I nod and follow her down the stairs, remembering to shut the door behind me this time. In another fifteen minutes, we pull up to St. Luke’s. I reach for the door handle; I’m shaking so hard it takes three goes before I can get out. I don’t wait for Mom to park the car; I can’t. I need to know what’s happening with him. I need to be with him.
Harley’s mom and dad are already here, and I feel a strange sense of guilt as Rochelle races over to me, pumping me for information. I couldn’t help him. I don’t have answers, I only have more questions and blurry memories of what happened. Dean continues demanding answers from the nurse in triage, but we’re told to take a seat. The wait is agonizing.
My dad comes straight from his shift at a different hospital and waits with us. He’s still wearing his white coat and garners several strange looks from the staff.
Hours later, Harley’s doctor comes and tells us that he has a malignant pleural effusion, which my dad explains is a buildup of extra fluid between the lungs and the chest wall. He says they’ve performed a tube thoracostomy, and thank god Dad is here to explain all these terms in English because if he wasn’t, I’d likely kick this doctor’s ass … not everyone went to med school. Dad says he’s had a tube inserted into the chest to drain away the excess fluid. He’s stable and breathing on his own, but only Rochelle and Dean can go see him.
“What about Rose?” Dean asks. “His girlfriend?”
“I’m sorry. Right now it’s immediate family only,” the doctor replies.
I gasp like all the air just left my lungs, because we are family. We’ve always been family, and it isn’t supposed to happen like this. It isn’t supposed to be Rose and the parentals; it’s supposed to be Harley and Rose. We’re a family, he and I.
“Just go,” I tell them, because even though it’s killing me not to see him, I’d rather at least someone be in there with him instead of arguing out here.
Mom and Dad ply me with coffee and tea, snacks and water, but I want none of it. It has been two hours since Rochelle and Dean have gone into see him, and when they come through the doors from ICU I finally feel as if I can breathe again.
Rochelle puts her arms around me and says, “He’s asking for you.”
“He is?”
She nods. “First thing he said: ‘Where’s Rose?’”
Rochelle leads me through the doors into ICU, despite the icy glares the receptionist at the nurse’s station throws us.
Harley is in an enclosed room with windows on all sides. I glance at him through the glass and burst into tears. His eyes are closed, his face is pale, and his jaw is slackened with sleep. He has an oxygen tube hooked up around his ears that rests beneath his nose, but at least he’s not intubated like he was before. There is, however, a thick tube protruding from the wall of his chest, and fluid slowly drains from it into a collection bag. It’s a lot of fluid.
“Maybe I should wait.”
“No, honey, go on in,” Rochelle says, stroking a hand over my hair.
I open the door and step into the room. The bright lights do nothing for Harley’s ashen complexion, and the gauntness of his face frightens me. When I woke this morning he’d looked nothing like this. He’d been bright-eyed and literally standing at attention as we’d kissed good morning. Harley had wanted to make love; I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but it hadn’t taken long for him to convince me otherwise. So as he’d complained of a little tightness in his chest, I’d climbed off the bed and gone to the bathroom to freshen up, and by the time I came back he wasn’t breathing.
I enter the room as quietly as I can, attempting not to wake him as Rochelle shuffles in behind me. His eyes open just a crack, and his lips tip up in a half-smile.
“Hi,” I say, knowing it probably hurts to talk after the intubation tube. “You really scared the shit outta me this morning.” I take his hand in mine. He gives it a weak squeeze.
“I’ll leave you alone for a bit,” Rochelle says and smiles at us both. For the first time, I take a really good look at her face. It’s haunted. Dark shadows form under her eyes, which are red and puffy. I know her son was just admitted to the ICU, but there’s something she hasn’t told me.
“Rochelle …”
“What is it, sweetheart?”
Without knowing what to say, I just narrow my eyes. “You’re okay, right?”
