Page 68 of Corkscrew You
“Sure.”
I sound breezy, but my heart has plummeted. It’s either bad news about the winery, or he’s ending any possibility of us ever having a relationship. I shouldn’t have tempted him on Friday. It was selfish.Incrediblebut selfish. And it might have pushed him away for good. I pull up a chair at the kitchen table and brace myself.
He sits, too, and stares down into his coffee for a bit.
Then he says, “How was your weekend?”
Fig. When Dad was waiting for the results of the second lot of cancer tests, he semi-joked with us that if the specialist started off with small talk, he was doomed. First thing the specialist said was, “So, how about those Raiders?” I’ve hated that team ever since. Sorry, guys. Not your fault.
“Nate, what’s up?” I cut to it, because I’m a bundle of nerves.
There’s that left eyebrow twitch again. Which doesn’t help.
“If you’ve got bad news, can you just spit it out?”
Now, he looks embarrassed.
“Shit,” he says. “Sorry, Shel. It’s not bad news. It’s just … I’m not quite sure how to ask what I want to ask.”
The winery’s safe. He doesn’t want to dump me. I can relax about eighty percent of the way. But what the heck kind of question is he working up to?
“Would it be easier if you passed me a note?”
I shouldn’t tease, but I’m still a little nervous.
“I appreciate it when you try to build up my self-esteem,” he says, dryly.
“My bad,” I say. “But I really don’t care if you fumble the question. Starting is the thing.”
He blows out a breath.
“OK. Here goes…”
And he tells me about what happened on Saturday morning when JP and his wife came to visit. How his dad had stormed out, after forbidding his whole family to talk to him about treatment anymore.
“JP is Dad’s oldest friend,” Nate says. “I’d kind of pinned my hopes on him getting through to Dad. No dice. The rest of us talked about it later, and apart from being pissed off, we also can’t understandwhyDad’s being so insanely pig-headed. If any ofuswere putting our lives at risk, he’d be down on us like a ton of bricks. If it wereMomwho was sick, he’d be flying her to the world’s best hospital, no expense spared!”
He thumps back in the chair and runs a hand angrily over his head.
“It makes no sense,” he says. “Dad’s always been obsessed with staying healthy, but he’s never gotten outrightfanaticalabout it until now. He let Mom get us all vaccinated, and take us to Doc Wilson if we were sick. OK, he’d never let us have junk food or cheese in a can, but if we needed medicine, all he’d do was give us a lecture on Big Pharma. Never stopped us from taking it. Sowhy, when it’s obvious to theblindthat he needs medical intervention, is he digging his heels in so hard?”
“Fear?” I suggest.
Nate gives me a what-the-fig look.
“If you were afraid of dying,” he says, “wouldn’t that make you even more willing to get help?”
“Not necessarily.”
I’m remembering Dad’s initial reaction to his cancer diagnosis. Back then, he saw it as some alien he needed to fight, like he was Arnold Schwarzenegger inPredator. By seeing cancer as an enemy, Dad kept the anger high – and the fear at bay.
“Disease, especially when it hits us out of the blue, shakes us to our very foundations,” I say. “We’ll do anything to get back our sense of control, a sense that we’re in charge of our own destiny. The alternative is accepting that a non-thinking entity has a random power over whether we live or die. And that’s terrifying.”
Nate is listening intently.
“So, in Dad’s mind,” he says, “if he allows medical intervention, that’s tantamount to giving in to the disease? Giving it power over him?”
“Could be,” I nod. “I don’t know your dad, so I can’t say.”
