The Last Song

Over time, he began to take longer naps, up to two hours at a time, and when he woke, he often felt pain in his stomach. One evening while cooking chili for dinner, he suddenly felt a sharp, stabbing pain and doubled over, knocking the pan from the stove, strewing tomatoes and beans and beef across the kitchen floor. As he tried to catch his breath, he knew something was seriously wrong.

He made an appointment with a doctor, then went back to the hospital for scans and X-rays. Afterward, while Steve watched the vials fill with the blood necessary for the recommended tests, he thought of his father and the cancer that had eventually killed him. And he suddenly knew what the doctor would tell him.

On the third visit to the doctor, he found out he was right.

"You have stomach cancer," the doctor said. He took a long breath. "And from the scans, it's metastasized to your pancreas and lungs." His voice was neutral, but not unkind. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but let me start by saying it's not good."

The oncologist was compassionate and yet was telling Steve that there was nothing he could do. Steve knew this, just as he knew the doctor wanted him to ask specific questions, in the hope that talking might somehow make things easier.

When his dad was dying, Steve had done his research. He knew what it meant when cancer metastasized, he knew what it meant to have cancer not only in his stomach, but also in his pancreas. He knew the odds of surviving were next to nil, and instead of asking anything, he turned toward the window. On the ledge, a pigeon was settled near the glass, oblivious to what was going on inside. I've been told that I'm dying, he thought while staring at it, and the doctor wants me to talk about it. But there's nothing really to say, is there?

He waited for the bird to coo in agreement, but of course, there was no response from the bird at all.

I'm dying, he thought again.

Steve remembered clasping his hands together, amazed that they weren't shaking. If ever they should shake, he thought, it would be at a time like this. But they were as steady and still as a kitchen sink.

"How much time do I have?"

The doctor seemed relieved that the silence had been broken at last. "Before we start going into that, I want to talk about some of your options."

"There are no options," Steve said. "You and I both know that."

If the doctor was surprised by his response, he didn't show it. "There are always options," he said.

"But none that can cure it. You're talking about quality of life."

The doctor set aside his clipboard. "Yes," he said.

"How can we discuss quality if I don't know how much time I have? If I only have a few days, it might mean that I should start making phone calls."

"You have more than a few days."

"Weeks?"

"Yes, of course..."

"Months?"

The doctor hesitated. He must have seen something in Steve's face that signaled he would continue to press until he knew the truth. He cleared his throat. "I've been doing this a long time, and I've come to learn that predictions don't mean much. Too much lies outside the realm of medical knowledge. A lot of what happens next comes down to you and your specific genetics, your attitude. No, there's nothing we can do to stop the inevitable, but that's not the point. The point is that you should try to make the most of the time you have left."

Steve studied the doctor, aware that his question hadn't been answered.

"Do I have a year?"

This time, the doctor didn't respond, but his silence gave him away. Leaving the office, Steve took a deep breath, armed with the knowledge that he had less than twelve months to live.

The reality hit him later as he was standing on the beach.

He had advanced cancer, and there was no known cure. He would be dead within the year.

On his way out of the office, the doctor had given him some information. Little pamphlets and a list of websites, useful for a book report but good for little else. Steve had tossed them in the garbage on the way to the car. As he stood beneath the winter sun on the deserted beach, he tucked his hands into his coat, staring at the pier. Though his vision wasn't what it once was, he could see people moving about or fishing by the rails, and he marveled at their normalcy. It was as if nothing extraordinary had happened.

He was going to die, and sooner rather than later. With that, he realized that so many of the things he'd spent time worrying about no longer mattered. His 401(k) plan? Won't need it. A way to make a living in his fifties? Doesn't matter. His desire to meet someone new and fall in love? Won't be fair to her, and to be frank, that desire ended with the diagnosis anyway.

It was over, he repeated to himself. In less than a year, he was going to die. Yes, he'd known something was wrong, and perhaps he'd even expected the doctor to deliver the news he had. But the memory of the doctor speaking the actual words began to recur in his mind, like an old-fashioned record skipping on a turntable. On the beach, he began to shake. He was scared and he was alone. Head lowered, he put his face into his hands and wondered why it had happened to him.

The following day, he called Chan and explained that he could no longer teach piano. Next he met with Pastor Harris to tell him the news. At that time, Pastor Harris was still recovering from the injuries he'd suffered in the fire, and though Steve knew it was selfish to burden his friend during his convalescence, he could think of no one else to talk to. He met him at the house, and as they sat on the back porch, Steve explained his diagnosis. He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, but he failed, and in the end, they cried together.

Afterward, Steve walked the beach, wondering what to do with the little time he had remaining. What, he wondered, was most important to him? Passing by the church--at that point, the repairs hadn't been started, but the blackened walls had been torn down and hauled away--he stared at the gaping hole that once housed the stained-glass window, thinking of Pastor Harris and the countless mornings he'd spent in the halo of sunlight as it streamed through the window. It was then that he knew he had to make another.

A day later, he called Kim. When he told her the news, she broke down on the phone, weeping into the receiver. Steve felt a tightness in the back of his throat, but he didn't cry with her, and somehow he knew he would never cry about his diagnosis again.

Later, he called her again to ask whether the kids could spend the summer with him. Though the idea frightened her, she consented. At his request, she agreed not to tell them about his condition. It would be a summer filled with lies, but what choice did he have if he wanted to get to know them again?

In the spring, as the azaleas were blooming, he began to muse more often on the nature of God. It was inevitable, he supposed, to think about such things at a time like this. Either God existed or He didn't; he would either spend eternity in heaven, or there would be nothing at all. Somehow he found comfort in turning the question over in his mind; it spoke to a longing deep inside him. He eventually came to the conclusion that God was real, but he also wanted to experience God's presence in this world, in mortal terms. And with that, he began his quest.

It was the last year of his life. Rain fell almost daily, making it one of the wettest springs on record. May, however, was absolutely dry, as if somewhere the faucet had been turned off. He purchased the glass he needed and began to work on the window; in June, his children arrived. He'd walked the beach and searched for God, and somehow, he realized, he'd been able to mend the fraying ropes that had tethered him to his children. Now, on a dark night in August, baby turtles were skimming the surface of the ocean, and he was coughing up blood. It was time to stop lying; it was time to tell the truth.

His children were scared, and he knew they wanted him to say or do something to take their fear away. But his stomach was being pierced by a thousand twisting needles. He wiped the blood from his face using the back of his hand and tried to sound calm.

"I think," he said, "I need to go to the hospital."

31

Ronnie r />

Her dad was hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed when he told her. She immediately began to shake her head. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true.

"No," she said, "this isn't right. Doctors make mistakes."

"Not this time," he said, reaching for her hand. "And I'm sorry you had to find out like this."

Will and Jonah were downstairs in the cafeteria. Her dad wanted to talk to each of his children separately, but Ronnie suddenly wanted nothing to do with any of it. She didn't want him to say anything else, not one more word.

Her mind flashed on a dozen different images: Suddenly she knew why her dad had wanted her and Jonah to come to North Carolina. And she understood that her mom had known the truth all along. With so little time left together, he had no desire to argue with her. And his ceaseless work on the window now made perfect sense. She recalled his coughing fit in the church and the times he'd winced in pain. In hindsight, the pieces all fit together. Yet everything was falling apart.