“I’m fine, don’t you worry about me.” She leaves before I can ask any more questions. My stomach sinks. I don’t want to think about all the things she’s not saying. I don’t think I can handle another blow today. I just want this time with Harley, so I hold his hand and I tell him stories of when we were younger, stories he knows by heart because he was there for every glorious second, and the thing that really breaks my heart is knowing that all the glorious seconds of the end will be cut short by about fifty years. He’s leaving me. I know that now. And I’m too sad to hide how I feel. I’m raw and broken, beaten down by his illness, and I’m too weak to keep it from him so I drop my head into the palm of his hand and I cry freely.
“Love you … Wendy,” he whispers.
“You too, Harley.” I don’t have the heart to call him by his nickname because I’m too old for fairytales.
***
“I thought you said you were taking me home,” I mutter, as Dad pulls into their drive. I’m not angry. If anything, it’s nice to be here in the comfort of my parents and the house I grew up in. I don’t think I could stand to be alone tonight anyway. There will be plenty of time for that in my future.
Mom leads me into the house and to the kitchen where she sits me down and makes me tea and grilled cheese sandwiches the way she did when I was a kid. I eat a little, drink a little, and gulp down copious amounts of water to replace the fluids I lost today. There’s been an awful lot of crying going on.
As she leads me up to my room, I’m hit with a million different memories of Harley climbing in my window, spooning me in my bed, throwing balls at the wall when I was trying to study, and the most recent memories of us making love before he left for Louisiana.
I climb into the bed I slept in as a kid, complete with the same duvet cover. Mom washes it weekly, even though I haven’t slept at home since I moved out. She kisses me on the forehead and tucks me in, turning out the light, but I can’t fall asleep because I close my eyes and something isn’t right. I glance at the window, and even though I know it’s been shut for years, that it’s the dead of winter, and that Harley isn’t coming through it any time soon because he’s laid up in a hospital bed with a disease that’s killing him, I pad softly over and open it. A gust of icy air hits me in the face, and I breathe deeply as I stare at his own closed window. I know it means nothing, because neither one of us have occupied these rooms for years, but seeing that window shut up tight is like a slap in the face.
I turn away and climb back into bed, listening to the sound of my parents moving quietly about their house, our house, and I fall asleep finally in the early hours of the morning to the sound of my city waking up.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rose
In the morning I go down to breakfast, and my mom falls all over herself to get to me and squeeze me tight. “My darling girl, Rochelle called. Harley’s doing much better; there’s still a lot of fluid around his lungs but he’s sitting up and he’s eating a little something. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Oh my god, why didn’t you wake me? We have to go.”
“No, they’re not letting visitors in for another two hours. Sit, have some coffee and something to eat. I made your favorite pancakes with chocolate-chip smiley faces.”
I shoot her an annoyed look. “Mom, I haven’t eaten choc-chip pancakes since I was twelve.”
“Well, you are today.”
“I really just want to get to the hospital.”
“And do what? Pace like a cat on a hot tin roof for another two hours?”
“Mom, my boyfriend almost died yesterday. I don’t need coffee. I don’t need smiley-
faced pancakes or a lecture, I just need to see him.”
“Honey, there’s nothing for you to do there. Besides, I’m driving you, and I want pancakes and coffee.”
“I’ll call an Uber.”
She sighs. “You’re not going to let up on this, are you?”
“No, I’m really not.”
“Fine, let me get dressed and I’ll drive you, but I’m wrapping some of these up to eat while we wait,” she says, and shuffles about the kitchen at a snail’s pace, gathering enough food to feed us on an expedition through the Congo for an entire year. Once she’s filled the thermos and thrown a travel-sized coffee creamer into her purse along with several packets of sugar, she walks to the front door, grabbing her keys along the way.
I can’t usher her out the door and into the car fast enough, and then of course she takes her time checking her lipstick in the rearview mirror before I lose all patience with her. “Mom!”
“I’m going, I’m going,” she says, giving me a stern look as she puts the car in reverse.
