“That’s up to you. Your options are the ones I just gave you. You two can talk it out at home, if you want, but we are going to need to move pretty soon. I just don’t think we are having a lot of luck with the chemotherapy, not as much as I’d hoped, anyway.”
“She’s signed up for the therapy, right?” I ask, looking from Julia to the doctor.
“Mr. Gentry, the insurance company denied Everleigh for that.”
“I know,” I say, confused, “but you said if we came up with the money that she could get in.”
He nods. “Yes, that’s true. But a substantial amount of that must be paid in advance. This isn’t something you can sign a promissory note for.”
“I understand that,” I say, not appreciating his tone. “What I don’t understand is why she isn’t ready to go.”
I look at Jules and she’s watching the floor. “You did tell them we had the money, right?”
“We don’t,” she says.
“Yes, we do.” I try to stay calm as I turn my attention back to the doctor. Getting charges for assault before my fight isn’t gonna help anyone. “I will have the money, in full, on July 13th. Get her ready to go.”
“Excuse me for asking, but how are you getting that kind of money that quickly?”
“You’re excused.” I’m not about to answer this motherfucker. I know his type: a know-it-all, holier-than-thou asshole that thinks he’s better than us. If I tell him I’m fighting for the money, he’ll automatically think it’s a cock fight; it’ll be handing him my sins while he sharpens his knife.
“Mrs. Gentry, I’ll need to know your choice in a few days,” he says softly.
Julia pulls her head up, her eyes wide. She searches my face, studies me for a long couple of minutes before turning back to the doctor. She takes a deep breath, a look of resolution falling across her face. She squares her shoulders.
“We will have the money on July 13th. Please get things ready.”
CREW
“So, Sal’s given me an assignment,” Will says, sipping a beer. The drink looks all too good and I have to fight the urge to drink one. “I’m supposed to figure out what music you want to come out to and what color trunks to order you. Apparent-fucking-ly, I’m your bitch.”
“I’ve said that for years,” I say, putting my feet up on the coffee table.
Will rolls his eyes and settles back into his chair by the window. “Funny. Real fuckin’ funny.”
The television is on, but I’m not watching it. None of it matters anymore. Nothing they say, nothing going on in the world, no home-runs or funny commentary really fucking matters.
I just got home from the hospital and Ever is still not well. The chemo is destroying her faster than it is the cancer. Today was her last day in the cycle, so she should come home tomorrow.
Home. Funny how this place just started feeling like a real home since the girls moved in. I loved being a bachelor, living in my own space, and now I just want their shit strung everywhere. I want pink globs in my shower from Ever’s bubble bath. I want house slippers by the sofa, dishes in the sink, dark locks in the bathroom drain. I want all of it. I want all of those things that turn a house into a home.
“So?”
“Get me black trunks. Black shoes. Gold hand wraps. Get us black shirts with. . . . ‘Believe‘ on the front in gold writing. Put whatever you want on the back but don’t make it fucking stupid. And no intro song on the speakers. Just the one I’ll listen to in my headphones.”
“What?” Will asks, sitting up. “Come on. That’s the best part of the entire fucking event! I’ll just pick something for you. Maybe a little Eminem or—”
“No song, Will.”
“You seriously suck the fun out of everything. Lame.”
“So, help a lame ass out. I don’t want to talk about fighting tonight. I don’t want to talk about anything that’s gonna give me a headache. Entertain me.”
“All right,” he says and tips the rest of his beer back. He sets the empty bottle on the coffee table. “But I do want to point out that you are, indeed, lame. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore. You have responsibilities. Morals. Considerations.” He shivers, making me laugh.
“Who you fucking these days?” I ask.
“There’s the Crew I know. I’m actually still banging Macie.”
“Macie?”
“Yeah, I’ve fucked her for a few weeks now. She was in the bar the other night, remember?”
“Oh,” I say, teasingly, “the one that walked out with the Tap-Out King. I do remember.”
