say that word again, I’m selling the cabin.”
“What?” He turned around. “Dad—”
“You want to make sure that doesn’t happen? Get ready for bed, and don’t come out of that bedroom until tomorrow morning.”
He turned around and walked away, his shoulders sagging and his feet dragging. His footsteps faded away, and then the bathroom door shut.
Cleo didn’t eat. She just looked at me. “I’m sorry. When I heard what he said, I just couldn’t help it—”
“Don’t apologize. You did nothing wrong.”
“Well…where did that come from?”
I felt a little guilty, because I was the one who’d introduced that word to him in a very inappropriate manner. “Valerie dropped him off a while ago, and she pissed me off. And then Derek kept asking for pizza since she always gives him pizza…so I called her a bitch.”
She laughed again but quickly covered her mouth with her hand to silence the sound.
“I told him not to repeat that word, but…he couldn’t help himself.”
She dropped her hand, a smile still on her lips. “He’s so smart that sometimes I forget he’s just a kid…”
“Yeah.” I found myself talking to him like an adult because of his maturity level, but he was still a young boy who liked all the attention from saying a bad word that had so much meaning. “I just don’t want him to go to school, calling his teacher a bitch…”
“It’d be pretty funny if he said it to Valerie, though…”
Valerie really was a bitch, but I felt terrible showing him that kind of behavior, calling a woman that, especially his mother. One day, he would understand the derogatory nature of the word and would remember that I’d said it. That wasn’t the kind of man I wanted to be—and certainly not the kind of man I wanted my son to be.
She seemed to read my mood. “You can’t be perfect all the time, Deacon.”
“Yeah, but kids learn by what you do, not what you tell them to do. I don’t want him to think talking about a woman like that is okay, even if it’s justified.”
“Derek will grow up to a good man. This one incident won’t change that.” She took a bite of her food. “And if you sell that cabin, I’ll never forgive you.” She pointed her fork at me.
I smiled slightly. “Never.”
“Good.”
I could never get rid of the happiest place in the world.
She finished all her food, enjoying it, unlike my son. She also helped herself to the bottle of wine I’d left on the table. “How was your day?”
“Fine. Yours?”
“Busy. How’s your research going?”
I hadn’t talked to her about that in a long time. “I’m having a lot of success with my clinical trials.”
“That’s amazing. Great news.”
“But also a lot of failures. Some of my patients are recovering, while others aren’t…and I can’t figure out why.”
“Medicine only goes so far, Deacon. And you shouldn’t put the weight of that mystery on your shoulders.”
I wasn’t a spiritual man. Never had been. I believed there was a solution to every problem—just had to find it. “I think there’s a cure for cancer, a way to rid all kinds of cancer from the body, but we haven’t found that solution yet. It’s probably not as simple as a single drug or treatment. Cancer behaves differently in every patient, making it complicated, but if we can understand each scenario, we can have many solutions…to many kinds of scenarios.”
“I didn’t mean to put you down—”
“I understand, Cleo.”
“I just don’t think you need to put all the responsibility on yourself.”
I was one of the few people in the world with the skills to do it, and if I’d worked harder and faster, I might have been able to save my father. “Only a couple people are capable of doing it, and I’m among them. I need to keep doing my best, and if I don’t find the solution in my lifetime, someone else will pick up my work, and all that data will be invaluable.” I took myself seriously, not because of arrogance, but because I felt responsible to put my brilliant mind to good use—for humanity.
She looked at me with affection in her eyes, like she respected me and my cause. “Do the best you can with the time you have. But don’t put the weight of the world on your shoulders. You’re the best man I know. Being a parent is the hardest job in the world because it doesn’t come with an instruction manual. You’re a great father, so don’t