gut is screaming at me, telling me to shut up, but the words are already out. I can’t take them back.
Based on the look on his face, he wants to tell me about as much as I want to know, and he sits silently for so long I begin to fidget, tension filling my body. Finally, his dull eyes meet mine and my heart races as I wait for him to finally speak.
“I’m sick, Reed.” The words cling to my skin, and my stomach drops to the floor. I’m instantly taken back to when he and Mom sat the three of us down to tell us she had cancer. They were so confident she would beat it, that it would be so easy to overcome, as if it was just another stepping stone, another part of life. Not even a year later we were putting her in the ground.
My voice is shaky when I ask, “Sick? What kind of sick? How long have you known?” The questions come faster than I can think of them. It’s like my head and mouth is disconnected, and my mouth is spouting off all the things I’m afraid to ask.
He breaks our eye contact, looking out the window to where we can see the brightly lit city skyline, unable to look at me when he destroys my world...for the second time tonight.
“The kind of sick where you won’t get better.” He’s so resigned. I hate it.
Is he just going to give up? It sounds like he’s giving up hope, like he’s just going to let go.
I can’t keep from voicing the accusation. “So, what? You’re just going to accept it? You’re just going to accept death and call it a day?”
When he doesn’t immediately answer, I push up out of my seat and start pacing again. I can’t believe he would just give up like this. He wants me to have a baby, one he may not even be here to see? What kind of sense does that make? Suddenly everything is piling up on me, and I feel like I can’t breathe.
I’m so angry. Between the fight with Fallon and this information from Dad, I feel like I’m spiraling out of control, one second away from jumping into the abyss.
“Sit down, Reed,” he commands, and when I turn to face him, he’s holding out a shaky hand, pointing to the spot where I was sitting only a few moments ago.
I almost defy him, but he’s my father, and I’ve been taught to obey him since birth, so I fall into the cushion like a sullen teenager, my shoulders slumped in defeat.
He leans forward, his eyes locked on mine and the look in them is fierce. I wish he’d put all this fight towards whatever is wrong with him, instead of using it to boss me around like the child I no longer am.
“It’s not that I don’t want to fight, that I’m just accepting what the doctor’s say and lying down to die.” He looks almost disappointed in me. “You know me better than that, son. I’ve seen all the doctors, I’ve tried all the treatments. The cancer just isn’t responding anymore. They didn’t even find it until it had already progressed to stage four. Spending my last weeks on earth having some nurse come in here and empty a colostomy bag because I had the surgery they wanted me to have isn’t my idea of a good time.” One side of his mouth lifts in a sad smile.
I can’t let this be how it ends for him, for our family.
“Dad…” I start to protest, but he cuts me off.
“I don’t have a lot of time left, Reed, and I don’t want to spend what little time I do have watching you make an ass out of yourself.” His voice is chastising, and I slump further into the cushion.
Narrowing his eyes, he lays it out for me. “Stop being stupid.”
I almost laugh at the phrase he’s said to me and my brothers so many times over the years, but the situation is too serious and I’m still a little shell-shocked. “You and I both know you’ve loved that girl since the first time you saw her.” Dad reaches out a hand and squeezes my knee. “She’s always been the girl you were meant to be with, and I wish you didn’t see so much of what happened to me when your mom died. I was wrong to lean on you so much, to