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“Wren—”
“Okay, Jonah. Okay.” He sighs with resignation, pats the air. “Why don’t you get those guys where they need to go. Give me some time to talk to my daughter.”
Jonah bows his head a long moment, and then he grips the side of my face and pulls my temple toward his lips, pressing a kiss against it, lingering there for one . . . two . . . three beats. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and then he’s gone out the door.
“Well, it’s good to see you’re finally getting along,” my dad murmurs, smiling.
“Yeah. Um . . .” Despite everything, I feel my cheeks flush.
“Pull up a chair. Stay a while.” He gestures to the seat Mabel just left. It’s still warm when I settle into it.
“What’s going on, Dad?” I ask, my voice shaky with wariness.
He simply studies my face, long and hard.
“Dad—”
“Your grandfather had lung cancer, too. You knew that, right?”
“Yeah. Mom told me.”
My dad nods slowly. “Same kind that I have. Small cell. It’s more rare than the other kind and yet we both got it. And it grows fast. By the time they found it in him, his odds weren’t great, but he figured he should listen to everyone else and do the chemo.” He shakes his head. “Those last six months of his life were hell. He was in Anchorage a lot and when he wasn’t, he barely got out of bed. My mom took good care of him, as good as she could, anyway. But it wasn’t easy on either of them. By the time he called it quits on treatment, he was just a shell of a man.” My dad chews his bottom lip a moment. “One of the last things he ever said to me was that he wished he’d just made peace with it from the beginning. He would have had less time, but at least he might have enjoyed it more. He would have spent his last days on his terms. That always stuck in my head.”
Realization dawns on me, as I begin to understand where my father’s going with this.
And the horrible, sinking feeling that settled earlier gives way to a numbing calm.
“But that was, like, thirty years ago. Everything’s more advanced. The chances of surviving—”
“There’s no surviving this, Calla,” he says with grim finality. “Not this type. Not this far in.”
“But you’re fine.” He’s nothing like Mrs. Hagler was, with her decrepit body and her sallow skin, her oxygen tank rolling behind her. “I mean, obviously you’re not fine right now because you’re in the hospital, but a week ago you were fine.” I don’t sound like myself.
“Nah, I wasn’t. I’ve just been good at hiding it. I don’t have as much energy as I used to. And I’ve been having chest pains for some time,” he admits.
“Because of the tumor?”
“Yeah. Partly.”
“So they can shrink it. That’s what radiation is for. And the chemo will kill the cells—”
“It’s already spreading, Calla.” Soft, gray eyes finally lift to meet mine. “It’s in my lymph nodes. In my bones. All that stuff just buys me a tiny bit more time, and it won’t be good time.”
“How much time, exactly?” The question comes out in a croaky whisper.
“It’s hard to say, but they gave me two, maybe three months, with it.”
I suck in a sharp, shaky breath. “And how much without?”
He hesitates. “Four to six weeks at most, they’re thinking.”
A cold feeling spreads through my chest as his words hit me like a punch to the stomach. How is that possible? He looks fine. “I just . . . The doctors are wrong, obviously. They’re always wrong, Dad! Always,” I stammer as the words tumble out. “I hear stories all the time about how people beat the odds and survive for years.”
He sighs. “Not always, Calla. Those are the stories that people remember because they need to. People need hope. But, not always. Not this time.”
My initial shock ebbs as frustration and anger with his refusal to listen rushes forward. “So, that’s just it? There’s no talking about it anymore? There’s no convincing you to at least try to live? For me? For Mom?” My voice cracks. I’m getting desperate now.
“If I let them pump me with all that shit, I’ll be spending my last bit of time sleeping and puking, and in some hospital room for eight hours a day, five days a week, until I stop or I die. That’s not how I want to go. I want to do it on my own terms.” He reaches for my hand, but I find myself unable to take it and after a moment, his fingers fall lazily next to his side. “I thought about you, when the doctor gave me the news. You were the very first thing I thought about. I didn’t know if I should call you right away, or if I shouldn’t call at all. Wasn’t sure if I had any right to. Figured you might not want to know, after all these years.” His eyes grow glossy and he blinks the sheen away. “I’m glad Agnes didn’t listen to me and did what I didn’t know how to do. What I didn’t have the guts to do. I’m so glad you came.”