“I don’t wanna go there, asshole.”
I laugh. “You a little fuck foundered?”
“I just don’t get it. The only one I’d ever think, ‘Oh, I just kinda wanna fuck her’ is the one that is like, ‘Oh, I’ll fuck you if I have time.’ What. The. Hell?”
My chuckle turns into full-blown laughter. “She’s giving you an economics lesson, Will. Supply and demand.”
“This is so not funny,” he says, smiling. I know he’s telling me this to take my mind off of everything else and I appreciate it. “What do you do in this situation?”
I shrug. “Hell if I know. The only girl I ever felt that way about before is Jules.”
“Well we know how messed up that has been, so maybe I need to get advice elsewhere.”
“Probably so.”
“How are things between you these days?” he asks carefully.
“Fine. Good. I mean, under the circumstances . . . You know, here we are, building this relationship together again. Some days it feels like we are seventeen again and things are like they should be, you know? And then reality hits and we look around and I know she feels guilty to be enjoying any part of her life when Ever’s so sick.” I blow out a breath. “I feel that, too, sometimes. But what do you do? Do you stop completely living? Do you stop feeling? Do you stop loving? Do you stop needing someone else?”
I run my hand across the top of my head, feeling the loss of hair driving home my point.
“So you two aren’t together, together?”
“Oh, we’re together. Don’t get confused,” I warn. His little innuendos were funny when she was married to Gage. Now? Not so much. “I’m just saying that if things were different in our lives right now, that maybe we would be a little farther along than we are. That’s all.”
“Before all this happened with Ever, she didn’t even like you much.”
I laugh. “That’s true. So who knows . . .”
“Who knows.” He rises from his seat, stretching his arms over his head. “I’m going to head out. I have this asshole friend that trains early and I think I’m going to head over there and figure out what to do about his trunks. Since I’m his bitch.”
I stand and grab his shoulder. “I appreciate everything, Will. Seriously, all joking aside.”
He eyes me, his face blank. “You kill that motherfucker in the ring and I’ll consider it even. Okay?”
We shake hands. “Deal.”
JULIA
I turn the radio on and press through the saved stations. I turn it off. I glance into the rearview mirror and see Ever snuggled into her booster chair watching the world go by.
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?”
She turns her head and smiles at me through the mirror. “I’m okay.”
“Do you hurt?”
“I always hurt a little. But it’s not so bad now.”
It’s just another pin in my heart.
The nurses gave her a stronger dose of pain medicine before we left the hospital. Macie, our favorite nurse, seemed to push us through dismissal quicker than usual. I think she sensed our need to get out of there.
Macie has been a Godsend to us. We’ve formed a little friendship over the past few weeks. She’s funny and smart and very no-nonsense. I’m not sure how she and Will met, but from our conversations and his name being brought up, I’m positive that there’s something going on between them.
I r
eally thought they’d keep her another day, but the doctor said she was stable enough to go home today.
When did “stable” become the preferred word to use to describe a child?
The thought makes me sick. I breathe deeply, warding off the puking sensation and the tears that feel like they’re going to pour. Everything is hitting me at once and I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I just want to sleep. I want to close my eyes and not have nightmares that wake me up in a cold sweat, just to see I’ve only been out a matter of minutes. Nightmares so bad that I don’t want to risk going back to sleep again.
I want to have a normal conversation with my daughter. One where I’m not trying to absorb every little word, every nuance. I want to do all of the stupid little things that I normally hate but miss so badly, things like dishes and laundry and vacuuming. What I wouldn’t give to have a day just to crank up the radio and clean because that’s all that had to be done. I remember back to worrying about the water bills. I still do, but it seems so . . . trivial . . . at this point. I look back at Ever again and she’s watching me. I wish I had realized earlier that nothing matters but us. Together. How many days did I let pass and not cherish them? How many days did I let pass and miss the entire point of the day? If I wake up tomorrow and she’s not. . . .
