exit for Luke.
“Hey, Dad,” he says as he makes his way through the crowd.
I let go of Jess to talk to him. “Bud, I need you to skip the dinner tonight and come home with us.”
“But I’m supposed to meet Bree.” Luke’s face is nothing but disappointment.
“It’s important,” I state. Something flashes in his eyes but I don’t have time to dissect it before it vanishes.
“Okay, Dad.” I take his duffel bag from him and use my free hand to catch Jess’s in mine, as we all head back to the parking lot.
I stop at the convenience store and grab two bottles of wine on the way home. Jess gives me a funny look, but everyone drank the wine that I had yesterday at dinner and I have a feeling she will need a drink tonight. Maybe Angie, too. I’m starting to feel bad for Andrew because he’s going to be in the middle of an awkward conversation in just a short while.
We all pile out of our vehicles and into the house. Scarves are unwound. Gloves and mittens shed. Hats tossed on the bench. Coats are hung. It’s all perfectly normal. Chit chat and laughter ring out. I feel cold and shaky. A pit forms in my gut. A lump in my throat. I clear it. “Hey,” I say. Everyone stops and looks at me.
“Could we all sit in the living room for a minute?” Everyone nods and heads in. Except Luke. He narrows his eyes at me. He knows something’s up. I blink a couple times to try and keep my composure. His eyes well up. Luke and I don’t need words after what we’ve been through together. He shakes his head no and lunges at me. Fists pound on my chest. I let him give it all he’s got. Angie squeals and rushes to the entry way, followed by Jess and Andrew. I grab Luke’s fists and hold them together at my chest with one hand. “It’s okay, Buddy,” I say to him. My other arm wraps around his back.
“What the hell, Luke!” Angie shouts.
Luke and I sink to the floor together. My breathing goes from rapid to lazy, as we sit piled together. Luke sobs in my chest, clutching my shirt. I hold him tightly to me. I look up to Jess and Angie. I clear my throat again.
“The biopsy . . .” I stammer. There are no words good enough for this situation. “I’m dying,” I say. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes as I squeeze Luke to me. “I have liver cancer.”
Angie gasps and Andrew tucks her into his side. Jess drops to her knees on the hardwood floors, stunned. Luke pushes away from me.
“How could—?” he shouts. “How could you not tell me?” He scrambles backwards before I can utter a word. Angie reaches out to him but he shrugs her off. He storms out the front door. I leap to my feet to go after him but Andrew’s large palm hits my shoulder.
“I think he needs time. Let him go,” he says. I turn and wipe the tears from my cheeks and face Jess. I scoop her up under her arms and cradle her to my chest while carrying her to the couch.
“I’m sorry, Jess. I’m so sorry.” I repeat my words over and over.
I’m tipsy. No, I’m drunk. Probably more than I have been in a really long time. Angie handed me a glass of wine and I think I drank it in one gulp. She told me her and Andrew were driving back to the City, gave me a hug and then she hugged Ty and cried. She kissed his cheek and it brought tears to his eyes. I stood by in silence and watched and felt number and number by the second. My eyes glassed over and a brain fog completely overtook me. I didn’t want to process what I’d just witnessed.
Andrew went into the kitchen and brought me the whole bottle. He set it gingerly next to my wine on Ty’s coffee table. He spoke in a low voice to Ty and I already knew Andrew was good, but tonight I saw just how good he truly could be.
“We’re going to drive around and look for Luke, we’ll bring him to Bree’s house for the night. I’ll speak to her parents. Angie grabbed his sleeping bag from his room. If Jess needs a ride or you two need anything at all, call Angie’s cell and we’ll turn around. We can be back here in a matter of hours, at any time. I’m sure you’ve got your resources figured out, but please, let us know if we can be of any help.”
Ty nodded his head, hugged Andrew and slapped him hard on the back. So much emotion between virtual strangers. I fill up the wine glass. Drink it. Refill it.
We are silent when everyone is gone. I can hear the pendulum swing on the grandfather clock in the dining room.
“How long have you known?” I clear my throat when I ask. It comes out almost accusatory and that’s not how I mean it. “What are our options?” It sounds clinical, detached, but that’s how I feel. I don’t feel like myself. This exchange is surreal. I fill up the wine glass again.
“I didn’t want it to be the answer. I didn’t want to tell the truth. Not to you, especially not to Luke. I wished it away for a while. The guilt was killing me though. Figured I was going to die of a guilty conscious before my liver started to fail me.”
“What about the trial?”
“Didn’t work. Maybe I got a placebo, who knows.”
“What about chemo, is that an option?”
“Palliative only, at this point, Jess.”
“What about a transplant? Are you on a list?”
“Hep C patients aren’t a priority because it’s the blood that’s infected and carries the virus. My body would contaminate a healthy liver—just a matter of time.”
