He opened the door. “You have got to be kidding me.”
That was when she remembered their date. Last Friday. She was supposed to bring the wine and dessert. It felt like decades ago. She looked past him, saw a dying bouquet of flowers on the coffee table, and hoped he hadn’t bought them for their date. But of course he had. How long had he waited, she wondered, before he ate his dinner alone? “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“Give me one good reason not to slam the door in your face.”
She looked up at him, feeling so fragile she could barely breathe. “My sister has a brain tumor.”
His expression changed slowly. A look came into his eyes, a kind of harrowing understanding that made her wonder at the dark roads that had traversed his life. “Oh, Jesus.”
He opened his arms and she walked into his embrace. For the first time, she let herself really cry.
Joe stood on the porch, staring out at the falling night. At the park across the street, a baseball game was being played. An occasional roar of the crowd erupted through the silence. Otherwise, there was only the sound of a cool breeze rustling the honeysuckle leaves.
It had been better, he now understood, to be angry at Meghann, to write her off for standing him up. When she stepped into his arms and looked up at him with tears in her eyes, he’d wanted desperately to help her.
My sister has a brain tumor.
He closed his eyes, not wanting to remember, not wanting to feel the way he did.
He’d held Meghann for almost an hour. She’d cried until there were no tears left inside her, and then she’d fallen into a troubled sleep. He imagined that it was her first sleep in days.
He knew. After a diagnosis like that, sleep either came to a person too much or not at all.
They hadn’t spoken of anything that mattered. He’d simply stroked her hair and kissed her forehead and let her cry in his arms.
He couldn’t think of it without shame.
Behind him, the screen door screeched open and banged shut. He stiffened, unable to turn around and face her. When he did, he saw that she was embarrassed.
Her cheeks were pink, and that gorgeous hair of hers was a fuzzy mess. She tried to smile, and the attempt tore at him. “I’ll put you in for a Purple Heart.”
He wanted to take her in his arms again, but he didn’t dare. Things were different between them now, though she didn’t know it. Hospitals. Tumors. Death and dying and disease.
He couldn’t be a part of all that again. He had only just begun to survive his last round of it. “There’s nothing wrong with crying.”
“I suppose not. It doesn’t help much, though.” She moved toward him; he wondered if she knew that she was wringing her hands.
He got the sense that the time in his arms had both soothed and upset her. As if maybe she hated to admit a need. He’d been alone long enough to understand.
“I want to thank you for … I don’t know. Being there. I shouldn’t have busted in on you.”
He knew she was waiting for an argument, waiting for him to say I’m glad you’re here.
At his silence, she stepped back, frowning. “Too much too soon, I guess. I completely understand. I hate needy people, too. Well. I better go. Claire starts radiation tomorrow.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Where?”
She paused, turned back toward him. “Swedish Hospital.”
“Did you get second opinions?”
“Are you kidding? We got opinions from the best people in the country. They didn’t agree on everything, but inoperable was a favorite.”
“There’s a guy. A neurosurgeon at UCLA. Stu Weissman. He’s good.”
Meghann was watching him. “They’re all good. And they all agree. How do you know Weissman?”
“I went to school with him.”
“College?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. Just because I live like this now doesn’t mean I always did. I have a degree in American lit.”
“We know nothing about each other.”
“Maybe it’s better that way.”
“Normally I’d have a funny comeback to that. But I’m a little slow today. Having a sister with a brain tumor will do that to a girl. Pretend I was witty.” Her voice cracked a little. She turned and walked away.
With every step she took, he wanted to go after her, apologize and tell her the truth, who he was and what he’d been through. Then, perhaps, she’d understand why there were places he couldn’t go. But he didn’t move.
When he went back inside the house, he saw the last remaining picture of Diana staring at him from the mantel. For the first time he noticed the accusing glint in her eyes.
“What?” he said. “There’s nothing I can do.”
Alison listened carefully to Claire’s explanation of a golf-ball-size “owie” in her brain.
“A golf ball is little,” she said at last.
Claire nodded, smiling. “Yes. Yes it is.”
“And a special gun is gonna shoot magic rays at it until it disappears? Like rubbing Aladdin’s lamp?”
“Exactly like that.”