Page 122 of Interference

I leaned across the console for a soft kiss. “Thanks,”

A moment later, the three of us were on our way up the walk, my dog sticking close to me as my heart thundered in my chest.

The front door’s hinges gave their familiar shriek, and my brother Jon stepped out onto the porch.

“Hey, asshole.” He offered a handshake-hug, which I gladly accepted.

“Good to see you, fucker.” As he let me go, I gestured at Anthony. “This is Anthony. Anthony, my brother Jon.”

They shook hands, and Jon looked down. “Whoa. She’s bigger than I thought.”

“What’d you think they gave me?” I asked. “A chihuahua?”

He huffed and rolled his eyes. “I was thinking a Lab or something. Not…” He gestured at Lily.

“Yeah, yeah.” I sobered and gestured past him. “How are, um…?”

Jon turned serious too, glancing over his shoulder, and he lowered his voice. “The new chemo isn’t kicking his ass like the last one did. But he’s…” Jon grimaced. “I mean, he’s only going to get so much better, you know?”

I winced. “Do they have any estimate on… uh…”

“How much time he’s got left?”

Gulping, I nodded. Lily pressed against me, and I petted her as I waited for my brother to answer.

He looked into the house again, chewing his lip, before facing me. “There’s really no telling right now. The chemo seems to be working. There’s no new growth. No new metastases. But what he does have, and the drugs themselves…” Jon shook his head.

I expected that much. It was news the doctors had told us all to expect sooner or later—that there would come a point when Dad’s body was just too weak to handle enough treatment to keep the cancer at bay.

“Are they talking about comfort care?” I asked. “Or are they still trying to treat him?”

Jon seemed to think about it. Then he wobbled his hand in the air. “A little of both? There’ve been a lot more conversations about hospice, and about whether the treatments are just giving him more time without helping his quality of life. Right now, they’re still trying to slow things down, but his oncologist thinks his best-case is a year. Probably less.”

I closed my eyes and wavered a little. There it was. A timeframe. A countdown of sorts. We were down to months at best.

In the same moment Lily nudged my hand again, Anthony rested his on the small of my back. I petted her and let myself lean some weight against him.

“He’s not on death’s door,” my brother said quietly. “His spirits are good and he’s not in a ton of pain right now. He’s sleeping a lot, but he’s still here, you know? The long-term isn’t good, but right now…”

Opening my eyes, I nodded. “Yeah. I get that. I’m just glad I managed to get here while things are still… less bad.”

“Me too,” Jon said quietly, and for the first time, he let a note of resentment slip into his tone. His eyes echoed it. He didn’t press, though. Like my parents, he had no idea how bad my situation really was, only that it had kept me away for most of my dad’s illness. If I had to guess, Jon had some feelings and opinions about my absence, and knowing him, we’d be talking about that before this visit was over. Couldn’t fucking wait.

From inside the house, Mom called out, “Jon, would you bring them inside already?”

That snapped us out of the awkward silence, and Jon stood aside to let us in.

I took a deep breath and followed him, Lily and Anthony on my heels. Like Jon had, Anthony took off his shoes; my parents understood it was a lot more comfortable for me to leave mine on with the prosthetic. With shoes dealt with, we moved into the living room where Mom was arranging some water and pills for my dad.

My cheap cell phone had allowed me to keep in contact with my parents, but only via text and calls. Photos and videos just weren’t options. We’d made do, but I’d underestimated how much my parents would change during the two years since I’d last seen them.

Cancer was an evil fucker, and it had aged my father well beyond his years. He’d lost too much weight, not to mention several shades of color. His current chemo treatments apparently didn’t cause hair loss, so his hair had started growing back, but it was sparse and thin, which somehow made him seem even more frail.

I’d expected that much. It was heartbreaking, and there was only so much I could do to prepare myself, but I’d at least expected the disease to have taken a heavy toll.

I hadn’t given enough thought to what it would take out of my mom, though.

My near-black hair had come from her, and I’d joked with her for years that she’d cursed me with impossibly thick hair. Now hers had noticeably thinned, and instead of the immaculately maintained short haircut she’d had all my life, it was now long enough to be pulled back into a lifeless ponytail.

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