“What about alternative treatments? We could do research, go to Germany or Mexico, they’re always testing new things that haven’t been approved here yet. We’ve got nothing to lose if it’s advanced!” I can feel my face making expressions for the first time tonight, like I’m coming back to life at a little glimmer of hope in the distance.
“I don’t want to shoot you down, kid, but we tried that path with Rory and it really cut into what we had together as a family. I’d rather spend the little time that we have enjoying each other, not fighting this disease until we’re both exhausted and I die anyway. I want to say goodbye. To my son. To you, Jess.”
Ty’s head falls into his hands and he cries. He’s so big and strong. Everything about him seems healthy and robust. I can’t believe that he’s sick. I can’t believe that he’s going to leave me.
He looks at me and his expression is so pained, like he’s been slaughtered already and cannot fight the battle in front of him. Defeated before it begins. My heart is breaking. I love Ty. We finally found one another and had only gotten a tiny taste of our forever. But fate is so cruel, she’s doing it again. I squeeze his hand and we hold hands, staring into one another’s eyes. We are cold and clammy, flushed and awkward. What do we say? Where do we go, when there’s nothing but a chasm in front of us?
“I can’t, in good faith, ask you to stay
. I understand completely if you want to go and leave this behind you. It’s not what we had planned for being together as a couple. I may not have long at all. Six to eight months is what we’re looking at. I love you, Jess, but I won’t ask you to stand here and watch me suffer. I know, first hand, how awful that is, and I don’t want you to go through it, if you can save yourself from it.”
I climb down the couch and tumble into his arms. I drank the whole bottle and what I really want to do is cry, but I can’t cry anymore.
“I love you, Ty. It wouldn’t be suffering. It would be an honor for me to stand by your side anytime and anywhere. I never thought I’d see you again. And now here we are. I loved you for twenty years. I can love you for six months. If that’s all we have, I won’t give it back. I’ll take whatever we’re given. I’ll love you for six days, if that’s all we get. I’ll love you for six minutes. I’m proud of our love and I would never willingly give it up.”
“Jesenia, you cut right through me.”
He wraps his big arms around me and kisses my hair. His heart beats hard under mine and my body rises and falls with the rhythm of his breath. He’s so alive. Titan. My anchor. My lover.
I’m starting to lose my mind over Luke. He hasn’t called to check in and Angie hasn’t called to say they found him. It took a while, but I managed to stop crying. Jess is asleep on the couch. She will no doubt feel like dirt tomorrow morning from the bottle of wine she consumed. I pick her up and carry her to the bedroom where I remove her clothes and tuck her in. I text Rusty to see if Luke showed up over there. Heading back downstairs, I slip on sneakers and grab my keys. Rusty responds that he hasn’t seen Luke, he asked Dillon and he hadn’t heard from him either. He wants to know what’s up, but I ignore his text and leave without responding to him. I snag an extra coat from the closet.
I hop in the truck and start it up. Backing out of the driveway, I turn left and head to the one place not many would think to check or drive by. It takes ten minutes to drive there and in the light cast by the headlights, I can see a small, curled-up form atop the small hill. I park the truck, grab the jacket and head up to him.
He’s curled up on his mother’s grave. He shivers. I put his coat around him.
“Luke,” my voice cracks. He looks up and tears start pouring down his face.
“It’s not true, right, Dad?” he asks and my heart shatters. I sit down next to him as he pulls on his coat and leans back against Rory’s headstone.
“It is, Buddy. I wish it weren’t, but it is and it’s bad.”
“How much time?” he asks leaning into me.
“Maybe eight months.” A sob rips through my boy and I want to make everything better for him, but I can’t. I can’t change that he will lose both his parents before he graduates high school. I can’t change that he will lose both his parents to cancer. I can’t change a God damned thing and it eats at me. I squeeze him into my side hard. “Bud, I’m not doing chemo. I want quality of life over quantity. You won’t have to watch me go through that. We will live in the house until I need to be in the hospital and once I’m admitted, I’m sure I’ll go quickly. It won’t be like mom.” I kiss the top of his head. “But I need you here with me. I need you to be my son. I want more football games. I want more movie nights and pizza binges. I want you to bring Bree over to hang out so I have time with you and get to know her.” I stop because I can’t talk anymore. I can’t speak over the lump in my throat.
“What about after, Dad?”
“You’ll live with Aunt Celia,” I say. Rory and I decided a long time ago that if anything happened to us, her sister would take Luke.
“No. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to move,” he yells at me.
“Luke, we have plenty of time to talk about this. We don’t have to have all the answers tonight.” He slumps down further into the grass.
“This isn’t fair, Dad,” he says and wipes tears from his face.
“It sure as hell isn’t,” I agree. “It’s cold out here. Let’s go home.”
