“They go together,” I say softly. “Sailing and the stars.”
She glances back and smiles. “You do enjoy breaking the rules.”
“Hey,” I say, gently chiding. “I’m a very upstanding person.”
“Okay, Phineas,” she says, teasing. She turns back to my father. “He enjoys things that are dangerous. Fast cars and illegal betting and underground boxing matches.”
“And dangerous women,” I say, my voice low.
“And thoroughbred horses who win races.”
“Though not precisely in that order.”
“He does those things because he’s running out of time. At least he thinks he is. And he’s so determined to experience everything, like maybe he can leave it behind. Like if he’s felt every emotion, every risk, every thrill, he’ll accept it when it’s time to go.”
My throat closes. She has me figured out.
You’re sacrificing your entire life to your family. And not just your family. That I could understand. You’re sacrificing everything to the secret your family keeps.
Is it true? Maybe.
It’s more than a wish, though. My father made me promise. It wasn’t just when I was six, seven, eight years old. It was later, when he would still have lucid moments. He would find me in the middle of the night, wake me up, and make me swear not to tell anyone. Ever.
The poetry didn’t help him then.
All the risks I take now won’t help me later.
“Are you afraid?” The question comes from my father. At first I think he’s asking Eva, but his questioning gaze is on me.
“Maybe,” I say, answering honestly. I put my arm around Eva’s shoulder. “Sometimes it does feel like I’m running out of time, and I don’t know the right way to handle that. I don’t know how to face it without letting the knowledge change me. How do you walk into battle without armor?”
“It can change you,” my father says. “It can change you for the better.”
I shake my head. Not a refusal. I don’t even know what better would mean.
“Kinder,” my father says, seeing the confusion on my face. I can tell from his expression that he still doesn’t recognize me. I’m not his son right now. I’m a stranger to him, just like this version of him is a stranger to me. Though maybe it’s not. I’ve gotten to know this person for years. Maybe some part of this version recognizes me. “It can make you kinder. More loving. More giving. What’s the point of holding back if you’re going to lose it all in the end?”
It sounds so reasonable when he says it, but he doesn’t even know what we’re talking about. I look deeper into his eyes, as if I can find my father looking back at me. Instead it’s this other person, the only one that Hemingway ever met.
“He is kind,” Eva says, still holding my father’s hand. She looks at him, not me, as she speaks. “And loving. And giving. He’s a good man, your son. A great one.”
My father’s cloudy brown eyes struggle to focus.
His eyelids droop.
The nurse steps forward with another blanket.
Eva stands back to allow her space. My father’s hand slips out of hers. I take Eva and pull her into my side. “Thank you,” I say, my voice thick.
“You’re welcome.” She hesitates like she wants to say more. Then she speaks in a rush. “Finn, it doesn’t have to end this way. With you alone and scared in this room.”
So we’re really going to do this. “Of course I wouldn’t be in this room. He’ll be here. I’ll be in my own rooms. See, most likely he’ll still be alive when I lose my grip on reality. It’s only our brains that give up in our thirties. Not our bodies. We live a long time this way.”
“Good,” she says fiercely. “Do you think I’d want you to pass away early just because you have an illness?”
“Why wouldn’t you? I want it. Every man in my family has had to weigh that stone.” Even my father had done that. Not all of the poems involved a nice carriage ride with Death. Some were about suffering and the way out. Suicide.
Eva’s eyes go wide. “That’s not funny, Finn.”
“I’m not joking, Eva.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “Please don’t.”
“I’m still here,” I say, my tone caustic as I spread my arms wide. The ironic showman. “In all my glory. Stockholders everywhere are safe as long as I’m alive.”
Her dark eyes shimmer. “I know I’m not supposed to care about you. None of this is real, but the truth is that I love you.”
Brittle silence follows the declaration.
My father slumbers peacefully on the bed. The nurse has stepped outside to give us privacy. We’re standing in what will be my future prison. She was right when she said I see myself here.
“I’m twenty-nine,” I say, my voice low. “My dad’s first episode? He was thirty-six. That’s in seven years.”