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“I think he notices more than you think,” Aaron says after he gets in and tosses the photo albums into the back seat.
“No. He really doesn’t,” I say quietly.
He reaches over and gives my hand a squeeze. But I’m okay with where my marriage is right now. I’m okay with it being over.
“So, what’s up with you?” I ask.
“Not much,” he replies. “Staying busy.” He drives out of the complex and past the campground.
“Kids are doing okay? Since Lynda?” I don’t say “since Lynda’s death” because that part still seems like poking at an open sore.
“Miles and Kerry-Anne are fine. Sam is a little bit of a challenge. She misses her mom. I think she wishes it was me who’d died instead.”
I turn to face him. “She doesn’t wish that.”
“It’s okay,” he replies. “I wish it had been me too.”
The car is quiet for a few minutes. I can’t think of the right thing to say.
“How’s work?” he finally asks me, breaking the silence. “Are you still taking pictures?”
“No,” I reply. I quit doing that a few years ago. “I got an office job. Crunching numbers.”
His brow furrows. “You hate numbers.”
“Have to pay the bills, and taking pictures was just a hobby.”
“When we were little, you never went anywhere without a camera.”
I had wanted to be just like my mom. She always had her camera with her, and I wanted to do everything she did. “I’m not little anymore,” I remind him.
He turns off the highway and pulls up to a medical building. “Come on,” he says as he flings open his door.
“Why are we here?” I ask as I get out.
&n
bsp; “I have an appointment,” he replies. He gets the photo albums out of the back of the car. I follow him in through the glass door, the cold air tingling my cheeks. He checks in and I stand back, but they take him to the back immediately and he motions for me to come too. I follow warily, unsure of what we’re doing. He follows the chatty nurse to the back of the building, where lines of chairs and curtains are set up. He settles into a chair and unbuttons his shirt, where I see a tiny plastic disc on his chest.
I lean closer so I can see it more clearly. “What’s that?”
“Chemo port,” he says blandly, still chatting with the nurse as she gives him a little cup with pills in it, hangs a bag of fluid, and affixes the other end of the tube to the port.
When she’s gone, I blink hard and try to clear the confusion. “Are you sick again, Aaron?”
“Cancer’s a bitch,” he replies.
I suddenly feel like it’s hard to breathe. “I thought you were in remission.”
“I was,” he says. “Now I’m not.”
“And you’re only telling me this now?” I feel like someone just let the air out of me. “How long have you known?”
“I found out a little while before Lynda died.” He stares hard into my eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Honestly, I didn’t want to face it.” He shakes his head. “Cancer a second time is a little scary, Bess.” He looks into my eyes. “And I’m telling you now.”
