“It’s . . . Adam, it’s . . .” I couldn’t speak.
Before, it seemed like the winged man was looking down at the ground as he levitated from it. Now you could see what he was gazing down at. Adam had painted a little rendering of my apartment building, complete with the frolicking wolves. The winged man was watching over me.
He took my hand in his and said, “No more fear.” He kissed my knuckles. “Promise me. Promise me that you’ll go on and take everything you want, take what you deserve.”
“I promise.” My throat tightened and tears fell from my eyes.
I looked down at Adam, who arched his eyebrows and then gestured toward the winged man and said, “I’ll have my eye on you.”
I sniffled. “Yeah, you gonna keep watch?”
“I’ll be very angry with you if you dwell on me, young lady. All the things I said in that letter, I meant. Okay? But I was talking about my life, not yours, and it wasn’t some dying man’s poetic nonsense. I wanted you to know that I am grateful to you. I’m grateful to you now. I got to experience it in this life, and I don’t think it’s measured with time.”
“You don’t think what’s measured with time, Adam?” My voice was strained.
“Love, Charlotte. Just like we won’t be judged by the brevity of our lives, no one will ever be able to take this away from me. Not the cancer, not my death, not your new boyfriend, not your future husband or your future kids . . .”
“Stop, Adam!”
“No, I mean it. I’m not saying it the way you think I am. I’m saying it doesn’t matter what happens next. Today everyone is looking for the perfect future and the perfect partner who has it all together so they can feel like the life they dream of is possible, but when you’re dying, all you want is a person to love right now. You were my perfect right now that night in the loft, but then I realized something after you left.”
By that point I was crying full, quiet sobs. “What did you realize?”
“Come here.” He pulled me to sit on his lap. I wrapped my arms around him, curling into a ball. I kissed his neck and then rested my head on his shoulder. “I realized that right now is all that matters for everyone. Even if I had my whole life in front of me the way you do, I wouldn’t change a thing.” He wheeled us toward the car. “I learned something that night with you. I had spent the years before I got sick trying to build a career that would make me rich because I thought I would find happiness in that. Just like I looked for women I could use as trophies. All of that crap left me feeling empty. I was unfulfilled and I was betraying myself. I only started living once I knew I was dying. That’s the reason for all the paintings. The world came to life around me. I could see people for who they were, not what they had. And when I was with you, I felt more alive than ever before.” When we reached the car, he wiped tears from my face. “Because you are good, Charlotte. You’re a good person and you see the good in other people. You care. You brightened the darkest time of my life.”
“No one has ever said anything like that about me. I’m a mess, Adam. I’ve had five jobs in five years and twice as many boyfriends.”
“None of that matters. Why don’t you start believing in yourself? I overheard you talking to your mom last night and I knew your boyfriend came to the hospital today. I saw him in the reflection of the window on the footbridge. I saw your reaction and knew it must have been him.”
“Oh?” My heart started thumping. “He’s not really my boyfri—”
He gestured toward the car. “Let’s get going. I need to make some plans.” He suddenly seemed more resolute.
I helped him into the passenger seat, put the wheelchair in the trunk, and then slipped into the driver’s side. I spent the next few minutes gathering myself. Adam handed me a Kleenex from the glove box. “I better get you back,” I said. He reached over and squeezed my hand. I turned to look him in the eye. “What did you overhear?”
“I overheard you telling your mom about Seth and how he probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with you after this was all over. I felt guilty, like it was all my fault. I wanted to call him and tell you to go to him, but at the same time I felt like if he wanted nothing to do with you because of how good and sweet and amazing you are for spending time with me, then he’s a damn fool and he doesn’t deserve you. Then he came to the hospital and it occurred to me that the doubts had nothing to do with him. It’s you. You still don’t know what you’re worth.” He wiped a tear from my cheek and smiled. “So I’m dedicating the rest of my life to proving that to you.”
“Adam . . .”
“Don’t argue with me. Just drive, lady.”
When we got back to the hospital, I pushed Adam past the nurses’ station quickly. Leah shook her head and then came into his room a moment later. “You better hurry up and get out of those clothes and back into the gown, Adam.”
“Leah,” he stated assertively. “I need a pen and some paper as soon as possible.” Leah chuckled to herself and then left the room, still shaking her head as Adam stripped away Chucky’s clothes.
“But you can’t write,” I said to him.
“Charlotte, I need you to go home and stay there.”
“What?”
Standing near his bed, completely naked, he pointed to the shelf where a gown was folded. “Can you hand me that and then go home and wait until you receive instructions?”
“Receive instructions? Adam,” I started to say. I was fully worried now.
“Charlotte, look at me. A human does not get more desperate and vulnerable than this. I’m naked and skinny, my bald head is wrapped in gauze, I can barely stand up, and I’m dying. I’m begging you, please, just do as I say.”
“Okay, okay.” I handed him the gown and helped him into bed.
“Now go. I have your number. I’ll call you. Don’t call me.”
“This is crazy.”