When we make it to the hospital, the nurse tells us we’re not permitted to see him because visiting hours don’t start for another forty-five minutes. My mother rolls her eyes and shoots me an “I told you so” look. It’s the longest period of my life.
When we’re finally told we can go through, Rochelle is already in the room. I kiss Harley’s cheek and throw my arms around him, mindful of the various tubes and wires attached to his body. “How are you feeling?”
He squeezes my hand. “Like I … went three rounds with … Mike Tyson. You?”
I hate that he’s still so out of breath, and I worry that the tube they inserted in his chest wall isn’t working, but the collectables bag attached to the line is almost full, so they must have done something right.
I don’t want him to see my concern, so I lie through my teeth. “I’m perfect now.”
“You’ve … always been …. perfect.”
I chuckle. “And you’ve always driven me this nuts. Glad to have you back, Pan.”
“The boy … who … never dies.”
“Let’s just keep it that way, okay?” I say, running my hands over his bald head. He nods and closes his eyes, and I don’t know if he’s just tired or enjoying my touch. “So when can he come home?” I ask this of Rochelle, so Harley won’t be struggling for breath to speak.
“It will be at least a week or two, I imagine,” Rochelle says, but just like yesterday I know there’s something she’s not telling me.
“What? What are you not saying?” I glance between them, and then over at my mom.
Rochelle takes a deep breath. “We’ve discussed it with Harley and his doctors and we’ve all decided that a hospice is the best choice for him from here.”
I reel back as if she just slapped me. “A hospice? No! He’s not going there. You go to a hospice to die.”
“Rose, it’s spread everywhere,” Rochelle says quietly.
“So we’ll do another round of chemo.”
“He isn’t going to get better, honey, I wish it were different—believe me I do. But Harley is dying. He knows this, we know this, but you—”
“I know the prognosis isn’t good, but there are still things we haven’t tried. Clinical trials, stem cell replacement therapy …”
“Rose … no,” Harley says, squeezing my hand tightly.
Saltwater spills over my lashes, and I pull my hand from his. “You promised, remember? That day on the trampoline when you kissed me—you said we’d go together. You promised.”
“We were … dumb kids,” Harley says, and there are tears in his eyes now too. “If I … could … change it—”
“You can. You can choose to fight. Choose me, Harley. Choose us.”
“Honey,” Mom says, gently squeezing my shoulder.
“I don’t understand why none of you are fighting.” I shrug off her embrace and turn on the both of them. “You sit there like it’s all just said and done. Do none of you give a shit what happens to him?”
“Rose!” Mom shouts.
“What?” I snap back and see not only is Rochelle in tears, but my mom is too.
“Give us … a minute,” Harley says, breathlessly. Rochelle nods, and my mother, who was already standing, takes hold of her arm and they leave the room. I glare at Harley whose soft smile undoes all the rage within me. “Come sit …” I close my eyes and shake my head. “Please.”
I cave, pulling the chair closer to the bed so I don’t disturb the wires and lines attached to his arm and finger, and the oxygen tube hooked beneath his nose.
He places his hand back on the bed, palm up, and I take it. “I’m not … getting better.” I shake my head but he continues talking. “Listen … just listen. I’m not getting … out of here. It’s here or a hospice, and I don’t want to be … surrounded by doctors and wires. I want … I want the love of my life there when I go.”
“Then come home,” I beg.
“No … I won’t do that… to you.”
“Harley …”
“This is … what I want.”
“What about what I want?” I search his gaze, seeking even the smallest glimmer of hope in them. There is none. “Don’t I get a say?”
“Not … this time.” He smiles, and even as tears spill over from his eyes he gives me that teasing grin I’ve seen a million times. “I’d stay … if I could. I’d stay forever … if I had a choice … just so you didn’t have to … go through this.”
“I can’t do this without you. You’re my best friend. How do I get through a single day without seeing you?”
“Done it … before. You’ll … manage again.”
