Eliza took Charlie to Val’s to have the conversation. They couldn’t talk properly in Charlie’s house—it would be too easy for Charlie to walk away, start fiddling with his truck or the traps waiting for repair in the backyard, or something. She figured that even one-armed he’d find a way to ignore her.
It was late in the morning and all of the fishermen were out on the water. They didn’t pass by the harbor on their way to Val’s but she imagined the Joanie B, swaying alone on its mooring. They’d need a viable plan, soon, for taking care of Charlie’s traps.
Val’s was almost empty. The only other customers were sitting on the same side of a bench in one of the booths. Tourists, if ever tourists there were. They were Brooklynish hipsters, the guy with a man bun and the woman with a turquoise T-shirt featuring a cat wearing its own hipster spectacles. Both were looking around with moderately eager expressions; you could tell they were spending the week in Bar Harbor and had Yelped the place, looking for a Genuine Down East Experience. You could tell that even though they were super happy to have found it they were also too hip to reveal the true depths of their excitement.
Both Eliza and Charlie optimistically ordered the Fisherman’s Breakfast, Val’s specialty—optimistically, because the Fisherman’s Breakfast was massive. Eliza could see the hipster couple watching them and then looking back at the menu, pointing. Oh, for heaven’s sake, thought Eliza. Go back to Greenpoint and leave us in peace. She would have made that joke to Charlie, but she was pretty sure he didn’t know where or what Greenpoint was, and why should he?
These were the same mugs Val had been serving her coffee in since time began: off-white, chipped in places, sturdy on the bottom, thick handles. And the counter stools were also the same. In Barton they would be called retro and the Coopers or the Rackleys would use them to outfit a basement bar. Here they were just old stools.
“Okay, Dad,” said Eliza. “Sit down. We’re going to talk about this right now.”
They were already sitting, both of them, but the exhortation had been part of Eliza’s rehearsed speech and she forgot to revise based on current circumstances. A small misstep, but nothing she couldn’t recover from, and Charlie was too kind or too stubborn to point it out. She pulled out a small black notebook where she’d written down her plan of attack. She’d started creating it on the Fourth of July, belowdecks.
“Here we go, Dad. You’re not going to believe what I figured out when I was home—”
Charlie sipped his coffee and watched her, saying nothing.
“Wow, Eliza, what did you figure out when you were home?” said Eliza. She used that voice she used when her children were ignoring her and she said to them what she wished they were saying to her. Her children loved when she did that. No they didn’t, not at all, a lot of eye rolling always ensued. Even Evie was learning how to roll her eyes.
Charlie remained impassive. His shoulders were slumped forward and he was using one hand on the table to steady himself. She could see in the way his cheeks sagged the effort this little breakfast outing of hers was taking him. And yet he’d said, okay, sure, let’s go to Val’s.
She could almost see the tumor growing, invading the surrounding tissue, expanding, expanding, expanding. How big would it be now? The skull was so rigid, that goddamn tumor was pressing against it all the time. They had to shrink it right away.
That had been one of Evie’s first full phrases, she was only two, toddling around, still in a diaper, saying, “More apple juice right away, Mommy.” Or: “Need to watch Doc McStuffins right away.”
Val took the hipsters’ orders and disappeared into the kitchen. “So I’ll just go ahead and tell you,” Eliza said. “It starts with a coincidence.” Charlie blinked and gave a slight nod and drank some coffee.
Eliza told him about Zachary Curry, and about the clinical trial. She told him about the enrollment process.
Charlie cleared his throat, put down his coffee cup, and said, “No, Eliza.”
“Even if you’re not selected for this trial, Dad, they can do the chemo from there, or radiation, however they decide to treat. I’d just really like to see you at a hospital with a research focus. It makes such a difference in a field where things are changing all the time. Some of these new therapies are genetically targeted, and that’s what you want to have at your dis—”
“Eliza.”
A tone in his voice stopped her. She’d been looking down at her notes while she talked, but now she looked up.
“I said no. I’m not interested in going to Boston.”
“Listen, Dad, they’re the cream of the crop down there. I know it seems like a haul, but you’re not going alone. Obviously. I got us an appointment next week. I’ll take you down. All you have to do is listen. Just listen to the recommendations, and we’ll take it from there.”
“No. Not interested, Eliza.”
“Or don’t even listen! Just sit there, plug your ears, I don’t care, and I’ll listen. I’ll listen! All you have to do is be there. Bring your brain, and be there.”
One of the hipsters dropped a spoon, and it clattered to the floor. Val appeared, filled the hipsters’ coffee cups, brought a new spoon, looked significantly at Eliza and Charlie.
“Eliza. You’re not the only one that can look things up, you know. I went to the library and did some of my own research. I know what’s coming. I know all about it.”
He’d gone to the library! Little Harbor’s tiny library was open three hours a day, three days a week. Less in the winter, if you could believe it. Eliza imagined Charlie bellying up to the single computer, typing his own terminal disease into the search bar. The image made her want to cry. What would have come up for Charlie, of course, would be the very same information Eliza herself had found: a poor prognosis, an exhausting treatment plan that, if pursued, would leave him ravaged, buying himself maybe a few extra months, maybe a year, maybe more, but at what cost?
“I’m not interested,” he said, “in suffering like your mother did.”
“You’re not suffering yet, Dad! You look great.”
This, obviously, was not accurate. Charlie didn’t look great at all. In all of Eliza’s thirty-seven years Charlie had never looked worse, or weaker, or more hopeless. Eliza knew that it wasn’t so much about the pain with this sort of tumor—the brain doesn’t have pain receptors, that was part of Year One Neuroscience—but his visual field cuts would get larger and larger, his fatigue would get worse and worse, his appetite would all but disappear, and that was just the beginning.
He said, “Yuh.”
“Dad! You’re giving up, before you’ve even tried anything. We have to at least meet with a doctor in Boston. We have to do as much as we can.”