I nod, blinking away from her red eyes. My hand instinctively covers my face, my fingertips scratching lightly along my saturated skin. I smell of chlorine, and my skin is pruned. My legs twitch from exhaustion, but I’m too afraid to move forward and sit on the sofa next to her. I know what she’s going to say, and I just feel like if I can stand here on the cusp of my world falling apart for a little while that maybe it will pass by me, and for once, I won’t have to deal with the hurt that comes with bad news.
“I’m sick, Will,” she says. It’s the same way she said it last time—a year ago, before I drove my car into a tree. I wasn’t the man I am today then, though—I wasn’t equipped for it, as if I could ever be equipped for the uncertainty that something like this comes with.
I feel the familiar sting hit my eyes, and I push my forearm against them both, keeping the tears where they lie—on the edge of falling.
“It came back,” I say.
“They aren’t sure it ever really left,” she says.
Maddy steps in close to me, and I don’t hesitate to grip her hand in mine. It isn’t fair to her, but for the next few hours at the very least, I’m going to need to lean on her. What she learns, though, might mean I lose her for good.
“I’ll quit. We’ll start chemo again. I’m here this time, so I won’t have to fly in. You won’t have to rely on your mother…I know you can’t count on her, and she’s far away…”
She looks up slowly, her eyes leveling me. She’s looked so tired, more than she should—how could I not have noticed.
“It’s past that,” she says.
My hand covers my face again instinctually, and I let my tears smear against my palm while I let my face contort underneath, my teeth gritting while my body twitches with the need to sob.
“It happened again,” Tanya says, and I look up, trying to understand what she’s saying, but when I do, I realize she isn’t looking at me, she’s looking at Maddy. “Last night, I threw up blood.”
Maddy’s eyes close.
“You knew?” My heartbeat begins to pick up, and my fingers work loose of their grip with Maddy.
“I got sick in front of her, Will. It’s only been a day, and I begged her not to tell you. I wanted you to race first,” Tanya says.
My hands twitch at my sides as I walk backward until my body slams into the closed door. My eyes flit from every pair in the room, and I feel like I’ve been in the dark.
“We were going to tell you, Will. Tanya was going to tell you as soon as trials were done,” Maddy says, glancing from me to her, her mouth moving long after the words have left it, as if she’s trying to find more words to give me, even though there aren’t any.
“Don’t take this out on her, Will. This was me,” Tanya says.
I press my back harder into the door.
“I’m just afraid that I can’t take care of Dylan now. I thought I’d have months, but I’m stumbling. I haven’t been able to stay on my feet for more than a few minutes at a time since you left my house. I think the trip took all I had left. I’m weak, and tired, and…” Her body shakes as a cry escapes her chest. She sucks her top lip in and closes her eyes as my uncle moves closer, putting his arm around her body.
“We’re your family, Tanya. We’ll help,” he says, swinging his vision to me.
My eyes are wide and my mind is racing with all of the wonderful things that were so nearly in my grasp. I’m going to have to give them up. I can’t be both a father and the man I was only minutes ago. I suppose I should be thankful that I ever got to be that man at all, however fleeting that time was.
“Of course,” I say, void of emotion. I stare at my uncle’s hand on Tanya’s, the picture blurring the longer I stare until I blink it into focus and look Duncan in the eyes.
“And you’ll still compete,” Tanya says.
I laugh lightly because I’m not sure whose lie is worse—Tanya for asking what she knows I won’t do, or me for the answer I’m about to give.
“I’ll still compete,” I say. There isn’t a single person in this room who believes me.
Maddy
I was never around for those moments in Will’s life—the ones that sent him down spirals. I have nothing to compare this moment, too, but my instincts are screaming at me to fight his demons for him. He barely processed the news before excusing himself into the back room to change, then walking back past each of us and out the door, keys in his hand.
“What happened to waiting until after the trials?” I ask, moving to sit on the coffee table in front of both Duncan and Tanya.
“I fell just trying to get Dylan to his chair this morning. It took me two hours to get us both up and out the door, just so I could make it to my doctor appointment where he could tell me that the chemo isn’t working this time,” she says.
My heart stops beating, sinking in my chest, and a wave of nausea leaves my neck sweaty and my face pale.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, my mouth overcome with the sour taste of guilt and helplessness. I need to keep in perspective what she’s going through. “I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay. You’re looking after Will, and I’m glad,” she says.
The three of us sit quietly for several seconds, my mind running through the small list of places Will could be—my parents’ house, the lake, a bar somewhere off the sixty-five.