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I took a deep breath and turned down the beach.

Chapter 11: Cooper

“Are you certain, Cooper? I can admit you to residential care. You’d have someone with you twenty-four hours a day. In the very least, let us arrange for hospice to visit you. There is a very good, supportive team of people in Chancellor,” Doctor Asher said.

I lay in the hospital bed staring at the television. The local news had just aired a report of archeological finds on an island in Lake Erie just off the coast from Chancellor. When I was a child, I’d found a cave in the cliff side down shore. Within, there had been evidence that the place had been inhabited long ago. There were paintings on the walls of the cave, spirals and images of creatures that looked something like mermaids…no, lumpeguin, as Kate had called them. I clicked off the TV.

“No residential care,” I said.

“The hospice? Please? For me?”

“Fine.”

“I’ll have the nurses draw up some papers before you go,” Doctor Asher said then paused. “It’s time to start being careful,” he said, setting his hand on mine. His blue eyes looked sorrowfully at me. He shook his head. “It’s coming,” he whispered. “Your white blood cell count is dangerously low. Stay close to home. Start saying your good-byes.”

To whom? I wondered, but the image of Kate laughing, her golden hair shimmering, danced through my mind.

“Go ahead and get dressed. They’ll bring you up a wheelchair. Someone at the nurses’ station already called you a taxi.”

“Thank you.”

Doctor Asher shook his head. “Are you certain about the DNR?” he asked, looking down at the papers I’d signed. If I stopped breathing, if my heart stopped, it would be over. I didn’t want to prolong my body’s torture.

“Yes,” I said absently then gazed out the window. The moon was a sliver in the sky. How beautiful it looked against the dark blue tapestry of the night.

Doctor Asher nodded. “Please call the on-call number if you need anything.”

“I will. Thank you, doctor.”

He nodded slowly then stopped at the door. He turned back and looked at me. “Good-bye, Cooper.”

I smiled at him. “Good-bye, doctor. Thank you for everything.”

He inclined his head then left.

“And they put broccoli in the goulash, can you believe that? They called it primavera something or other. Nasty,” a chatty nurse’s aide was saying as she pushed me to the curb where the taxi waited. Taking me by the arm, like I was some kind of invalid, she helped me into the taxi. “Have a great night,” she called, slamming the door shut behind me.

I sat in silence as the driver guided the car into the night. Titus Medical was located in the business district of the nearby town of Waterville. Chancellor was just a short drive away.

The cab driver, sensing I was in no mood to talk, kept his eyes on the road and his mouth shut as we drove toward the lakeshore. The land surrounding Chancellor was covered in vineyards. There was a microclimate formed by lake-effect weather that created the perfect condition for growing grapes. The Chancellor wine industry was huge. The college even had a program in their culinary department for future wine-makers, funded by the Hunter family and their massive estate, the Blushing Grape vineyards. In the autumn, when the grapes were ripe for harvest, the air all around Chancellor was perfumed with the smell of grapes. I had missed that smell, missed autumn in Chancellor. Now, it seemed, I would never see another fall.

I closed my eyes and tipped my head back against the seat. I had gone through all the stages they said I would experience…the grief, the rage, the denial, and now, the begrudged acceptance. Just because I’d accepted my end was coming didn’t mean I liked it. I would never have a wife. I would never have children. There would never be another person from my family to live on Juniper Lane. I was the last of us. And my time was nearly done.

A tear slid down my cheek.

I didn’t want to die.

I fumbled with my keys a few minutes only to discover that I’d actually left my house unlocked. Thankfully, Chancellor was a relatively safe town. When I clicked on the lights, I was surprised to see my backpack sitting inside the door. How had that gotten there?

Everything was just as I left it, my amber-colored medicine bottles lining the window ledge, my water cup sitting beside the oven. But then I noticed a piece of paper lying on the table. I sat down and picked it up. It was a note from Kate.

My hand trembled as I read it. I could only imagine the pain and frustration I had caused her when I hadn’t shown up. Clearly, she’d come by the house to see if I was there. Was she the one who’d left the backpack? Had she walked down the beach looking for me?

I crushed the note in my hand and pressed it against my forehead. My whole body shook with frustration. Such a beautiful woman, such a lovely spirit living inside her, and I had hurt her. I knew better. I’d just wanted something I couldn’t have.

I lay my head down on my arms and wept.

Chapter 12: Kate

I counted the room numbers as I walked down the hallway of the ICU. Twelve, eleven, ten, nine…there was eight. I took a deep breath and entered the room slowly, quietly, to find…no one.

“Oh, sorry, hun,” an aide told me as she stripped down the bed. “Are you looking for Mister McGuire?”

Was I? I didn’t even know his family name. His grandmother was a Pearl, but Cooper would have his father’s name. I didn’t even know what it was. “Cooper…”

“I took him down to the taxi a while ago,” she said then whispered, “the nurses are running behind tonight, slow about finishing up his discharge papers. They should have told you he’d already left.” She was about to say more but stopped abruptly when someone entered the room behind me.

“He’s gone already?” a woman asked.

“Sure is,” the aide said.

“But he’s still in the system. God, they’re so slow processing paperwork,” the woman behind me grumbled.

“Uh-huh,” the aide said in a know-it-all tone as she pulled the sheets off the bed.

“Are you a family member?” the woman asked me.

Feeling like my mind was pulling in a million different directions, I turned and looked at her. “Sorry?”

“Mister McGuire, are you a relative of his?”

I shook my head. “N-no, we’re friends.”

The woman tapped a manila envelope in the palm of her hand as she considered. “Well,” she said, looking at the envelope, “he was supposed to have these before he left. Seems like someone fouled up somewhere. I could mail them, but he should have them sooner. Will you be seeing him tomorrow? I know it’s late now.”

“I can take them to him,” I said. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew I wasn’t angry anymore. All I wanted was to see Cooper, to make sure he was all right.

“It’s not exactly protocol,” the woman said then, “but you promise you’ll get it to him?”

I nodded.

“You didn’t hear that, Deloris,” the woman said to the aide.

“Hear what, hun?”

The woman smiled. “Thank you,” she said, then handed the envelope to me and turned and walked away.

I looked at the return address. It was stamped with an address for the local hospice.