The Topsail Accord

by J T Kalnay

  Her bags are packed and ready to go. She asks for Joe to call a bellman and a cart to carry her bags to her car. It is the first time she has done so.

  “That race really took a lot out of me,” she says. “I might be coming down with something.”

  “So why don’t you stay a day or two until you feel better? I don’t want you driving if you’re getting a cold or the flu,” Joe says.

  She squeezes his hand, kisses his cheek. “It’s sweet of you to worry, but I’ll be fine. And I’d rather be sick at home than sick in a hotel.”

  They go to her car together, and he kisses her one more time. He holds his hand against her forehead.

  “You don’t feel feverish,” he says.

  “Then probably just a cold,” she replies.

  She kisses him again then gets in her car.

  “I’ll see you at Vista Guapa,” she says.

  Shannon

  “So this is what a hundred million dollars buys?” Shannon asks.

  “Yes,” Cara answers. “Let me show you around.

  The sisters are touring Cara’s new lab. Serious looking people in white lab coats are trying not to look too obvious as they try to catch a glimpse of Cara’s sister, the billionaire donor who has donated this lab and the money for them to keep their jobs.

  “Without this money most of these people would be out of work,” Cara says.

  “Why?”

  “The government just doesn’t fund cancer research anymore,” Cara says.

  “Well then it’s a good thing we struck oil,” Shannon says.

  “Or that you did anyway,” Cara corrects her.

  “You know what I mean,” Shannon says.

  They share a sisterly laugh.

  “What’s that?” Shannon asks, pointing at a piece of equipment near a lab bench.

  “It’s a hand held scanner that we use to examine tumors in the mice we are using for our study.”

  “How’s it work?” Shannon asks.

  “Well, it turns out that certain types of tumors will auto-fluoresce if you hit them with just the right wavelengths of light in just the right pattern. So all we have to do is wand an animal with this scanner and then we can get photographs of the tumor margins from the auto-fluorescence. We don’t need to do MRI or PET or x-rays or anything.”

  “Cool,” Shannon says. “Can you show me?”

  “For my biggest donor? Of course,” Cara says.

  A lab assistant delivers a mouse that has a tumor in its flank.

  Cara takes the mouse in her hand, where the mouse seems perfectly content. “It doesn’t hurt them, and they don’t even seem aware that they’re being tested,” Cara says. She turns on the equipment and begins slowly moving the wand from the mouse’s nose towards its tail.

  “Is that it?” Shannon says. “Right there on its haunches.”

  “Yes,” Cara says.

  “That is cool. Can I try?”

  “Sure,” Cara says. “You’re not afraid to hold the mouse?”

  “If you can take it, I can take it,” Shannon says.

  “It’s funny because that’s what the little boy that came to visit said.”

  “What little boy?”

  “You remember the one whose sister died and she’d asked to meet Danny for her wish so that her dad and brother could meet her?”

  “Yes,” Shannon says.

  “Anyway. He wanted to wand his dad and then himself to make sure they didn’t have cancer. He did it here that first fall after you met Joe. Remember?”

  “That’s right. He sent Danny.”

  “Actually she came on her own. You know that.”

  “Yes I suppose I do.”

  “That kid did the same thing the next summer when I started visiting the Foundation at UNCW. He’s in med school right now. Actually an MD-Ph.D. program. He’s going to do a rotation in my lab for a year. Here you try,” Cara says.

  She hands the mouse and the wand to Shannon. Shannon begins to wand the mouse and the tumor once again lights up.

  “Does it work the same way on humans?” Shannon asks. She begins passing the wand up her arm.

  “We’re working on that,” Cara says. “We’ve been working on that for nearly ten years. It has a depth of penetration problem we haven’t been able to solve.”

  “Well. If it does, I think I might have a problem,” Shannon says.

  “What are you talking about?” Cara asks.

  Shannon passes the wand over her forearm again. The margins of what looks like a twisting vine follow the wand as it passes up her arm.

  Shannon and her sister share a look.

  “Let me see that,” Cara says. She recalibrates the device, wands the mouse again and then instantly wands Shannon’s arm. It shows the tumor outlines again. She passes the wand up and down her own arm without revealing anything. She recalibrates again, wands the mouse, and then wands her sister. The results are duplicated.

  “Come with me,” Cara says. She leads her sister into her office. Begins to wand the rest of her body. “Take off you top, and your pants,” she orders.

  “Cara, you’re scaring me,” Shannon says.

  “Just do it,” Cara answers. Shannon complies. Cara passes the wand over every exposed part of her sister. Two more tumor outlines are discovered. One in her breast, one under her arm.

  “I’m so sorry,” Cara says. There are tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  Shannon

  “This is the cruelest irony I could ever imagine,” Cara says.

  “I’ve had a wonderful life, it’s okay,” I say.

  “It’s not fair,” Cara says.

  “What’s fair? We’re all going to die of something. I’m not going to die today, or tomorrow, or even next week. We’re all going to the beach house for another July and no-one is going to be able to tell because you’re going to fix me up,” I say.

