“Do you really think so?”
“Of course,” he said confidently. “They’re our babies. They’re special.”
She was still laughing when she saw her dad step out onto the back porch with Jonah.
“Okay, after all the ridiculous buildup,” Jonah started, “and watching the whole thing from start to finish, I just have one thing to say.”
“What’s that?” Will prompted.
Jonah grinned broadly. “That. Was. So. Cool.”
Ronnie laughed, remembering. At Will’s puzzled expression, she just shrugged. “Private joke,” she said, and in that instant, her dad coughed.
It was a loud, wet cough, sounding… sick… but just as had happened in the church, it didn’t stop with one cough. He coughed again and again, one racking sound followed by another.
She watched as her dad grabbed the rail to keep his balance; she could see Jonah’s brow furrowing with worry and fear, and even Will was frozen in place.
She watched her father try to stand straighter, arching his back, struggling to control the hacking. He brought both hands to his mouth and coughed one more time, and when at last he drew a ragged breath, it sounded almost as if he were breathing through water.
He gasped again, then lowered his hands. For what seemed like the longest few seconds of her life, Ronnie was frozen in place, suddenly more scared than she’d ever been. Her father’s face was covered in blood.
30 Steve
He received his death sentence in February, while sitting in a doctor’s office, only an hour after giving his last piano lesson.
He’d started teaching again when he’d first moved back to Wrightsville Beach, after failing as a concert pianist. Pastor Harris, without consulting him, had brought a promising student to the house a few days after Steve had moved in and asked that Steve do him “a favor.” It was just like Pastor Harris to realize that by returning home, Steve was broadcasting the fact that he was lost and alone and that the only way to help him was to bring a sense of purpose back into his life.
The student was Chan Lee. Both her parents taught music at UNC Wilmington, and at seventeen she was a wonderful technician, but she somehow lacked the ability to make the music her own. She was both serious and engaging, and Steve took to her immediately; she listened with interest and worked hard at incorporating his suggestions. He looked forward to her visits, and for Christmas, he gave her a book on the construction of classical pianos, something he thought she would enjoy. But despite the joy he felt in teaching again, he found himself increasingly tired. The lessons drained him when they should have given him energy. For the first time in his life, he began to take regular naps.
Over time, he began to take longer naps, up to two hours at a time, and when he woke, he often felt pain in his stomach. One evening while cooking chili for dinner, he suddenly felt a sharp, stabbing pain and doubled over, knocking the pan from the stove, strewing tomatoes and beans and beef across the kitchen floor. As he tried to catch his breath, he knew something was seriously wrong.
He made an appointment with a doctor, then went back to the hospital for scans and X-rays. Afterward, while Steve watched the vials fill with the blood necessary for the recommended tests, he thought of his father and the cancer that had eventually killed him. And he suddenly knew what the doctor would tell him.
On the third visit to the doctor, he found out he was right.
“You have stomach cancer,” the doctor said. He took a long breath. “And from the scans, it’s metastasized to your pancreas and lungs.” His voice was neutral, but not unkind. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but let me start by saying it’s not good.”
The oncologist was compassionate and yet was telling Steve that there was nothing he could do. Steve knew this, just as he knew the doctor wanted him to ask specific questions, in the hope that talking might somehow make things easier.
When his dad was dying, Steve had done his research. He knew what it meant when cancer metastasized, he knew what it meant to have cancer not only in his stomach, but also in his pancreas. He knew the odds of surviving were next to nil, and instead of asking anything, he turned toward the window. On the ledge, a pigeon was settled near the glass, oblivious to what was going on inside. I’ve been told that I’m dying, he thought while staring at it, and the doctor wants me to talk about it. But there’s nothing really to say, is there?
He waited for the bird to coo in agreement, but of course, there was no response from the bird at all.
I’m dying, he thought again.
Steve remembered clasping his hands together, amazed that they weren’t shaking. If ever they should shake, he thought, it would be at a time like this. But they were as steady and still as a kitchen sink.
“How much time do I have?”
The doctor seemed relieved that the silence had been broken at last. “Before we start going into that, I want to talk about some of your options.”
“There are no options,” Steve said. “You and I both know that.”
If the doctor was surprised by his response, he didn’t show it. “There are always options,” he said.
“But none that can cure it. You’re talking about quality of life.”
The doctor set aside his clipboard. “Yes,” he said.
“How can we discuss quality if I don’t know how much time I have? If I only have a few days, it might mean that I should start making phone calls.”
“You have more than a few days.”
“Weeks?”
“Yes, of course…”
“Months?”
The doctor hesitated. He must have seen something in Steve’s face that signaled he would continue to press until he knew the truth. He cleared his throat. “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve come to learn that predictions don’t mean much. Too much lies outside the realm of medical knowledge. A lot of what happens next comes down to you and your specific genetics, your attitude. No, there’s nothing we can do to stop the inevitable, but that’s not the point. The point is that you should try to make the most of the time you have left.”
Steve studied the doctor, aware that his question hadn’t been answered.
“Do I have a year?”
This time, the doctor didn’t respond, but his silence gave him away. Leaving the office, Steve took a deep breath, armed with the knowledge that he had less than twelve months to live.
The reality hit him later as he was standing on the beach.
He had advanced cancer, and there was no known cure. He would be dead within the year.
On his way out of the office, the doctor had given him some information. Little pamphlets and a list of websites, useful for a book report but good for little else. Steve had tossed them in the garbage on the way to the car. As he stood beneath the winter sun on the deserted beach, he tucked his hands into his coat, staring at the pier. Though his vision wasn’t what it once was, he could see people moving about or fishing by the rails, and he marveled at their normalcy. It was as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
He was going to die, and sooner rather than later. With that, he realized that so many of the things he’d spent time worrying about no longer mattered. His 401(k) plan? Won’t need it. A way to make a living in his fifties? Doesn’t matter. His desire to meet someone new and fall in love? Won’t be fair to her, and to be frank, that desire ended with the diagnosis anyway.
It was over, he repeated to himself. In less than a year, he was going to die. Yes, he’d known something was wrong, and perhaps he’d even expected the doctor to deliver the news he had. But the memory of the doctor speaking the actual words began to recur in his mind, like an old-fashioned record skipping on a turntable. On the beach, he began to shake. He was scared and he was alone. Head lowered, he put his face into his hands and wondered why it had happened to him.