No! Don’t go there.
I fight back the tears springing to my eyes. I can cry tonight when she’s sleeping and Crew is training. I can cry in the shower and blame my puffy eyes on the hot water. I can cry to myself and not add anymore stress on the two people in the world that I love and are fighting things of their own.
I can’t even think about Crew fighting. I can’t. I know it’s coming up. I can feel him shifting. He won’t talk a lot about it. He just tells me not to worry but I do. When I let myself think about it, usually late at night while I’m watching Ever sleep, I worry. I don’t know how he’s going to fight. I don’t know why he thinks for sure he’s going to win. I don’t know much about the guy he’s fighting or what it all entails; he keeps me protected from that. I’m grateful for that, in a way, but I also feel like there’s so much more to what’s going on than I know.
“Are you happy, Mommy?”
“Of course. I’m with you, aren’t I?”
She doesn’t look convinced. “I want you to be happy, Mommy. I want you to smile like you used to smile. It makes me happy to see you smile and you don’t very often anymore.”
“Oh, baby,” I say, trying not to break down in the middle of traffic. “I am happy. I’m just worried a lot right now.”
“About me?”
“I always worry about you. You’re my baby.”
Ever doesn’t respond. She just traces something on the window of the car.
“Are you happy, baby girl?” I ask.
“Kinda.” I hear her sigh. “I miss going to school. I miss staying all night with Mrs. Bennett. I miss having good dreams.”
“You don’t have good dreams?”
“No. I have bad ones. But don’t tell Daddy that his dream catcher isn’t working, okay? It would make him sad.”
“It’ll be our secret,” I say softly.
“You know what does make me happy?”
“What’s that?”
“Going home. I like having us in one spot. I like it when he comes in my room and thinks I’m asleep and kisses my forehead. He always whispers a little prayer and then tells me to fight. It makes me feel happy.”
My willpower is nothing against her words. The tears begin and all I can do is make sure they don’t come out in full-blown sobs.
“He says I’m a Gentry and Gentry’s are fighters. We can beat anything. He makes me feel strong. I like that because I don’t feel very strong.”
I turn onto Crew’s street, thankful we are so close. My vision is completely blurry and my heart is breaking.
“I’m really sick, aren’t I?” she asks.
“You’re sick, but you’re going to get better. Remember the doctors telling us that you have to feel yucky before you can feel better again?”
I pull into the driveway and shut off the engine. I take a deep breath before unlatching my seatbelt and twisting around to see her.
“I hope so,” she says. “But sometimes I think maybe I’m just going to see my other Daddy.”
“Ever, no . . .” I feel my face twist as I gasp for breath. “Don’t say that.”
She’s completely calm. Her little rosebud lips quip up in the corners. “If I do, it’s okay, Mommy. I think Daddy misses me.”
“Everleigh Nicole, stop that. You stop this right now.” I jump out of the car and throw her door open. I start fiddling with her seatbelt, trying to get her out as fast as possible. I can’t take it. I need to hold her. I need to reassure her.
“Mommy,” she says. Her tone halts me. My eyes rise to meet hers. “Everything is going to be okay. I know it.”
CREW
“He said fucking what?” I roar, stalking across the gym towards Will. “Repeat that.”
“Crew—”
“Read it again!” I look at Will. “Now.”
“’He’s really put me in a spot, you know?’ Davidson says, wrapping a towel around his neck,” Will reads from the article on his phone. “’But at the end of the day, this is a business transaction for the both of us. Everyone gets into this business for their own reasons. His is just a little sadder than mine, I guess. But yeah, knowing his niece won’t have the funds to get her treatment . . . that blows. But it’s really not my problem and it isn’t going to change my game plan. I’m going to end him fast and move on. I hope he has a Plan B because all this fight’s gonna do is get him another bed in the hospital.’”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“You’re going to focus on the fucking fight and not what that punk says,” Sal says firmly. “He’s saying this shit to get in your head because he knows someone will fuck up and read this shit to you.”