“Just go.” He shooed me away, but he was smiling while he did it.
I couldn’t laugh even though he was trying to be funny. “What if . . .”
“What if there is a 9.0 earthquake right below us in the next minute? What if the sun explodes tomorrow? What if heaven is real? What if God is a woman? What if the moon landing was a hoax? What if Donald Trump is an alien?”
“No one really questions that last one,” I said.
“You promised me there would be no more fear and no more what-ifs. If something happens, then it is exactly what is supposed to happen. Have you learned nothing from me? Now go before grumpy Adam shows up.”
I kissed him and left the room without another word. I felt strange walking out to my car alone. It felt even stranger to know that I was leaving Adam in his hospital room alone, and that at any moment he could die and I would never see him again.
22. The Trial
Everyone walks around blabbing about love and life like we all know what it’s supposed to mean and how we’re supposed to feel. We put these stupid restrictions on our relationships . . . for what? According to whom? God? Society? None of it actually matters because when you have the unfortunate knowledge that you’re going to die very soon, none of it applies. Rules are for people with the luxury of time.
Nothing holds you back—certainly not rejection. You’ve already felt the ultimate rejection. And when you’re young, lying in a hospital bed, waiting for the lights to go out because this shitty fucking world has rejected you, there’s nothing you can do but try to plant a seed of yourself inside another person so deep that you will undoubtedly live on through them. That’s what legacy is. That’s what made Adam brave enough to love me.
He may have planted himself inside of every person who viewed his beautiful art and felt moved by it. And in the public sense, that will be his legacy, but for me, his legacy is that he taught me something very important. He taught me that one way to give your life meaning is to teach another person how to look within and love.
I made it back to my apartment and walked listlessly up the stairs, clutching C
hucky’s clothes Adam had been wearing. When I walked in, Chucky jerked his head toward the door from where he was sitting at the breakfast bar. “Oh man, did he die?” he said with wide, sympathetic eyes.
“No. He kicked me out.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know; he has something up his sleeve.” I handed Chucky the clothes.
“Hmm. I was reading a medical journal last night—”
“Shocker.”
“Charlotte, listen to me. They’re starting a new trial for Adam’s exact kind of cancer. I asked him about it when he was here. He didn’t want to do it. He’s given up.”
I shook my head. “He has brain cancer and it’s already spread everywhere through his body. He had chemo and radiation and surgery.”
“But there’s a new trial and he knows about it. He doesn’t want to try.”
“That is insane. Adam would fight for his life. He’s the most vivacious person I know. What’s the treatment?”
Chucky walked to the counter and grabbed the medical journal and tossed it to me. “They’re doing it at Cedars, on the same floor. He declined to participate. He told me about a study . . . a trial that was coming up, but then he mumbled about the number of fucks he had left to give.”
The news devastated me. Would Adam really refuse a possible cure? Or at the very least, an opportunity to prolong his life? He had ordered me to stay away from the hospital until I was told to come back, but I wasn’t going to let this go.
I read the study. Some of the cases had yielded very promising outcomes for exactly the kind of tumor Adam had—a glioblastoma. I called the hospital and asked for his room. He refused to take the call, so I told the receptionist it was an emergency.
Finally, he answered. “What’s wrong, is everything okay?” he asked, sounding genuinely worried.
“Is there a trial going on there that you refused to participate in? A trial that could possibly prolong your life?”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Hello?”
He cleared his throat. “I have some time, I know I do. There’s something I really want to do, but I can’t do it if I’m being poked and prodded.”
I was angry. “So you’re not gonna even try?”
He took a deep breath. “If you agree to my plan, I will do the trial, Charlotte. I promise.”
It was like the sky opened up. Adam would fight. We could have a future.
“What’s your plan?” I asked him.
“I can’t tell you yet. Wait for the call.”
“Fine.” I took a deep breath. I trusted Adam. “I’ll wait, but I want to be with you.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. “We’ll be together.”
I couldn’t get our moment in the hotel room out of my mind. It was so beautiful, so strikingly different from my time in another hotel room with Seth. Not that it was bad with Seth—far from it; it was exactly what I needed at that moment—but there was more depth of emotion and a stronger bond between Adam and me. I missed him five minutes after I left his side. When I was away from Seth, I didn’t yearn for him. I hadn’t even chased after him on the footbridge.
I killed time by cleaning up, taking a shower, doing my hair, and going through bills that were piling up on the countertop.
Chucky came out and saw me gawking at the past-due electric bill and the stack of other bills underneath it. “Were you just leaving these here for me to take care of, Chuck?”
“No, I was making a pile for Dad. He’s going to float us until September.”
“What?” My parents were comfortable, upper-middle-class people with a sufficient retirement. I know paying our bills for a couple of months until Chucky started working wasn’t going to break them, but I still wasn’t clear as to why they were doing it, except for the fact that they’d do anything for my little brother.
“I told Dad that you quit your job because you decided to play nurse to some artist dude with cancer.”