“You dead is a lot different from living four states away,” I snap. Harley flinches and I sob and squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay … I get it, but you … have to let me go.” He winces as he takes a shaky inhalation. “I told you I’d only … break your heart, didn’t I?”
“Repeatedly,” I agree on a sobbing cry.
“Because you wouldn’t listen …” He laughs and I laugh too, but there’s no humor in it, just a desperate, pathetic sound because the universe is cruel. God is cruel, and cancer is a fucking bitch.
It isn’t time yet. It can’t be. There’s too many things we haven’t done together, too much life we haven’t lived—travel, marriage and babies. There’s so many things we’re yet to do, and time keeps tripping us at every turn. We aren’t done yet. We can’t be done yet. “Marry me?”
He slowly shakes his head. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because you deserve more … than to be widowed at thirty.”
“It should be my choice, just like dying is yours.”
Harley’s face falls. He swallows hard. “Understand something. This is … not a fucking choice. This is not my choice. I just know when to call it quits and you … need to learn how to do the same.” He squeezes my hand, but it’s so weak. He winces, and I know even this tiny movement has caused him pain. “I’m not ever … getting better, Rose. My organs are … shutting down; there is no coming … back … from that. This is not … my choice. My choice would be … giving you the big … fancy wedding … you’ve always wanted.”
His breath see-saws in and out of his lungs. I know it’s hurting him and I want to tell him to stop, but I can’t. It’s selfish, I know. But I need to hear these words now in case I never get the chance again.
“I waited too fucking long and now … there’s no time left.” Tears fall from his eyes and I lay my head on his palm, and stare up at the face of the man I love. “I squandered … every second I ever had with you because I believed … I was invincible. I believed we had forever … Cancer had other … ideas.”
“Then give me what you have left. Please?” I beg on a ragged exhalation. “Please? All I ever wanted from the time I was five years old was to marry my best friend. You can still give me that.”
“Rose, no. You deserve better.”
“There is no better than that. If this is all the time I have left with you, that’s what I want. We can do it right here. This afternoon. All I want is to be your wife, Harley Hamilton.”
“You know … it was supposed to be me?”
My brow furrows in confusion. “What?”
“The one … who asked. It was … supposed to be me.”
“Yeah, but you kinda suck at doing anything on time,” I say. He laughs and then flicks the switch on his morphine drip so I know it’s time to let him rest. “Harley, do you … do you think if we had more time that we’d have ever done this?”
“It was always you … I was … supposed to marry.”
A choked laugh escapes me. “I thought that would make me feel better, but it doesn’t. We both wasted so much time. The biggest mistake I ever made was walking away from you.”
“Biggest mistake I ever made … was watching you go.”
“Better late than never … right?”
“Right … I love you, Rose. Even with one ... testicle and dying … of cancer … I’m going to be the luckiest … son-of-a-bitch on the face of … the earth.”
“Not as lucky as me.” I’ll be the luckiest woman on the planet until the cancer kills him, but every second I spend as his wife will be equal to a lifetime of happiness.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rose.
I stand in an ivory taffeta, A-line silhouette vintage dress with three-quarter-length sleeves, button cuffs, and hidden pockets. I love pocket dresses. The dress had been my mother’s and it had been hanging in her closet for as long as I could remember. It isn’t my dream Vera Wang gown; my feet are not adorned with the beautiful Jimmy Choo Viola 110 sandals with the white ostrich feather tassels; my hair isn’t done up in a messy chignon the way I’d always imagined; and my bouquet isn’t one of peonies, roses, and pink astilbe, but a bunch of wilted daisies from the hospital gift shop. It isn’t an April wedding at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, and I don’t care.
Our parents have been all over this city collecting my dress and shoes, the rings and Harley’s suit, which had to be altered by the moms with a pair of scissors from the nurse’s station to accommodate for his thoracostomy tube. Dean had even bribed a Justice of the Peace he knew with tickets to the next Mariners game if he’d marry us in a hasty bedside ceremony.
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