Life and Other Near-Death Experiences(63)

We both laughed as we recalled how shocked my father had been to answer the front door and discover me standing there barefoot in the middle of a February snowstorm, clutching the bruised arm I’d landed on. “As I was going to say,” Paul said, kicking me under the covers, “remember how you hated sleeping alone, so I convinced Dad to get me bunk beds? I think you were sixteen before you slept in your own room again.”

I grunted. “I was fourteen.”

“Sure you were. Hey, Libs?”

“Yeah?”

He paused. “I should have told you this in Vieques, but Mom said the same thing to me that she said to you. She asked me to take care of you.”

I blinked. “Really?”

“Yes. Right around the same time, too.”

“Do you think she knew she was going to die?”

“Yes.”

“Think she was afraid to leave us?”

“Since I can’t think of anything worse than leaving Toby and Max, I have to believe she was terrified. She knew we had each other, though.” He flipped onto his stomach. After a minute, he added, “I hope she knew we would be okay.”

I did, too. But as I lay next to my brother, it occurred to me that even more than that, I wished that my mother, like so many stars in the sky, were still in transit. That some part of her, somewhere, was able to see that Paul and I were still here, making our way.





THIRTY-TWO


Paul and I had stopped to get coffee on our way to the airport when Jess called. “Tom won’t do it, Libby,” she said, all panicky. “I tried everything. Michael even found him a cheap sublet so he would feel like he had a place to call his own. But he refuses.” She sucked in, then exhaled loudly; she was probably smoking on her back porch. “Let me tell him about you being sick. I won’t even say ‘cancer’; I swear.”

“Not a chance, Jess,” I said, recalling Tom’s concern over the cancer center’s calls; he would figure it out immediately. “I really appreciate you trying for me, but this isn’t yours to fix. I’ll figure something out. Just, please—do not tell Tom. Don’t even hint that anything is wrong with me.”

I hung up and turned to Paul, who was still watching me from his seat near the window. “Sorry, hermano,” I said with a grimace. “Looks like I’m heading back to Chicago today.”

“If this is about the apartment, I will buy the damn thing from you, okay?”

“Wow, baller. Who knew you had that kind of cash?”

He flicked a coffee stirrer at me. It hit my chest and bounced back onto the table. “Who knew you had the kind of cash to change your plane ticket at the last minute yet again? Seriously, Libs. I don’t work this hard just to stick change in the bank. I’ll get you your own little hamlet in the Jersey ’burbs if you don’t want to be in Manhattan. Just come with me, okay? Toby and Max are itching to see you. Come home with me.”

“I will. I promise,” I said in what I hoped was my most convincing tone of voice. “I have to do one thing first.”

“Blah blah blah,” Paul said, opening and closing his hand like a puppet. “All I hear is one excuse after another. I understand going to see Mom, but anything else that needs to be done can wait until after the doctor.”

I shrugged apologetically. “You and I are going to have to agree to disagree on that one.”

“Guess so,” he said, standing up. He grabbed his coffee. “Let’s go. One of us has a plane to catch.”



Shiloh called while I was waiting to board yet another flight to Chicago. Which meant Paul had contacted him. But Shiloh’s voice lacked the anger Paul’s still contained when he said good-bye to me at the gate a few hours earlier. “Hey, you,” he said softly. “How are you?”

“Hey, yourself,” I said, feeling as if I were going to cry. “Okay, I guess.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” I was leaning against a column near a terminal, and people were rushing past me to the various flights that would let them get on with their various lives. Not a single person gave me a second glance. “I went to visit my mom’s grave.”

“I heard that. How did it go?”

“Okay, I guess. It was hard to be there. But I’m glad I did it.”

A bird twittered in the background, and I wondered whether Shiloh was sitting on his balcony, or maybe even on the beach. “Why haven’t you been to see the doctor yet, Libby?” he asked. “You promised you would go.”

“I was going to. Really, I was. But then I got to the train stop and . . . I don’t know. I just couldn’t make myself get off the train.”

“Libby.”

“Shiloh,” I deadpanned.

“Libby,” he said again, “I’m being serious. If you’d taken someone with you, that wouldn’t have happened. You would have gone to the doctor’s office and learned more about your options, and signed up for testing and treatment. Quit trying to go this alone.”

“You did,” I protested. “Carla left you before you were even done with treatment.”

“Yeah, she did. But my mom and sister were there to support me.”

I almost said, “How lovely for you.” Instead, I said, “Having my mom help me isn’t an option.”