Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
“You, taking some time off?” She tried to smile. “Unheard of, even if it is ten at night.”
“I’m going to get shit-faced, actually. Care to join me? You can invite that boyfriend of yours.”
“I’ll take a rain check, if you don’t mind.”
“Fair enough. And remember, call me. Day or night.”
As he headed for the exit, she murmured, “You’re a good man, Gus.”
He stopped with his hand on the door. As he looked over his shoulder at her, his dark eyes were grave. “But not good enough to save him.”
Before Lydia knew what she was doing, she was up and out of the chair. When she embraced the doctor who had been right on the front lines with her, there was a split second—and then he hugged her back.
“I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “This is not the outcome we want.”
A moment later, they parted, and he squeezed her shoulder before leaving. Out on the far side of all the glass, he made his way down the rows of workstations—and the other researchers stole glances at him, like he was a rock star striding through a public place, a unicorn among mortals.
The back of the t-shirt had a series of faded dates, like Pufnstuf was on tour. It was hard to know whether the top was an actual vintage one or something created to look period. Knowing Gus, it was probably the former. He seemed like the type who would blow off steam by collecting relics he’d hunt-and-pecked for.
Returning to the laptop, Lydia went through the chest images again, looking at the clear evidence of disease progression. There were other locations on Daniel’s body that had been scanned, but she had no interest in going through them, at least not right now. If there was nothing more to be done, it didn’t really matter how much things had advanced in his spine and hip. In his liver. The only good news was that there was still nothing in Daniel’s brain. The doctor with the anonymous features had led with that announcement, as if it had been preplanned. Or maybe it was just alphabetical, “brain,” starting with b, before “hip,” “liver,” and “lung.”
“Dr. Walter Scholz. That was his name,” she said absently as it came back to her.
Lydia closed the laptop.
When the best case was that you didn’t have cancer in your brain—yet—that pretty much said it all, didn’t it.
She needed to go find Daniel.
And tell him it was over.
TWO
A-B-AB-ABTHTH-THAAT’S ALL FOLKS!
As Porky Pig’s sign-off Looney-Tune’d around Daniel Joseph’s head, he poured himself a couple fingers of whiskey, and then tried to get the top back on the liquor bottle. As the cork-seated disk skipped around the open neck, he thought back to two months ago, when the tremors had started. The neuropathy in his hands was the kind of thing that had arrived without preamble, the side effect of the chemo like a houseguest who’d moved in without invitation for the holidays.
And was apparently staying through ’til New Year’s.
What he remembered most about the initial salvo of this particular concession of normal functioning was his frustration at its appearance. The trembling had kicked in at dinner one night, when he’d been trying to get a forkful of peas to his mouth. When the little fuckers had jumped off the tines and made like green casino dice on the plate, he’d rolled his shoulder and realigned the angle of his elbow. That had done nothing to help on his second try—and over the next couple of days, the extent of the disability had revealed itself. Each new discovery, from struggling to text on his cell phone or put the cap on his toothpaste or lace up his boots… had royally pissed him off.
Ah, the good ol’ days. When he’d had the energy to spare on shit like being cranked over something he couldn’t change.
Now? He wasn’t much older, but he was definitely wiser. Or tired-er, as the case was. So yup, standing at the counter, he just sat back and watched the jittery show, feeling nothing at all. It was simply one more thing to endure, and, given the à la carte menu of physical crap he had to deal with, not worth getting worked up about.
And hey, who needed an electric toothbrush now, right? Fuck Oral-B.
When he finally hole-in-forty-seventh’d things, he added some soda and turned away from the little setup of squat crystal basins, bottles of Seagram’s, and the amber anchor of his favorite brand of whiskey. In the midst of the professional-grade kitchen, he’d come to think of the modest stretch of alcohol and accoutrements as his personal bar, a pocket of cocktails in the midst of a setup Gordon Ramsay would have gotten a case of the hot cross buns for. From the Viking wall ovens and sixteen-burner gas top, to the pair of Traulsen refrigerators and the three deep-bellied sinks, you could feed an army out of the square footage.