Olivia began to cry.
Lopez clenched his jaw. He had done it at last. Of course he had. They had forced him to say it. To say anything else would have been monstrous.
Lani hurried to her daughter. She argued with Lopez until she realized that Olivia was trying to interrupt her. “I want to stop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She was mumbling through her tears. “I want to stop. I’ll go to heaven.”
Lani grew quiet.
Five hours later, they gathered their things and walked down and out of the hospital into the dry-season sunlight.
In the first weeks, Olivia regained her vigor. Her gaunt face filled out again. After three weeks, she was running about with her cousins.
Lopez worked in the fields with his in-laws. He liked most all of them, but he felt out of place at the large gatherings. He would leave when the conversation shifted into Samoan.
This far down the peninsula, the fog never made it over the mountains. So, working under blue skies, Lopez felt darkness locked around his mind. At times he again suffered the sensation that the world had been painted onto emptiness made tangible.
As the dry season grew old, Olivia ran with her cousins less and less. She looked pale to Lopez and was often short of breath. This didn’t stop her from climbing trees or swimming in the nearby reservoir. Once or twice she had nose bleeds that would take an hour or two to stop, but she rarely felt ill.
Sometimes Lopez would see her walking about with her cousins, and he would boil with rage at his daughter and wife, at anyone reincarnated, at their privilege.
More often, he was frightened by how intensely alone he would be in his last few moments before death. No one could be with him when he died, even if they were standing beside him. He would draw his last breath and look at their faces, at the painted-on reality. Impossibly, the eternal moment of his life would end.
One morning just after breakfast, Olivia stumbled and fell on some steps. At first it seemed that she had only bruised her knee. But within an hour, the joint swelled to the size of a grapefruit.
Lopez felt himself going numb again. It was almost a relief. Here was a crisis. He didn’t have to feel, just do.
Lopez took his wife and daughter down to the hospital. They put Olivia in a small room on the second floor. She began to shiver, said that bad memories were giving her chills.
A new doctor examined Olivia, explained that the cancer kept her from making the cells needed to stop bleeding. Maybe she had just bumped her knee and was bleeding into it. But she was also running a fever. He drew some blood, gave her some pills, asked them to stay the night.
An hour passed. Then two.
Olivia continued to shiver. Lani covered her with a few blankets. No one spoke. When the doctor returned, he looked grave. “Her fever is worse. I’m worried the cancer has limited her ability to fight infections, but we have given her the best medicine we have for that.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Lani said. “It’s nothing.”
An hour later, Olivia began breathing quickly, her skin cold and clammy. The nurses hovered around her. The doctor returned.
Time seemed to be passing faster and faster. Olivia felt hotter. As the sky outside their window darkened, her words became confused.
Lopez sat on her bed, breathing too fast, his heart kicking his rib cage. Black spots appeared before his eyes. He tried to stand but found himself on the floor. Then Lani’s face was before him. She was begging him to get up. He tried harder to slow his breathing but couldn’t.
Suddenly two nurses were lifting him up. One put a chair under him. Slowly the spots cleared from his vision and he could think more clearly.
“Daddy.” Olivia said from her bed. “Daddy, I’m sorry.” Her voice was unsteady, her words slow. With effort, Lopez scooted his chair closer so he could take her hand. It was cold. Lani was crying.
“Daddy, I’m sorry you picked me up.”
“No, no,” he said automatically. In truth, he both wished he had not gathered her in and was so very grateful that he had.
The doctor returned. Now he paid as much attention to Lopez as to Olivia. “Mr. Lopez,” he said, “your daughter’s getting worse.”
The words made his heart kick harder. The world was spinning. Outside it was night. Someone behind him was talking in a low voice. Lani sometimes replied. Sometimes she would sob.
A doctor was by his side again. “Mr. Lopez, should we give you something for the anxiety?”
He couldn’t answer.
Then there were hands on him, something sharp in his arm.
Lani stood beside him, holding his hand. When he looked at her, he could hear. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
Suddenly he realized what it must be like for her to have to stay behind while he and Olivia died. Suddenly he knew how hollow the world would be for her, his wife, the woman who had traveled through the ruined city and across the crumbling bridge to find him and their daughter in the redwoods.