“I know the time has long since passed that I should ask what your intentions are with my daughter, but I am anyway.”
Mantis smiled. “I’ve loved Manon for all of my adult life.”
Pierre raised an eyebrow.
Mantis laughed. “I know I didn’t answer your question.”
“There was a reason your relationship didn’t work in the past.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pierre folded his arms, and Mantis laughed again.
“How much time ya got?”
Alegria’s father sat down in one of the furnished apartment’s chairs. “All day.”
That certainly wasn’t what Mantis had expected him to say, but the reasons for the decision that had resulted in Alegria ending their relationship weren’t a secret.
“My brother was a firefighter for New York City Fire Department,” he began.
“I was wondering what happened to the two of you,” Alegria commented when Mantis and her dad joined her and her mother.
“How are you feeling, ma’am?” Mantis asked, unsure of whether he should embrace her or offer to shake her hand.
Matille stood to approach him, and he met her halfway, kissing both cheeks when she initiated their embrace.
“Better now that my husband and daughter are here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, wondering if she blamed him for them leaving in the first place.
“Maman has good news,” Alegria said, putting her arm through his.
“I’m in a remission of sorts,” Matille said to her husband, who put his hands on his wife’s shoulders.
“What does this mean?”
Mantis listened as Matille and Alegria rattled off numbers and acronyms that didn’t mean anything to him. Even if they had, the conversation he’d had with Pierre was at the forefront of his mind.
“It means the cancer is no longer growing.”
Alegria explained that the cancer center where her mother was being treated had recently implemented two experimental therapies from the Netherlands that had promising results.
The four-drug chemo “cocktail” had extended patients’ lives by nearly two years over the current standard single-drug regimen for pancreatic cancer.
“This is very good news,” murmured Alegria.
“Next week, they’ll begin a combination of chemo with radiation,” added Matille.
Mantis wasn’t sure what to say. Congratulations, you get to live two years longer than you previously thought?
“What I want to know now is when the two of you plan to get married. I would like as much time with my grandchildren as possible,” Matille said with her hands on her hips.
“Maman!” gasped Alegria.
Pierre’s eyes met his, and they both smiled.
—:—