I close my eyes. I mouth the date. I mouth the words, because I know before she tells me. All this time I didn’t know and I know now. I know.
“It was in September. September 18, 2011. That’s the date, according to the charts.”
I hold my breath as Lora’s kitchen slowly tilts.
“I’m sorry, Cleo.”
I jump up. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I look down at the crumpled post-card. Then I dash into the living room, where I hung my purse on the front door handle.
Cindy’s voice pipes up: solemn, concerned. “I hope this doesn’t make you feel…”
Her voice is static in my ear. I pull the check out of an inside pocket, fingers shaking.
No surprise. It’s no surprise now. Now I know.
It’s R.’s handwriting. Kellan’s check. R. and Kellan. Kellan, R.
Lyon. Robert. Robert Lyon?
Lyon is the real R., and Kellan was his stand-in. Thanking me for giving bone marrow to his brother after Lyon was dead.
I murmur a goodbye to Cindy. Then I lunge for Lora’s sink and vomit while the cat looks on.
I WALK THE HALLWAYS OF Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for hours, blank and brainless, carting all my bags. And I decide he didn’t know. Kellan never sought me out at Chattahoochee College. He didn’t know about our strange connection until I said “sloth” on the balcony that day.
This is the universe’s setup. God’s joke. It’s so insane that as I wash my hands outside his room on the bone marrow transplant floor, I question whether he’ll really be in there. If Jesus can escape tombs…
Kellan’s nurse, a pretty brunette named Arethea, interrupts my magical thinking with a bunch of facts.
I don’t like any of them. Even though I’m here, I can’t seem to believe. Or maybe I believe too much. Blind faith that none of this is real. It’s all a lie.
I would never let Kellan have cancer. I wouldn’t let him die. He’s perfect Kellan. Duh.
You know Manning texted me? That girl is not his fucking girlfriend. She was Lyon’s girlfriend. Now she’s in medical school at Emory, which explains why she popped up in the parking deck
After she and Kellan’s Uncle Pace popped up to beg Kellan to seek treatment, Manning said Kellan was worried I’d find out. He wanted me to go away. He wanted to protect me. So he made it up, the bit about the pregnant girlfriend.
“Your hands seem clean to me,” Arethea says kindly. I look over my shoulder at her.
“You want to go inside? I think he’s sleeping.”
It’s horrible, the stepping through the door. With every cell I have, I protest. My stomach twists into a knot. My forehead sweats. My heart hammers so hard I barely notice my surroundings: teeny tiny hallway, widening into a wider room with pale blue walls.
He’s not in here. He’s not. I would believe that if I could. If I didn’t want to see him so badly. But I do. I want it more intensely than I fear it.
I take soft steps down the tiny hall. I pause at the mouth of the room so I can listen to the beeping, breathe the strange, cool air. It smells like plastic, and some sort of cleaner.
“Why is Daddy in that bed? It has a rail like Olive’s baby bed.”
“He’s sleeping, honey.”
“Will he sleep forever?”
“I don’t know.”
Kellan’s bed is empty, the sheets tucked neatly, as if it’s not been used. It isn’t hard for me to accept. In fact, I’m overtaken by a rush of mindless joy.
He isn’t here? I knew it.