The Last Song(110)

Afterward, Steve walked the beach, wondering what to do with the little time he had remaining. What, he wondered, was most important to him? Passing by the church—at that point, the repairs hadn’t been started, but the blackened walls had been torn down and hauled away—he stared at the gaping hole that once housed the stained-glass window, thinking of Pastor Harris and the countless mornings he’d spent in the halo of sunlight as it streamed through the window. It was then that he knew he had to make another.

A day later, he called Kim. When he told her the news, she broke down on the phone, weeping into the receiver. Steve felt a tightness in the back of his throat, but he didn’t cry with her, and somehow he knew he would never cry about his diagnosis again.

Later, he called her again to ask whether the kids could spend the summer with him. Though the idea frightened her, she consented. At his request, she agreed not to tell them about his condition. It would be a summer filled with lies, but what choice did he have if he wanted to get to know them again?

In the spring, as the azaleas were blooming, he began to muse more often on the nature of God. It was inevitable, he supposed, to think about such things at a time like this. Either God existed or He didn’t; he would either spend eternity in heaven, or there would be nothing at all. Somehow he found comfort in turning the question over in his mind; it spoke to a longing deep inside him. He eventually came to the conclusion that God was real, but he also wanted to experience God’s presence in this world, in mortal terms. And with that, he began his quest.

It was the last year of his life. Rain fell almost daily, making it one of the wettest springs on record. May, however, was absolutely dry, as if somewhere the faucet had been turned off. He purchased the glass he needed and began to work on the window; in June, his children arrived. He’d walked the beach and searched for God, and somehow, he realized, he’d been able to mend the fraying ropes that had tethered him to his children. Now, on a dark night in August, baby turtles were skimming the surface of the ocean, and he was coughing up blood. It was time to stop lying; it was time to tell the truth.

His children were scared, and he knew they wanted him to say or do something to take their fear away. But his stomach was being pierced by a thousand twisting needles. He wiped the blood from his face using the back of his hand and tried to sound calm.

“I think,” he said, “I need to go to the hospital.”





31




Ronnie



Her dad was hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed when he told her. She immediately began to shake her head. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

“No,” she said, “this isn’t right. Doctors make mistakes.”

“Not this time,” he said, reaching for her hand. “And I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”

Will and Jonah were downstairs in the cafeteria. Her dad wanted to talk to each of his children separately, but Ronnie suddenly wanted nothing to do with any of it. She didn’t want him to say anything else, not one more word.

Her mind flashed on a dozen different images: Suddenly she knew why her dad had wanted her and Jonah to come to North Carolina. And she understood that her mom had known the truth all along. With so little time left together, he had no desire to argue with her. And his ceaseless work on the window now made perfect sense. She recalled his coughing fit in the church and the times he’d winced in pain. In hindsight, the pieces all fit together. Yet everything was falling apart.

He would never see her married; he would never hold a grandchild. The thought of living the rest of her life without him was almost too much to bear. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair at all.

When she spoke, her words sounded brittle. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Before I left? Or after I was back in New York?”

When he didn’t answer, she could feel the blood rising in her cheeks. She knew she shouldn’t be angry, but she couldn’t help it. “What? Were you planning to tell me on the phone? What were you going to say? ‘Oh, sorry I didn’t mention this when we were together last summer, but I have terminal cancer. How’s it going with you?’”

“Ronnie—”

“If you weren’t going to tell me, why did you bring me down here? So I could watch you die?”

“No, sweetie. Just the opposite.” He rolled his head to face her. “I asked you to come so I could watch you live.”

At his answer, she felt something shake loose inside, like the first pebbles skittering downhill before an avalanche. In the corridor, she heard two nurses walking past, their voices hushed. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting a bluish pall over the walls. The IV dripped steadily—normal scenes from any hospital, but there was nothing normal about any of this. Her throat felt as thick and sticky as paste, and she turned away, willing the tears not to come.