Life and Other Near-Death Experiences(45)

I didn’t respond, but when I saw my father later that evening, I smiled as wide as my face would allow, as though I were tickled to be the spitting image of a young Billy Crystal. And as he smiled back in response, I realized Paul had saved all three of us from yet another unnecessary maiming.

That was Paul: fixer of situations, savior of me. I needed him, and maybe more important, I needed to make sure that the increasingly suspicious Tom was not the one to tip Paul off about the terrible thing I was concealing.

So after Milagros brought me back to the beach house, and I had tossed back a handful of antibiotics and ibuprofen, I reluctantly called him. But when he picked up, I couldn’t make myself say it. Instead, I sat on the end of my bed and cried into the phone.

“Let it out,” Paul cooed. “Honestly, it’s a relief to hear you cry. I know how horrible this has been for you. Keeping it all bottled up won’t help.”

“Wahhhhh!” I howled, because even though Paul was referring to Tom, it was so good to hear him confirm that what I was going through was horrible. It was. As much as the gash in my stomach hurt, my heart felt worse. Like my tumor, the bit of hope left in me had been torn out, leaving a gaping hole and an unspeakable ache in its stead.

Yet I couldn’t admit this out loud. Every time I went to tell Paul what had happened, my shame for not telling him immediately only deepened. So I curled up beneath the bedspread and cried while he listened to me carry on, interjecting an occasional soothing comment.

“Are you still in Vieques?” Paul asked when the worst of the wailing subsided.

“Yes.” I sniffed.

“Good,” he said. “Are you leaving soon?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m such a wreck right now.”

“Shhh, you’re not a wreck. It’s okay. Stay put and we’ll figure something out. We always do, don’t we?”

“Thank you,” I whispered. Snot was collecting on my phone, and shame or no shame, it was evident that this would not be when I told him. “Can I call you later?”

“Of course. Just please, promise you won’t pick up and fly to yet another country without telling me.”

“Puerto Rico is part of the United States,” I said, feeling defensive of a place that was not my own.

“So you say. By the way, I love you the absolute most.”

“Yet I love you more,” I said, and it was the truth.



The antibiotics began to work their magic. When I woke the next morning, I could actually manage breakfast; I even took a shower and got dressed without wincing. I walked along the beach for a while, then drove into town to have an early lunch at the café where I’d had my first solo meal. It was a sleepy weekday, and there were few people to people watch, so I pulled a novel out of my bag. I was able to lose myself in the misadventures of a pair of ill-fated lovers for a short while, but then said lovers began humping with a literary vigor typically reserved for straight-up erotica, and I became distracted by the thought of Shiloh. If only I’d met him under happier circumstances—in an alternate universe, perhaps, where I was neither married nor a ticking time bomb. But I knew that we would not have come together any other way.

I reached into my bag, grabbed my phone, and called him. He sounded sleepy when he picked up. “Hey, how are you?”

“Um. Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“Well . . . I kind of passed out yesterday and ended up going to the doctor. But I’m doing better now, so no need to worry.”

Shiloh let out a low curse. “I knew it.”

“You knew what?

“It’s getting worse.”

Yes, it’s getting worse, I thought. I’m dying. “Not true at all,” I said in what I hoped was a buoyant tone. “The doctor said my incision was infected.”

“See? You need to go back to the mainland, Libby. It’s time to get this thing treated.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. I have almost two weeks left in Vieques, and I plan to enjoy them. Heck, I might not even leave at all.” Though it hadn’t previously occurred to me, the idea made sense. Vieques was my Heaven’s Mouth; the longer I was here, the less I wanted to be anywhere else. It was the ideal place to end it all.

“No,” Shiloh said firmly. “You’re leaving. Don’t make a bad decision just because you’re afraid of being afraid.”

I pushed my toes deep into the sand. “What a ridiculous thing to say,” I said crossly. What did he even mean, anyway?

“Is it? Ridiculous, I mean? You’re already dealing with pain, so it’s not that you’re trying to avoid.”

I thought of the large bottle of horse pills in my fridge. “I was in pain, but I’m feeling much better. The antibiotics are practically a cure-all.”

“I’m happy to hear that. But less pain doesn’t mean that the cancer is gone. I think you’re putting off treatment because you don’t want to feel vulnerable. It’s not chemo and radiation you’re afraid of—it’s letting yourself feel how scary it is to not know what’s next. Please don’t choose the worst-case scenario just to avoid that feeling. You have people to see you through this. I’m one of them.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “Thank you so very much for that stunningly inaccurate analysis, Se?or Freud.”