“I miss her,” he says and puts a hand on her headstone.
I wrap my arm around him. “I miss her, too, kid, every damn day. She would be so proud of the man you’ve turned out to be, Luke. You’ve got to know that. Your mother loved nothing more than you, not even me.”
We walk to the truck together in silence. Luke climbs in and I toss him the keys to start it up so he can get warm. Before I get in, I look up to the millions of stars shining in the night sky and say a silent prayer to Rory to help us out with this transition because I sure as shit can’t do this alone.
“Do me a favor and text Angie so she knows you’re safe, they were out looking for you.”
“They were?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“That’s really nice. I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t—.” I interrupt him.
“It’s okay, Bud. It’s understandable. You did nothing wrong,” I say.
I’ve researched every single thing I can find on Ty’s situation. I’ve spoken to doctors, I even went to a conference. I don’t tell him, though. I pretend to respect his wishes, but it’s just not in my nature to accept it. I have to fight it. And if that means doing it on my own, I’m okay with that. I will look at every possible angle and try to fight this disease for him, while pretending I’m accepting it. But how do you accept the death of the man you just figured out you’re in love with? I can’t swap the visions of a dream house with picking out caskets, the hope of a wedding dress with a simple, conservative black dress. So I’ll fight silently in my corner and if I figure out a cure or a solution, I’ll rescue my lover.
I have done some drastic things to change my life. Angie is taking over the business and I’m now retired. I see Ty every weekend. But this week, I close on the townhouse in Manhattan and I make my way to Fairfield to be close to him. He’s getting weaker by the day and Luke needs someone to look after him, he’s still a child who needs a parent.
I don’t know what I’ll do once Ty’s gone. I don’t know if I’ll survive the moment when I have to say goodbye to him. When I was small, my grandmother used to sit me on her knee, “Jesenia,” she’d say, “what we put into this world, we’re allowed to take out of it. If you do good things, then good things will happen. Remember that always.” Then she’d pinch my cheeks and braid my hair. I remember when she died, everything felt so morbid. It was breast cancer and my parents never explained it to me. I thought she took all the good things with her when she left because she always did good things for me. I cried for weeks and then I got angry. She’s the only person close to me that I’ve ever lost. I have no experience with death, but Ty does and Luke does. They know how to plan and Ty is doing an amazing job. He’s got Luke’s whole life mapped out and every night he writes a journal entry to his son. I don’t know how he does it, how he stays so strong. But I’ll walk alongside Titan and hold onto his hand. I’ll do it, until he can’t hold on anymore.
“Ma’am, that’s the last of what’s going to storage. We’ve got the van going to Fairfield packed up as well.”
“I’ll write you the check for the moving today. In Fairfield, I don’t want either of the men who live in the house to do any of the lifting.”
“I hear you.”
“But know that they’ll try to, so the movers on that end have to be informed. I know it’s not heavy, but I don’t want them helping.”
“Understood, Ma’am. I’ll relay the message.”
My heels echo on the hardwood floor, the house stands empty, there’s nothing to absorb the sound. I have a lot of memories here but not that many of them are happy. Flashes of Angie running around in stocking feet as a kid, helping with homework, giving her baths, measuring her growth on the wall in the kitchen. Most of the others are with Titan. When I first saw his face on the television screen and learned that he was looking for me. Showing up at my door in jeans that night when he first came to visit me, barely leaving the bed or the shower. Falling into bed exha
usted after all of the thoughtful New York things he made me do with him. How he devoured me with kisses and how it felt to wake up in his arms. I shut it down because I refuse to think about it like it’s over. I still have new memories to make with Titan.
Grabbing my purse and small rolling suitcase, I open the front door. I take one last look back in the hallway and slip my sunglasses back on.
“Mrs. Van Buren! Will you give us a statement? Is it true you left the senator for your true love? Has he really been diagnosed with cancer? How does it feel to be part of this year’s most romantic viral story? Is he seeking treatment? Is it true you’re moving in with him?” The questions come at me like a firestorm. I’m not prepared for this. I should have realized the moving vans would attract some attention.
I yank my purse over my shoulder and tug my suitcase, bumping down the stairs. I parked the Volvo at least four blocks away. I wish we had a garage.
“Mrs. Van Buren, can we get a statement on camera? Has the senator contested the divorce? Is it true you cheated on him?”
“No! I never cheated on him. I mean—oh, none of your business!” I didn’t mean to speak out loud. But I never cheated on John. I wasn’t with Ty until John and I were separated. I walk briskly away, yanking the stupid suitcase behind me. The flashbulb mob follows close behind. I’ll never shake them, even if I start running. I turn to face them and consider giving them a statement. I promised John I wouldn’t talk to them but I don’t see any easy way out of this.