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I closed my eyes, taking in the terrible news.
I had accompanied Dad to every one of his cancer treatment appointments, acting as a surrogate for my mom. On his final day of chemo, I was there, holding a graduation balloon withCongratulations! written on it that I’d picked up for him at the supermarket.
But now the cancer was back. I reminded myself that we had licked it before and would do it again.
“Can you please send copies of the scans to his surgeon and oncologist?” I asked the doctor.
“I’m afraid the cancer has metastasized throughout your body,” the doctor told Dad.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“It’s a quality-of-life issue now,” the doctor clarified.
I looked over at Dad, who was quiet. He had registered the doctor’s words.
“You can continue with treatments that will probably make you feel sick, but it won’t change the outcome,” thedoctor continued. “You should consider how you want to spend the time you have left. I’m sorry.”
It felt like a dream. It couldn’t be real. Was I now going to lose Dad too?
After the doctor left, I hugged Dad, and he held me in his arms.
“I promise you’ll be okay, Beans. You have Jay and your career, and you know how proud I am of you. That will never change, even if I’m not around.”
It hit me, the gravity of the news, and I started to cry.
“I know I wasn’t the easiest daughter,” I told him. “I’m sorry for what I put you through.”
“It wasn’t you, Beans,” he said. “It was the disease.”
I still couldn’t help but wonder if I was responsible for causing his cancer due to all the stress he’d endured because of ED.
Later that evening, the nurse finally kicked me out of the hospital room because visiting hours had ended. I left in a dreamlike state, in disbelief over the awful news.
That night I got a call at three in the morning that dad had taken a turn for the worse and that I should come to the hospital.
But the doctor didn’t tell us it would be so soon. I would’ve never left him!I thought.
I ran to the hospital, terrified I might not make it to see him one last time and that I might be deprived of saying goodbye to him as I had been with Mom.
I sprinted into the building and rode up the elevator to his floor. When the doors opened, a nurse stopped me, told me it was after hours, and that I wasn’t allowed in any patient’s room. I explained the situation, but she told me she still had to verify what was going on before I’d be allowed into his room.
I wasn’t about to wait, so I pretended I was going to the bathroom, and as soon as she walked toward a computer station to check something, I headed toward Dad’s room.
When I turned the corner, I saw a woman’s silhouette leaving it. Her back was facing me as she walked quickly down the hall. She wasn’t dressed in medical scrubs. I wondered if she was a visitor who had gone to the wrong room. But it was after hours, so whoever she was, she wasn’t allowed to be there.
As I watched her from behind, I realized she looked like Mom, the way I had remembered her. She ducked into a stairwell. I ran down the hall, trying to catch her. But when I opened the stairwell door, she was gone.
And by the time I got to Dad’s room, he was too.
CHAPTER45
IFOLLOW THE MOUSY-LOOKINGwoman with glasses and frizzy hair away from the crowd.
“Do you know something about the hearing?” I call out to her. “I just want a minute of your time.”
“Please stop following me,” she says as she ducks into a stairwell of an adjacent building.
I follow her anyway, down the stairs until we reach an underground parking lot. She stops in front of a blue Acura, finally turning to face me.
