“Yeah,” I said. It was all I could manage.
Before she could say anything else, the front door opened, and a man walked into my mom’s house as if he owned the place.
“Honey, I’m homeeee!” he said in a singsong voice. He came marching into the house, and the moment he saw me, he clapped his hands together. “Oh, my goodness! Connor! Put it there!” he said, grabbing my hand and shaking it aggressively. It must’ve been that Danny guy Mom had been going on and on about. Great.
Clearly, he couldn’t read the energy of the room because he was smiling and giddy as ever. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with pink and yellow flowers all over it, neon green pants, and a tie-dye hat on his head. The dude was well into his sixties, dressing as if he were a toddler who got to dress themselves for the day.
Really, Mom? Him?
“Yeah, good to meet you, too, Dan.”
“It’s Danny,” he said. “So, where’s this special lady that I heard you were bringing home today?” he asked.
I knew he didn’t mean for it, but that question was a sucker punch to my soul.
Mom walked over and wrapped her arms around Danny’s waist. “I wish this was better news, but it turns out Aaliyah has some serious health issues. She wasn’t able to make it.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Danny asked.
“No. She’s not. She’s fucking dying and I can’t save her. I broke up with her, because I can’t sit there and watch her die.”
Mom’s face dropped. “You broke up with her? You two were dating?”
“Yeah, we were, and yeah, I did. She’s moving out of my place as we speak. It’s over.”
“No…Connor. You can’t do that…I mean…I know this is a lot, but you can’t abandon her…I know you’re scared but—”
“I’m not scared, Mom. I’m fucking terrified. I’m terrified. But I can’t do it again. I can’t sit there and watch someone I care for lose the battle of their life. I can’t go through that. I did it twice with you, watching you fight, and I can’t do it again.”
Mom’s eyes watered over, and she covered her hand with her mouth, choking up. I didn’t want to make her cry, but I was being honest. I couldn’t suffer through that trauma again. I couldn’t spend late nights sitting up wondering if Aaliyah was still breathing. I couldn’t sit on the edge at all times, wondering if today was the day I was forced to say goodbye. I couldn’t watch her die.
Danny stepped forward and gave Mom a half-smile. He was much more somber than before, his energetic personality taming. “Can I talk to him alone for a minute, sweetheart?”
Mom nodded, and left the room, leaving me uneasy with the idea of interacting with Danny. I didn’t even know this guy.
He sat down at the table with me and released a weighted sigh. “Life is shitty sometimes, eh?”
“No offense, Dan, but I—”
“Danny.”
“Right. Danny. No offense, but I don’t want to talk about this. Especially with someone who is pretty much a stranger to me.”
“I get it, but I understand where you’re coming from.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do, Connor. Probably more than you’d believe.”
“No. You have no clue what it’s like to go through what I’ve been through. You have no clue how hard it is to watch someone you love battle cancer two times. You have no clue what that can do to your head. Then when you get past that trauma, you have no clue what it’s like to fall for someone who will bring up those same fears. You don’t fucking know.”
He brushed his thumb against the bridge of his nose and sat back in his chair. He stared forward as if he were looking past me, and he pushed out a forced grin that didn’t have a drop of happiness in it. “You might not think I know what it’s like, but I do, young man. I was married before I met your mother. Her name was Jules, and she was phenomenal. I was by her side through her first cancer scare and through her second that took her life.”
Danny’s brows knitted together as he lowered his hands to his lap and fiddled with his fingers.
My heart sat heavily in my throat as he revealed his truths to me, and I felt like a complete jackass because I didn’t have a clue what he’d been through.
“No one suffers more than the victims of that ugly disease, of any disease, truly. No one knows what the pain those individuals went through was like. But I remembered I’d prayed to God that he’d shift it. Shift her pain to my body. Give me her hurts so I could feel them for her.”
I remained quiet but invested.
I prayed that prayer one too many times, too.