I don’t like this conversation and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m hoping by ignoring her, the subject will be dropped. I’d rather talk about anything than this.
“I’m sick, Dirk,” she says, and my head jerks toward her. Maybe she has a headache. Maybe a stomach virus. I don’t know and I can’t tell because she won’t look at me. She keeps her eyes on the ceiling. I stare at her, silently begging her for more information so I can fix her, and wondering if I need to go ahead and inform Nationals that I won’t be leaving today.
“Saylor.” I squeeze her hand and she finally looks at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears. When she blinks, I follow one until it rolls off her cheek and onto the carpet. “What’s wrong?” I ask, and if it wasn’t for the flood of tears, I wouldn’t know she was crying. She doesn’t sob, or make a sad face. She looks almost relieved.
I turn on my side, propping myself on my elbow so I can look down at her, but she pushes me away. She stands and I follow her to her room. She grabs a robe from the bed and puts it on, disappearing out the door. I’m trying not to get mad, but her nonchalance about the situation is driving me insane. If she is sick, then why don’t she tell me what’s wrong? Why the fuck is she crying? Why can’t we just stay naked?
She walks back in, holding a basket of clean laundry, and I grab my one and only pair of sweats off the top. My mind takes a break from the turmoil I feel in my chest and silently thanks Saylor for throwing the clothes in the dryer before leaving the laundry room.
When my junk is covered, I feel marginally better about chewing Saylor’s ass for not giving me any info other than “I’m sick.” But, when I turn to find her, she is looking at me—her face and neck wet with tears.
“I’m not just sick, Dirk. I’m dying.” Her eyes are begging me to understand what she said, but I can’t. We’re all dying. Every day on this earth puts us one day closer to that inevitable day we will all face. But that’s not what’s she’s saying. She is saying she is dying like she knows when that inevitable day is.
I feel my heart leap to my throat, then fall to my knees as her words sink in. The emptiness in my chest is almost too much, and I know if I wasn’t looking dead at her, it would be as if she were already gone. Because she is telling me she is leaving.
“Those headaches I have are caused from an inoperable, malignant brain tumor.” She pauses as if she is waiting for her words to fully register. They don’t. All I’m hearing is I’m dying and all I can think is She can’t.
“My mother died from the same thing. After she passed, they removed the tumor and did some research. They found it was hereditary. I’ve been going for routine CT scans since. At first I hoped it might have somehow skipped me, but they found it about six months ago when I went for my checkup.”
Brain tumor? Couldn’t they just take it out? She said inoperable, but she didn’t say incurable.
“They can fix it,” I inform her, because these days, chemo and radiation and all that shit cured these types of things. She would lose her hair, but it would grow back. Technology was amazing. There were smart people all over the world, finding cures for cancer right now. Little lab geeks in white coats with glasses and all that shit.
“There’s no fixing it, Dirk. It’s gonna happen. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but six months from now I won’t be here.”
How could she be so calm? How could she not care? Why the fuck has she been keeping this from me?
“I’m at peace with this, Dirk, and it’s taken me a long time to get where I am.”
I’m still shaking my head, telling her this isn’t real in a way that I’ve been taught not to. I don’t nod, or shake my head. I speak when I have something to say, but I can’t find the words. She puts her hands on either side of my face and I still. I’m frantically searching her eyes for any sign of hope, but there isn’t any.
“How can you say you are at peace with this?” I whisper the words, afraid if I say them too loud that the part of my brain that can fully process what I’m asking will hear and make this all true.
“God has decided that I’m not needed in this life anymore.”
“I need you,” I say through my teeth, fighting back the burning that is going on behind my eyes. I know what it is, and because I haven’t felt it in so long, it hurts more. Saylor’s thick walls and peace with the situation are failing. The small amount of sadness I saw in her eyes isn’t so small anymore.
“And you have me.” She is smiling. It’s sad, but it resembles happiness and I don’t see the happiness in this moment. Not one fucking bit.