by Will Searcy
doctors, nurses, and even cashiers all believed my son would heal. I had to believe, too.
When Sam and I arrived, the staff was cheerful. They encouraged Sam and celebrated his last treatment. They kissed his baldhead and gave him an extra lollipop. He did not eat it. The machine burned his insides and made everything taste like blood, he complained. Sam did not understand why he needed a machine to make him sicker, but I forced him to sit in that waiting room. I could only imagine what Sam must have felt, having to face the shadow of radioactive death and not understand why. It occupied my mind and sided with time, my enemy, to stab at my brain and sicken my gut with each passing second.
When the treatment was over, Sam refused to look at me in the waiting room. He did not look at me during the ride home either. Instead, Sam slouched against the rear window and fought sleep. No strength remained in his frame, no energy existed in his movement, but he fought sleep and waited. Everything he did amounted to waiting. He would eat, but only while waiting. He would sleep – no – he would not. Sleeping could cause him to miss it. Sam hated sleep now.
When we got home, I tried to feed Sam, but he refused. He felt like he would throw-up, he said. I prepared his favorite meal – chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream, and maple syrup. Sam still did not want to eat, but the enticing aroma and irresistible sight of that ambrosia was too much for Sam to deny. He took a bite, and I swear I almost saw a smile on his face. I always loved his smile. After he swallowed, his face turned grim, and he ate several more hasty bites before he held his stomach and pushed the plate away.
I smiled; knowing food of any kind was vital for Sam then. I grabbed Sam’s plate and walked it back towards the sink, slipping the last half a pancake into my mouth before running water over the sticky plate. Before I had even finished chewing, I heard the all-too-familiar retch.
Sam had vomited all over the table. He looked up at me as no one ever looks after vomiting. He was not ashamed. He was not apologetic. He was not even relieved. He was, actually, the exact same as before. It was as if Sam expected this to happen and knew better than to fight it or attach any emotion to it. I snorted in frustration and grabbed a towel to clean up the mess. Sam did not eat again.
That evening, Sam took a turn for the worse. He seemed to lose strength by the second. I called the doctors, and they told me to bring him in if he vomited again. I argued that there were no contents in his stomach to vomit, so the doctors told me to only bring him in if he got “a lot worse”. Sam’s condition had worsened, but it was so incremental that determining which increment was the tipping point into “a lot worse” proved challenging.
When my wife returned from work, she made it clear I would not play hooky that evening. She worked overtime to provide for Sam and would be damned if I did not do my part. Sam was her son, too, she said. She had sacrificed and said I should, too. It was a selfish thing to ask. It was unfair. I resented her for making me go, for even asking me to go, but I went to work.
I thought I would stay awake through the whole night. Sam’s misery was so vibrant in my mind that I thought I would wrestle with that torment like an insomniac. But, when surrounded by darkness, the mind and spirit can slip. I watched the emptiness around me from my glass perch. It was a slow night. Hardly any cars passed by, let alone ships. I must not have been missing much in the previous months of sleeping on the job. Eventually, as I stared out at nothing, the darkness won and blanketed me in sleep.
4. THE REST OF MY LIFE
I awoke dreary to the knocking at the door of my sanctuary. It was morning already, and my replacement had arrived. We exchanged brief pleasantries, and I could not ignore the curled lip of judgment on my replacement’s face when he looked into my glossy eyes, fresh from a good night’s sleep. The morning air was brisk and refreshing. The sun glowed orange on the horizon, and it had all the makings of a beautiful new day. It would be the first day of the rest of my life. A tired expression, but one I would never forget.
When I arrived home, my wife was juggling the universe. She had a heel half-on as she hopped and looped an earring. As soon as I entered the door, she derided me for being late. Then, she served a side of guilt with her criticism when she informed me she had been up all night with Sam and now faced a twelve-hour day. The thought of pecking me on the cheek or saying “I love you” may have crossed her mind before she left, but she acted on neither. Instead, she paused at the door.