“I think this is good motivation,” Will says.
“I’m this close from kicking you the fuck out of this gym,” Sal tells him.
“I’m going to pretend like you didn’t say that,” Will grimaces.
Sal blows out a breath and heads to his office. “We have days! Days left ‘til this fight!” He yells over his shoulder. “Don’t lose your head now, Gentry.”
I push open the doors and head into the late afternoon sun. I know Sal’s right but it’s hard to control everything at this point. Davidson running off at the mouth, thinking he has any right at all to even discuss Everleigh.
Fuck that motherfucker.
“I think Sal’s wrong. I think you need to hear this bullshit,” Will says, stopping by his car.
“I think he needs to die.”
“I agree.” He leans against the hood of the car. “You okay?”
“Just a few days left now.” I see my reflection in the windshield. I look ready. I’m lean. I’m strong. I feel good, more or less. “I’ve gotta block the rest of this shit out. No more Davidson bullshit, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay. How’s Ever?”
“Hanging in there. They switched up her medicine and she’s having a hard time with it. The tumors are shrinking but not as quickly as they’d like. I don’t understand all the numbers and shit, but what I gather is that the progression has kind of paused but hasn’t started going the other way very much.”
His face falls. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. They keep telling us that they’ll keep trying different things. That you can never predict how someone will react to different formulas and shit.”
“But this medicine you’re getting with the money you win,” he says, pausing to let that sink in, “it’s supposed to help.”
I smile, appreciating the sentiment. “Yeah. That’s what they say. There are no long-term studies on it because it’s a new thing. But they have kids sicker than Ever go through there that are currently cancer-free, kids that they’d basically written off.”
> “How’s Julia?” he asks.
“She’s hit the wall. She’s just sick. I know sitting there day in and day out is rough and I hate that I can’t be there to lessen that load. But I have to work and I have to train.” I sigh. “Olivia and the lady from the restaurant try to come by and let her go eat or sleep and she just won’t leave Everleigh anyway.” I sigh. “I’m just over this shit, Will. I just am getting hit from every fucking angle.”
“I don’t envy you. At all. But I respect you. I can’t imagine what would be going on if she didn’t have you.”
“Yeah, well, I just have a few days ‘til the fight. I’ve intentionally not told her much about it. I just want them untainted by it all. They have so much going on and this fighting world is so dirty. When I go home, it’s pure. It may not be happy because Ever’s sick, but it’s my little world. And I just want them to be . . .” I take a deep breath. “Look, Will. I don’t know how to say this. But if things don’t go the way we think they will and something happens to me—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Let me finish.”
“No. I know what you’re going to say.” He’s pissed. His usual goofy smile is gone, his features completely changed. “And I’m not going to stand here and even entertain the fucking thought. You know this game. It’s more mental than anything. So push that shit out of your head, Crew.”
“I know, but what I want to say is that if something goes wrong, I need you to—”
“That goes without saying,” he cuts in. “Just shut the fuck up and go home and tell those girls you live with that I said hi.”
He jumps in his car and pulls out before I can say another word.
CREW
I sit my bag down and turn the corner. My girls are sitting on the couch, watching cartoons. Ever looks a little pale, but not as pale as Jules.
I walk across the room and kiss Ever on the cheek. I turn to Julia.
Fuck it.
I kiss her, too.
She might get pissed but I don’t care. I only have a few days left before I fight and I’m not wasting any more time. I’ve been thinking of the things I’d say to my Ma or to Gage if I had another day with them. How I’d tell Ma that she was right. That I was sorry for causing her so much worry. I’d thank her for doing her best with me and apologize for making her life so much more complicated with my antics. I’d tell Gage thank you for always having my back, even when everyone else turned against me. I’d thank him for picking up the pieces of my life and just kind of holding them until I could find them again. I’d tell him that I respect him more than any other person I’ve ever met.
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