Chapter 38

                                    

                                          
One Month Later 
Second opinion. 
Third opinion. 
Fourth opinion.
Today, a fifth opinion. 
All the same outcome as the first doctors visit. Surgery could kill her. Chemotherapy won't do much except make her miserable. She decides there is no use in trying for a sixth opinion despite my insistence that we should and says it would do nothing but be a waste of the time she has left. She says we have already wasted a month. 
"I need one thing from you."
She says this as we sit on our bench after the fifth opinion. Phoebe is with Bernadette, at our home. I nod and wait and do my best to keep my composure, but it is already so far gone. Tears are slipping down my cheeks, dropping against my pants, darkening the light gray fabric of them. 
"Anything," I whisper. "I'll give you whatever you want. Anything."
"I need you to try to enjoy this time with me."
I look to her and say nothing in return, but nod again. It's so little of her to ask of me, yet so much at the same time. How can I try to be happy while I'm slowly losing her? Knowing that I'm losing her? We've lost the opportunity to grow our family or grow old together. She's lost the opportunity to watch our little girl grow up to become a woman. How many things is she going to miss? They're innumerable.
After some time, she begins to name some places she wants to go. Paris, Germany, Switzerland, along with some tropical islands neither of us have been to. I've already informed my publisher I won't be writing anything new indefinitely. She throws out some specific things she would like to see, such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park. Then comes the talk of drawing up a will for her. And hiring a nanny when she becomes too sick to care for Phoebe, as a way to help me. We discuss what we will do when hospice needs to be brought in. Or when she's too far gone to know what's happening around her. She's adamant that she wants to stay in our home and not in a hospital. I agree wholeheartedly not only because of my hatred for hospitals, but because I imagine it will be much more comfortable when...
I can't think of the moment it's going to happen. Not yet. It's too much. 
In a moment of silence, I stare into her eyes. They stare up into mine. She looks so beautiful today, it's effortless for her, the most beautiful woman I've surely ever laid my eyes on. Light shines through the leafless trees and casts shadows on her face. It makes her red hair shine and gleam. Fall has always been her season. She is radiant... yet at the same time I can see the tiredness wearing on her face. 
In the weeks since her diagnoses, she has already begun to slowly lose weight. I've noticed, of course, but have said nothing. She's had spells of vertigo so bad that she can't stand up or get out bed. Her head hurts fairly frequently. Every so often she seems to have trouble getting words out. She's become forgetful at times. She's been sleeping longer and has become fatigued. She becomes dizzy at a whim and seems to trip or fall at random. I'm terrified she's going to break a bone or seriously injure herself. 
Yet through all of her newfound symptoms, which are coming on faster than we had anticipated, she has seemed to stay positive. I take it in some breaths as denial. But she's always been positive, the polar opposite of me, up until we found our way back to each other. Then her happiness rubbed off on me. And now I seem to be retreating back into myself very, very slowly. 
We don't speak of what's happening in front of Phoebe. Her mother and her father and her brother have been visiting frequently. It's torn her mother and brother apart. I'm unsure of how her father feels because like me, he's a difficult man to read. I don't say much to him. 
When Theodora and I do talk about it, it's usually at the end of the day, when we are alone in bed after making love. She is insistent upon keeping up with normal amount our lovemaking, wanting it nearly every night, despite my worries that I will hurt her. She doesn't want to be treated like she will break, so I oblige her without much question. 
As I continue to stare at her now, on this beautiful November afternoon, all I can see is her beauty. It's all I want to see. No sickness. No pain. No hurt. For one moment I think to pray to god to ask him to keep her with me. Pray for a miracle. Hoping for one would work just as well, I think. We don't have good luck with prayer. 
That's true. They've never worked for me and they worked too well for her. 
"Miracles happen, don't they? You could end up being just fine."
But I say this through more tears and she kisses them away before kissing my lips. I know better and she knows that. With all the signs that are slowly popping up... we both know better. 
"Miracles do happen. It was a miracle that you lived the night you were shot and died in that ambulance."
"Do you still believe it was because of a prayer?"
"I think so," she whispers, sounding almost frightened. "But I don't know. I just don't know."
"Then if I pray to god and ask him to save you, he should, shouldn't he? I'll offer him anything, offer him myself, my life, to keep you here. The same way you did for me."
She says nothing, but the look she gives me is enough for me to know that isn't something she wants me to do. It scares her. Her prayer had worked in one way or another, but I could have lived anyway. Even if she hadn't prayed I could have lived. And look at us now. She's broken her end of the bargain she made with Him because she's with me again. 
The thought that perhaps that's why this is happening crosses my mind. I don't know how many times I've thought that since we found out she was sick even if I haven't said anything to her. So what does that mean for her prayer? And if I believe that her breaking her end of the deal is the cause of this, I have to acknowledge that He is real, don't I? I can't do that. I won't do it...
I take her hand and hold it in mine. I stroke the top of it, slowly, gently, feeling her. As she rests her head to my chest I begin to pray, unable to stop or help myself from doing so, despite not believing. It makes me feel sick and angry and get I do it anyway, doing it hard, begging more than praying. For the first time since I was a teenage boy, I pray to something that I don't know whether or not it exists.