What he’d intended as a soft tug ended up yanking Aaron his way, spinning him in as though they were in the middle of a dance, and Oscar wished now he had taken him dancing,that he had put music on in their living room and spun him around. Their gazes collided as Aaron stabilized in front of him and his lips twitched.
“No, I want you to come with me,” he murmured.
The nurse cleared her throat, alerting them to the fact they were neither dancing nor flirting, and a moment later, they had fallen in line behind her, heading through a set of large double doors and down a hall to an office.
It was a funny thing, how innocent that pale wooden door looked, how unassuming. Did people know as they passed it that doctors could hand out life-shattering results just within? Did they understand that the most remarkable person in the world was about to enter and ask for the mallet?
“Mr. Thake?” Dr. Andrews was an older man, balding at the top with grey hair around his ears and nape. He had a soft round face and ruddy skin, his blue eyes sitting bright behind slim, frameless glasses, his white coat immaculate. His smile was a warm thing straight out of a Christmas commercial, but they were heading into spring now, and Christmas seemed like a distant dream from someone else’s life.
Oscar remembered watching Aaron bend in front of the oven. He remembered imagining him years older doing the same. It became hard to swallow.
“And this is…is he your partner?” the doctor asked, gesturing at the chairs on the other side of his desk. “Sit, sit.”
“Yes, Oscar’s my partner,” Aaron replied, settling on the chair closest to the door. Oscar took the other one, offering the doctor a polite nod.
“What are we here for, Aaron? May I call you Aaron?” The doctor clasped his hands together, clean clipped fingernails pink as peonies on stubby fingers. “I understand you have some concerns, so walk me through it.”
Oscar learned there were few things as painful as watching someone you loved go through every ugly thing they’d feltwithout you knowing. Suddenly, hewasPapa, crouching, then kneeling, on that bathroom floor while he cleaned up his teenage kid and realized that things were far worse than he’d imagined.
Aaron spared no details. He told the doctor about all the abandoned knitting projects and about stopping midway through a task and returning hours later to find a plate half-washed in the sink. He told him about yelling at Tobe, his best and oldest friend, and about not being able to enjoy anything, about leaving his food untouched sometimes and eating his weight in candy. The doctor didn’t seem alarmed when Aaron told him about the coffee machine. He nodded, that smile still sitting on his face, and Oscar wished to slap it off, because Aaron was trembling beside him as he listed every single thing that had rattled him from the inside out like a confession, signed and sealed for the verdict.
“Aaron, you’re very young,” the doctor said, when Aaron eventually stopped.
“My mother was also young.” Aaron’s chair creaked as he rocked back and forth, his anxiousness peaking as the doctor’s face altered. “My mom has Frontotemporal dementia.”
“Right.” The doctor wet his lips, reaching for a prescription pad and jotting down what looked more like a note. He nodded to himself. “Can you tell me a little bit about Mom then, Aaron?”
Oscar hated himself a little for making Aaron do this. The bus ride home was quiet. Aaron asked for an earbud, and they listened to K-pop because Felix was to Aaron as Jonathan Bailey was to Oscar, which was fair enough, but not even the five star Michelin line could ease the subtle trembling that had taken over since they’d left the doctor’s office with that piece of paper Aaron had crumpled in his pocket.
It had been a late appointment, so it was already dark when they got home, and they went instantly to the shower towash off the hospital smell. Oscar stood beneath the stream of water and held Aaron to his chest, pretended they were dancing, that this was Aaron laughing against his neck, not Aaron quietly crying. He kissed him on the head what felt like a million times and hardly enough at the same time and then he dried him off with a soft fluffy towel and sat on the closed toilet, pulling him onto his lap in his bunny pajamas and headband, dabbing the skin beneath his tired eyes with the fancy gel Marta had gifted him for his birthday.
Oscar leaned in and kissed him on the lips, softly, then pulled away, smiling.
“I’m going to send some beta feedback and then come to bed,” he said, brushing Aaron’s bangs away. “Good?”
“Yeah. I might be asleep,” Aaron replied.
“That’s all good. I’ll be the big spoon.” Oscar patted Aaron’s hip, ushering him out of the bathroom and walking him to their bedroom door like a gentleman from the past, bidding his date good night. He kissed him again. “It’s going to be okay,” Oscar said.
“Yeah.” Aaron pretended to smile. “Good night.”
“Good night, boo.”
Oscar watched him go, Luigi trilling as he dashed through the gap in the door just before it clicked shut, and then he went back into the bathroom and stuck his hand into the laundry basket, reaching for Aaron’s filthy hospital jeans.
As much as Oscar had loved mathematics, he’d always hated accounting. He remembered being roped into an elective trial at school after the guidance counselor had said he’d do excellently in the field, given how quick he was with numbers.
Now Oscar wished he’d paid a little more attention, thathe’d learned how to make sense of payment plans and interest rates.
The doctor had been very kind when he’d passed Aaron the names of specialists who might be willing to see him at the general hospital. At first, he’d told Aaron about the tests they could run to look for his mother’s condition, to see whether it lived in him, whether it might.
“How much…um…” Aaron had fumbled over the question, but the doctor hadn’t needed much more to understand.
“There’s a longer waiting list at the general hospital,” the doctor had said after writing down the names. “But look into these specialists and tell me which one you’d prefer to see. I can try to give them a call, tell them I referred you.”
A longer waiting list had been putting it mildly. Oscar had scoured the internet, scraped the bottom of every forum, added himself into every local health-oriented group on all the social media platforms he never even used. With a fine-tooth comb, he’d searched far and wide for a shred of hope, but it was clear as crystal that getting an appointment for any sort of scan would take no less than six months with the current waiting list and staffing issues at the general hospital.
Aaron couldn’t wait six months to know.
