Life and Other Near-Death Experiences(37)

But as Shiloh picked me up and carried me back to the sofa; as he kissed me until I almost tore my clothes off for him, then took me to the bedroom and undressed us both; as he entered me and made me cry out with primal pleasure, there was no way not to acknowledge what I’d been missing.

And I thought, Thank you, Tom.

Thank you for your awful, terrible, heartbreaking timing. Because without it, I would have never ended up in Vieques, where I would finally—dear God, finally—get properly laid before it was too late.





TWENTY


Shiloh was stretched out beside me, eyelids half-mast as he ran a finger up and down my arm. “Libby?”

“Mmm-hmm?” Having died the little death three times in a single night—my all-time personal record—I’d already passed blissed-out oblivion and was on a fast track to unconsciousness.

“I need to tell you something.”

Suddenly I was wide awake. “Please don’t say you have herpes,” I said, although STDs fell somewhere between splinters and parking tickets on my end-of-life list of concerns. I was certain he was straight, but what if he had weird fetishes, or a criminal record, or—

“I had cancer,” he said. “It almost killed me.”

Suffice to say, this was not the bombshell I’d been expecting, though it did explain why he’d been so worked up at dinner the other night. “Wow—I’m so sorry. What kind? When?”

“Leukemia. Sixteen years ago.”

“Cripes. You were young. Leukemia is curable, isn’t it?”

“Well, I’m lying here next to you, right?” he said with a small smile. “And usually, yeah. Mine was pretty bad, though. Lymph nodes, bones, groin,” he said, waving in the direction of his lower extremities. “No one said it, but basically the doctors, my family, my wife—they were all expecting the worst.”

Wife? His ring finger was bare. I let it slide. “So what happened?”

He kissed my shoulder. “I lived. To this day, I’m not sure why, but I did. I mean, I was in my twenties and I really, really didn’t want to die, but that’s true for most people with cancer, right?”

I nodded, grateful he’d phrased it like so. One of the few things that seriously pissed me off was when someone talked about how so-and-so would definitely survive cancer because he or she was a “fighter” or “too good to die.” While I understood the temptation to think a winning personality can tip the scales toward survival, it still made my blood boil. Because my mom? She was the best person I’d ever met. She would have had her hands and feet amputated if it meant staying alive to see Paul and me grow up. She didn’t die for lack of trying; she died because cancer is a serial killer. “You’re okay now?” I asked Shiloh.

“Um, yeah. I guess. My marriage fell apart before I was even done with chemo, but I’m alive. Although”—he made an exaggerated frown—“I lost a ball.”

I peeked under the sheet. “Pretty sure I saw two.”

“The right one’s fake.”

I started laughing. “You mean you have neuticles?”

“Neuticle,” he said, tickling me. “And you weren’t complaining a few minutes ago.”

“Are you infertile?”

“As far as I know, the left one works just fine. But I don’t have any secret children, in case you’re wondering.”

“That’s a relief.” I laid my head back on the pillow. “So this is why you were so upset with me the other night.”

“I guess, yeah. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Libby. Even if we’d known each other all our lives, that’s not the way I operate. But I’m guessing I’m not the only one who wants to see you try your best to live. And I still mean what I said about the plane thing. Usually I’m not big on fate and all that jazz. But I don’t know. I just . . .” He trailed off. Then he lifted the sheet again, and pointed to my stomach. “By the way, I’m pretty sure that’s infected.”

I quickly yanked the sheet over my abdomen. I’d been trying to keep the wound out of sight, but clearly wasn’t doing a bang-up job. “No, that’s what it looks like when it starts getting really bad.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to sound firm even as I began to wonder if he could possibly be right. “So now that we’re trading info, I need to tell you something.”

He frowned. “About Tom?”

“Yeah.”

I gave him the rundown, from the cutlery incident to the cash liquidation to the fact that Tom didn’t know I was sick. Afterward, Shiloh looked thoughtful, but not upset. “Well, I’ve never slept with a married woman before, but this seems like a good time to start.”

“Sorry,” I said for the seventh time.

“Libby, it’s okay. Are you all right, though? I mean, aren’t you concerned that Tom has a lot to do with why you said no to treatment?”

I shook my head, thinking of Tom’s blurry face coming into focus in the kitchen, of how less than a minute’s delay on my part had resulted in an entirely new narrative for both him and me. “I decided that before he told me.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure you weren’t the first person to initially say you were going to skip treatment. The difference is, you’re sticking with it. Any way you shake it, your husband coming out plus cancer is an insane amount of stress for one person. It’s no surprise you freaked out on the beach.”