  “Yes I can dose you now, and when we’re down there, and people probably won’t be able to tell. But dosing you now is just going to make it worse in August.”

  “I know,” I say. “But in August I’ll be by myself and no-one will need to see. In July we’ll have the family all together and I’ll see Joe sometimes in the morning. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “Yes. But not until the last day. I’m going to tell him that I have cancer and that I am going to die and that I am not going to put him through it.”

  “Will he take that? Will he let you die alone?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve asked so much from him already by asking him to let me be all these years. I don’t know if he’ll give me this or if he’ll want to see it. I don’t want him to see it. I don’t want his life to be bracketed by the loss of his daughter when he was young and the loss of his lover when he is old.”

  “Shouldn’t you let him decide?”

  “No. It’s not a decision he should make for himself. He would think he should do this or he should do that and he wouldn’t make up his own mind. He would let love or something cloud his judgment and end up hurting himself.”

  “So now you are deciding what should and shouldn’t be done?” Cara asks.

  Shannon stops, stares in her sister’s face. Realizes what she has done.

  “I think you might consider letting him decide,” Cara adds softly.

  “Fine. I’ll tell him on the last day. When I stop at his shop for a cup of Joe for the road. I will tell him and then I will drive off and let him decide. But I am going to tell him that I don’t want him there for it. That if he wants to watch he is going to be going against my wishes.”

  “That’s even worse than not telling him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you’re right that no matter what you tell him he’s going to want to be there for you, and if you do tell him that you don’t want him there, then not only is he going to suffer through your illness with you, but he’s going to feel bad every day because he feels like he is goin
g against your wishes.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “Maybe you’re better off not telling him.”

  “Maybe so,” I say.

  Shannon

  He has noticed. Noticed that I don’t want to go running. I have explained it by saying I pulled a muscle in my back at the digs. So we walk slowly in the mornings and we casually stroll in the evenings. We sneak our hours together when my sister can clear out the house and when we do he is tender with me. This year she has outdone herself, clearing everyone out for entire days.

  Today she has taken them all on a ferry ride to a nature preserve on a smaller barrier island. She had them on the road by seven and they will not be back until ten. Joe and I have had the entire day together and we have made the most. He has been gentle.

  We have walked at sunrise, made love in the morning, waded in the ocean in the noonday heat and made love in the afternoon. If he has noticed that I have lost weight he has said nothing. We are sitting on the front porch watching the sun set over the Sound. My hand is in his.

  “You’re warm,” he says.

  “Maybe I got sunburnt?” I answer.

  “No. Like you have a fever,” he says.

  “I do have a fever. I have some sort of equatorial jungle fever. I picked it up in Costa Rica and I wasn’t able to shake it because no-one could figure out what it was. But just before we came down here Cara arranged a consultation with a doctor who specializes in infectious diseases of Central America. He’s got it all figured out and I’m taking six weeks of the special medicine he’s prescribed.”

  “Is that why you haven’t wanted to run?” Joe asks.

  “In part. Mostly because of the pulled muscle. I’ve really just been too tired from the antibiotics. But it’s nearly over,” I say.

  “You could have told me,” Joe says. “After all these years you are allowed to tell me when you are sick. You are even allowed to ask for help.”

  “There was nothing to tell. I had a fever that no-one could figure out, and now it’s figured out, and I’m taking the medicine and I’m tired,” I say.

  I take another sip from my nightly merlot. Our hands stay together as the sun sinks into the Sound just to the left of my cottage.

  “They’ll be home soon,” I say. Once again Joe knows that I am sending him home.

  He stands and kisses me. He looks into my eyes, staring into me in a way he has never done before. I can tell that he is trying to decide if I have told a lie about the fever.

  I have lied. I am dying from cancer and there is nothing anyone can do about it. So I have told a big lie, so big that no-one could believe that I would have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. I think that is why Joe ultimately decides that I have a fever and that I am being treated.

  He kisses me again, on the cheek, and on the forehead. His lips linger for a second on my forehead, functioning as his own personal thermometer. Yes Joe I have a fever. And yes Joe I am being treated for it. But I do not have a tropical disease. I have cancer, and tonight and tomorrow are the last two times you will see me. I want you to remember me like this, on the porch, in the sunset, and on the beach, where we have always been the best together.

  I will not make you suffer like you did with Caitlin.

  I can bear this by myself.

  I could not bear it knowing what it would do to you.

  Joe

  She has a fever.

  She says it is an equatorial disease she picked up in Costa Rica and has only now had diagnosed and treated.

  She is lying.

  I could see it in her eyes.

  But this too is part of the agreement, part of our accord. I am not allowed to question her lies. I am not allowed to intrude on whatever hell she is experiencing because it is her hell and I am not invited.

  She has a fever, and she is lying, and there is nothing I can do about it even as the heat from her fever burns in her hand and sears my skin like when I touched the weld on the bicycle my father fixed for me as a child.

  Shannon

  I am driving over the bridge to get coffee to go at Joe’s coffee shop.

