“You mean move out right away? There’s no need for that. You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”
“I know, but I don’t feel right about it. You and Mom have done so much for us already.”
He waved that away. “Think of the money you can save. Apartments are expensive and you’d have to put Kenny in day care until he’s ready for school...”
“I need to be on my own, Daddy. I need to start living like a normal person again. You understand, don’t you?”
He understood. And he offered no more argument, because he knew she was right.
Tuesday
Another session with Stan Otaki, to discuss his most recent blood test.
“So far so good,” Otaki said. “But we’re not out of the woods yet.”
What do you mean we, Kemosabe? “You just said so far so good. Arrested growth and no indication of spread outside the prostate.”
“It’s under control for now, but the cancer hasn’t gone into remission. It can still grow, still spread, at any time.”
“What, then? More radiation?”
“No. The body can stand only so much zapping.”
“We’re back to slice and dice, is that it?”
“Surgery is still my recommendation.”
“And my answer’s still no.”
“Then the next step is hormone therapy.”
Hormone therapy. Use of drugs such as LHRH-agonists to decrease the amount of testosterone in the body, or antiandrogens to block the activity of the testosterone. Upside: These drugs cause cancer cells to shrink. Downside: possible cardiovascular problems, hot flashes, impotence and loss of sexual desire.
“Any objections to that?” Otaki asked.
“No,” Hollis said bleakly, “no objections. When do we start?”
Wednesday
Angela landed the job in the Paloma State bookstore. She would begin work and Kenny would begin day care the first of next week.
Friday
Pierce took Angela out to dinner to celebrate her new job. Not Kenny, just her — him in a suit and tie and her all dressed up and glowing like a high-school girl on her first big date. They stayed out fairly late; Hollis and Cassie were still up when he brought her home. She didn’t have much to say to them before she went upstairs, wouldn’t quite meet their eyes. And the glow was more pronounced, almost a flush.
“I knew it,” Hollis said. “She went to bed with him.”
“Oh, now.”
“You saw that humid look on her face. She let him screw her again.”
“Well, what if she did? She’s a grown woman, with normal appetites.”
“Pierce,” he said. “For God’s sake.”
“She was married to him for four years, Jack.”
“And that makes it all right?”
“Whatever Ryan is or isn’t, he’s several steps up the ladder from David Rakubian. He can’t possibly be as bad for her, can he?”
In bed a while later, he realized that it wasn’t really his daughter’s sex life that was upsetting him, it was his own. He hadn’t had an erection since the night of Rakubian’s burial, not even a weak twitch from the old soldier. His sex drive was already gone, cancered and radiated away. But it wasn’t himself he was sorry for, it was Cassie. She had always been as highly sexed as he was; enjoyed him as often and as enthusiastically as he enjoyed her. She had to be twice as frustrated. Yet she hadn’t complained, and when he’d offered to give her release in one of the other ways she’d said no, it wouldn’t be any good for her if he couldn’t share the pleasure. Still, he felt bad for her, and guilty even though he had no control over the situation. It wasn’t fair. She deserved much better than this.
In that uncanny way she had sometimes, she seemed to intuit what he was thinking. She moved closer to him, put her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest, not touching him with her body. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Just having you here next to me is all I need.”
Trying to make him feel better. It wasn’t enough, dammit. Not for a whole woman with half a man.
Saturday
Cassie took Angela apartment hunting, and when they returned they were all smiles. They’d looked at places in Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, and finally found one right here in Los Alegres — on Sunnyslope, not much more than a mile away. One-bedroom, ground-floor apartment with a tiny fenced rear yard. Five hundred a month, which was pretty reasonable for a furnished apartment these days. Cassie had paid the first and last months’ rent and the security deposit — a loan Angela promised to pay back at twenty or twenty-five dollars a month. She would, too. Scrupulously.
The find pleased Hollis as well. She and Kenny would still be close by; he would not have to start missing them all over again.
Sunday
He felt pretty good, so he insisted on helping with the move. Angela had little in the way of essentials; everything fit into her Geo. Some kitchenware, sheets and towels, a few other items came from Cassie’s stock. Twenty-five years old, two marriages, a son, and all she had to show for it were a few articles of clothing for her and the boy, a box of personal items, an outdated PC, and an eight-year-old car. If she took up with Pierce again, she’d never have much more. Thinking about that prospect didn’t make him angry, it just made him sad.
And of course Pierce showed up at the apartment as they were moving her in. Kenny seemed to have accepted him completely now; called him Dad and spent as much time hanging around him as he did his granpa. I’m going to lose the boy, too, Hollis thought, and then told himself he was being selfish. He wanted them to be happy, didn’t he? Even if that meant being with Pierce?
Yes, as long as he treated her right this time. If he didn’t—
If he didn’t, what, Hollis? You and Eric will kill him and bury his body under another concrete slab?
The thought was depressing. And made him be nicer to Pierce than he’d been since the kid’s return.
Tuesday Morning
He came home from his weekly visit with Stan Otaki at eleven-thirty. During his six weeks of daily radiation doses, he’d needed someone — Cassie, Gabe, Gloria, taxis on a few occasions — to transport him to and from the hospital. Now that that ordeal was over he was able to drive himself places again, as long as he didn’t overdo it with any lengthy trips. He hated being dependent on others; the one thing he needed almost as much as his family was the ability to fend for himself. Which was another reason why the thought of surgery started him trembling inside: He’d be helpless, completely at the mercy of one casual acquaintance and a team of strangers.
The mail had already been delivered; he fished it out of the box, sifted through it as he let himself into the house. Bills, junk, a charity solicitation, two mail-order catalogs. And a white, business-size envelope, with his name and address typed or computer printed, he couldn’t tell which; first-class postage, no return address. More junk, probably. He set the other mail on the hall table, tore open the envelope, and shook out the single sheet of white paper it contained.
In the upper middle of the sheet was a single line of type, in capital letters:
14
It was like a blow to the head: sudden numbing shock, a few seconds of disorientation. He stared at the words until they began to shimmer and blur, as if they were breaking up on the paper.
Somebody knows.