“Sam’s still in bed. He said he was tired,” she told me before slamming the door. The screen door sniggered at me and clattered against the frame.
I took a moment. The house was still. The void of sound echoed in my ears until it took on a musical life of its own. The moment was not peaceful, but it was not ominous. It was nothing more than a moment. A moment in time that was identical to every other moment until we attached our emotions and meanings to them. Was this a good moment? A bad moment?
The walk through the kitchen to the back bedrooms was another moment, except it included the soundtrack of my footsteps crunching the carpet. I walked past the small bathroom we all shared and into Sam’s tiny cove of a room. He was lying in his bed, his chest slowly rising and collapsing in on itself. His eyes rolled towards me with indifference. It seemed he was having a moment similar to mine.
“How you feeling, buddy?” I asked – the stupidest question I could imagine. I had not read in some time.
He did not respond. He stayed in his moment.
“You hungry?” I asked.
No response.
“Need to go to the bathroom?”
His head nodded downward so faintly I almost did not catch it.
“Okay. Let’s go,” I said, but Sam did not move.
I wrinkled my brow. “Can you not get up?”
Again, Sam did not respond. His sleepy eyes watched me and waited. He had done a lot of waiting. I sighed, went to his bed, stooped down, and lifted him. His head seemed stuck to the pillow, and as soon as his body cleared the bed, his head lolled against my arm as if he were a drunk a pint away from alcohol poisoning. He was surprisingly light. The chemo and radiation must have taken ten pounds off of him, a lot for a four-year-old.
I walked slowly with him in my arms. In his weakness, I felt strong. I knew I could carry him wherever he needed to go. He did not need to depend on himself, because I was his father and I would be there to hold him when he struggled. As we rounded the hall towards the bathroom, I felt something growing warm and wet on my side.
“Crap,” I whispered, before rushing him into the bathroom, tearing his pajama pants down, and sitting him on the toilet. He made a mess, squirting the toilet seat, the floor, and my chest with dark copper urine. As I toweled at the mess, Sam slumped sideways on the toilet, and I had to catch him before he cracked his skull on the sink. This was the tipping point. My hiatus had skipped me past several increments of worsening and into “a lot worse”. Sam was going back to the doctor.
He glared at me from the back seat the entire car ride even though he lacked the strength to sit upright. Doctor Abaddon had said to meet him at the Cancer Center and that they would deem the appropriate steps from there. I thought about calling my wife, but she was busy and had just seen Sam’s condition. This should not be news to her.
When Doctor Abaddon saw Sam, his face was grave. He told me they would admit him to the adjoining hospital and get him on IV fluids and nutrition. The difficulty with a failing liver, he said, was that it could not filter toxins or regulate the bile entering the blood stream. Without a liver, a myriad of deadly options existed. The doctors would have to monitor him closely, and with some luck, he would make it.
“What about long-term?” I asked.
Doctor Abaddon stared at me. It was a strong look, one he must have practiced since residency. The look was not cruel, but it was not kind. It was worse than both. It was honest.<
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“Let’s see how today goes,” he said.
After he left, I felt exhausted. Speaking to the doctors was like running a marathon, and their departure was like crossing the finish line and losing the adrenaline that had kept me going. I walked over to Sam, who was curled up on the exam table, and rested a hand on his head. He used to have silky blonde hair that I liked to run my fingers through, but the radiation left him bald and touching his head sent a wave of dread pulsing through my arm. None of my five senses could explain the phenomenon, but the lump in my throat choked my breathing, and my eyes burned with fresh tears. I needed comfort. I needed relief.
For some reason, an old saying entered my head. I instantly recognized it, but I did not know the words. It had been so long since I read, and I felt so stupid. The doctors, lawyers, and bankers had to be far smarter than me now.
I caved and searched for the saying on my smartphone. It took a second for me to decide which version to choose, but I opted for the older, more poetic verse:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
I paused for the words to wash over me with comfort.
My nirvana did not come.
So, I read the words