  I am going to tell him that I am driving home with the family.

  Again I am lying. I am going to drive up the road to the inland road, then drive down towards Wilmington, and then cross the lower bridge and drive the coastal road back to my cottage. It will take an hour, but I need to turn left out of his parking lot instead of right, and that left turn means there is only one way to get back to my cottage without passing by his coffee shop again.

  I am going to stay in my cottage for a while.

  Just for a little while. Just until the end.

  I have told my sister that I am going to tell Joe.

  I don’t know if she believes me.

  “Hi Joe,” I say.

  “Hi Shannon,” he answers the same way he always answers.

  He has my coffee ready. My coffee in my mug at my seat at Cuppa Joe’s. By my count I have had two hundred and seven mugs of coffee on this seat in this shop. Mostly silent cups while Joe serves other customers or just hangs out on the other side of the counter. This seat in this shop is a comfortable place. I will miss it. I will miss Joe. And Joe will miss me.

  This will be his last memory of me. Sitting here in his shop. We walked on the beach this morning and held hands while we watched the dolphins hunt the sand bar. So that will be his last memory of my touch. My hand in his on a sultry morning with gentle surf and a pod of sleek dolphins just yards out on the sand bar. And this will be his last sight of me.

  I smile a smile that I know he likes. He calls it my “that’s good coffee” smile.

  “I’ll see you in October,” I say.

  “Where?” he asks. “Which lighthouse?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” I answer.

  We laugh. That will be the last sound of me he remembers. A comfortable laugh shared between a comfortable couple who have shared much in their ten years.

  “I love you,” Joe says as I walk out the door.

  “I know,” I answer, but he does not hear, because I am already out the door.

  Joe

  She has just left my coffee shop.

  I suspect it will be the last time I see her.

  I wanted to stop her. To demand to know the truth. But we have had no demands in our decade together. We made our deal and we have observed it scrupulously. It has worked and is still in force.

  She will not seek to alter the terms.

  Though these terms are now tearing me apart.

  Every cell in my body aches to hold her, to stroke her hair, to tell her that everything will be alright. It would end differently for Shannon than it did with Caitlin. It would have to. No God could be that cruel to me.

  Without her knowing I pour a cup of coffee on the floor.

  I put my head in my hands and cry. Small tears at first. Then large tears and sobs and snarfles that turn into wailing and weeping that I never imagined possible. Good-bye Shannon. Good-bye.

  Shannon

  I am back in my cottage.

  The storm is rolling in from the west. After three days of the most intense heat that the island can remember, there has to be a storm. The sun is still shining out over the Atlantic, but over the bay, and further inland, over the town, over Joe’s coffee shop, where I left him just days before, towering black clouds are rolling towards North Topsail. The humidity is nearly overwhelming.

  Renters who are new to the beach look like they believe the world is coming to an end. Islanders know that the storm, while intense, will quickly blow over. But the islanders also know that in its wake there will be tree limbs down, cars dinged with hail, and at least one flooded low area. Islanders check their stashes of batteries, make sure there is a gallon or two of water in the fridge, check that there is fuel for the generator, and for the chain saw.

  It has been blowing hard from the southwest all day. A steady 15 to 20 miles
per hour. So the Atlantic is choppy instead of its regular rolling self. No surfers are out today, and no-one has seen any dolphins. It is too rough. The storm will cure that, after it makes it worse.

  Even though the wind was howling and the ocean was rough, the beach still had many visitors today, it being a Sunday. An entire week and a day since I lied to Joe about having a fever and an entire week when I let him believe I was driving home. The impending storm has quickly driven all but the hardiest from the sand, and even they are now huddled near the steps to their ocean front homes, ready to bolt at the first flash of lightning.

  I have seen a few storms like this during my years and weeks on the island. Joe must have seen hundreds. At least five or ten every summer. Sometimes more. And I am sure Joe has seen hurricanes. But this storm is different from the tropical storms and hurricanes. Different from the howling winter storms that come out of the north east. These are thunderstorms, and they are as much a part of the island as the ocean, waves, sand, and swaying grass.

  I take another sip from my drink. My nightly merlot. I savor the taste on my lips, on my tongue, in the back of my throat. I embrace the warm feeling that it brings to me, even over the fever. And I welcome the ease and relaxation that it brings. It is one of my rituals. Like coffee in the morning, either by myself when in Ohio, or with Joe when I am here on the island. Like walking the beaches, either the Atlantic when I am on the island, or Mentor Headlands, or Cedar Point when I am in Ohio. All my rituals. Each one earned and refined over the years. I think back to those first cups of coffee with Joe. The easy way he talked and looked and the time he had taken to get to know me. The missteps with Danny and our early awkwardness. I think about the deal he made all those years ago about how we would spend our time together, our walks, and jogs, and runs. Our trips together, to the light houses, to the surf spots. I think how it worked out better than I ever could have imagined. Ten years we have spent together and apart. Together in January and July on the island, together in March or April at the surf spots, together in September or October at the light houses.