“That’s what you said to him, you dick?” I was crushed and my face wasn’t telling any lies.
Chucky’s expression finally softened when he took note of my anguish. “Not exactly,” he said. I noticed Chucky was wearing the tracksuit that matched mine. “I told Dad I thought what you were doing was kind, okay? I said it was big of you.” It’s hard for brothers, even adult men, to compliment their sisters this way, especially for someone like Chucky who has an extremely large ego and competitive streak.
“Kind?”
“Look, Charlotte, I told Dad the whole fucking story. I said I had met Adam and that I thought what you were doing was really respectable. He agreed and said he’d cover the bills for a while. You should call him and thank him.”
I couldn’t believe my father would agree with anything I was doing.
“I’ll call him. Thanks, Charles.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked up from the counter. “I’m sorry about Adam and Seth and this whole mess.”
“That means a lot to me, but I’ll figure it out.”
“I know you will.”
The best thing a brother can say to you is that he believes in you. It takes more nerve than I’m sorry, or even I love you.
Over the next fifteen minutes, I made three calls. The first was to my dad.
“Hello,” he said.
“Thank you so much, Dad, for offering to help me out.”
“You’re welcome, Charlotte. I’m worried about you, though.” His voice dropped.
“This isn’t one of my bleeding-heart charity cases, like Curtis.”
“I know, which is why I’m worried. I don’t want this to tear you apart.” My dad didn’t ever talk to me about my personal life like this.
I swallowed. “I love him and it has nothing to do with his cancer.” The airwaves were plagued with silence. “Did you hear me, Dad?”
“I heard you.”
“What? You don’t think I’m strong enough?”
“I don’t think anyone is strong enough.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you weren’t my dad.”
“Daddies want to protect their little girls from having their hearts broken.” He had never acted this way toward me.
“It would break my heart more if I couldn’t be with him right now. I’m stronger because of him.”
“Your mother believes you’re doing the right thing.”
“But you don’t?”
“I just—”
I cut him off. “Please tell Mom thank you for me. I’ll come out and see you guys soon.”
“Charlotte . . .”
“I have to go, Dad. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said, sounding defeated.
We hung up and a second later I was dialing the hospital. I got Leah on the phone. “How is Adam?”
“He’s fine. Hang tight okay? He’ll call you in the morning. Get some rest.”
“What is going on, Leah?”
“Just trust me. Adam is okay and we have a specialist coming in to do some tests.”
“For what?” He’s doing the trial. He has to be. He’s setting it up. He promised.
“It’s not what you think. Just hang tight, Charlotte. He’ll call you in the morning.”
“If anything happens while I’m not there, I’m going to be pissed.”
She laughed.
“It’s not funny,” I said.
“It’s only funny because Adam said you would say that. He’s okay for now. The tumors aren’t growing at the pace we thought.”
More hope.
“So are they going to try and remove them?”
“Charlotte, I can’t discuss this any further with you over the phone.”
“I don’t know what he’s up to, but I’m not going to be able to sleep at all tonight.”
“Try. I’ll call you if anything comes up, I promise. And I’ll give the night nurse the same instructions.”
“Okay fine. Thank you.” I hung up.
I went to the kitchen and drank several large swigs of white wine directly from the bottle, then went back to my room and called Seth.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hi. It’s Charlotte.”
“I know.” Awkward silence.
“How is your wrist?”
“It’s going to be okay. I sat out two games just to be on the safe side, but I’ll be back on the field tomorrow.”
“That’s good.”
“How’s Adam?”
“I’m not really sure. He might participate in a trial, a new cutting-edge treatment.”
He didn’t reply, but I could hear him take a deep, irritated breath. “That’s good for him. So that leaves us exactly where I thought. Why are you calling?”
Ouch.
“I guess . . . I’m asking for forgiveness and I’m trying to say . . . I think . . . I guess I’m . . .”
“Just spit it out, Charlotte. What? You realize you weren’t really into me?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Then what?”
“I just wanted you to know that I’m going to be with Adam. I have . . . been with Adam.” My mouth filled with saliva like I was going to throw up. I ran to my desk and grabbed the wastebasket, all the while listening to Seth’s agitated breaths over the phone. “But Seth, I liked you. I just . . . I can’t ask you to wait.”
“You have to do it?”
“Yes. But it’s more than that. I want to be with him.”
Several seconds of silence went by, again making me feel more and more nauseous.
“Okay then . . .” he said. He sounded resigned. “I hope for you and for Adam’s sake that he pulls through. I can’t imagine your devastation if he doesn’t.” Before I could respond and convey my utter sadness at leaving things this way, he said, “Listen, Charlotte, I have to go. The team trainer is waiting for me in the locker room.”
“Where are we leaving this conversation? I mean, do you forgive me? You don’t hate me?”
“This is where we’re leaving this conversation. There’s nothing to forgive. I don’t hate you. You owe me nothing.” I detected indifference in his tone.
“You’re right, I don’t owe you anything. I just thought because we kind of had the beginning of a good thing . . .”