Page 124 of Interference

“My cats love it,” Anthony said, smoothly picking up where I almost let some awkward silence linger. “They meet dogs all the time when we’re out walking, so they don’t—”

“When you’re out walking?” Jon asked. “Like, on leashes?”

“Oh, yeah. I even take them hiking.” He took his phone out of his pocket. “In fact, I have a video of the first time Bear saw a deer.”

I sat up a little. “You do?”

“Uh-huh. It’s…” He furrowed his brow as he thumbed through something on the phone. He showed the video to my parents first, then turned it so my brother and I could see it.

On the screen, Bear was on a long leash in the middle of a trail, crouched down and wiggling his butt as some deer casually grazed up ahead.

“Is he stalking them?” Jon asked.

Anthony rolled his eyes. “Yep. Mighty hunter, right there.” He put the phone facedown on the armrest. “My ex thought it would be funny as hell if we let him catch a deer. You know—see what he’d do with it.”

Mom scowled. “That doesn’t sound safe.”

“No,” Anthony admitted, “but I don’t think Bear is smart enough to be in any danger of catching a deer.”

I barked a laugh. “You are not wrong.” I patted his leg. “I adore that cat, but he is the stupidest creature I’ve ever encountered.”

Anthony laughed, too. “He did once lose a treat under his own paw, so…”

“How did he do that?” Dad asked.

While Anthony told the story, I leaned against him and tried to relax. I loved watching him charm the hell out of my family like this. They had taken to him immediately, and he was enjoying telling them stories and listening to stories about our childhood, or my nieces and nephews back east, or the funny thing a nurse had said to Dad last week.

I let them all carry the conversation while I just… breathed. Just basked in being here. I was torn between savoring this rare visit with my family and letting shame tear me apart over all the reasons I hadn’t been here in so long. On top of that, I was trying to find my balance around all this evidence of how much things had deteriorated since I’d last visited.

Was this what people meant when they described things as bittersweet? Because I’d never had so many conflicting emotions crashing around inside me all at once.

And I felt guilty as hell because deep down, as much as I planned to cherish every second I was here…

I was relieved our visit would be brief.

I made it through dinner before the weight of everything was finally too much.

Aside from the conversation with Jon on the front porch, no one talked about Dad’s disease. No one talked about treatments or prognoses. There were some anecdotes about funny nurses and another patient Dad saw sometimes when he went for infusions, but that was as close as we got to the subject of his cancer.

Knowing my family, everything was in a verbal holding pattern until Christmas was over. Mom could compartmentalize like few people I knew, and she could absolutely put a moratorium on discussing anything—financial issues, health problems, family drama—in the name of fully embracing a holiday, a wedding, or anything festive. The more serious the problem, the harder she segregated it from the joy-filled occasions because she refused to let them be tainted by brutal reality.

I wished I knew how she did it, because I spent the whole damn time both grateful for the avoidance and mentally screaming, “Can we please talk about this?”

After dinner and some more visiting in the living room, I finally decided I just needed a moment alone to catch my breath.

Fortunately, I came equipped with the perfect excuse.

“I need to take Lily outside.” I carefully pushed myself up. “I’ll be back in a few.”

“Okay, honey.” Mom smiled up at me from her chair as I left the living room. As I stepped outside, I heard her say to Jon, “You should tell him about when you played hockey.”

I shut the door before my brother answered, and I managed to chuckle to myself at the memory. Jon had given hockey a try when he was seven or eight, but that had lasted until the first time he was hit by a slapshot. It hadn’t even left that bad of a bruise, but it was enough for him to say, “Nope, I’m done.”

I took Lily out into the yard to relieve herself. We didn’t go back inside afterward, though. Instead, I paused on the deck, gazing out at the yard.

It was dark now, so I couldn’t see the unusually unkempt state of the flowerbeds and bushes. They were burned into my memory, though, along with all the little tells sprinkled throughout the house.

Exhaling into the stillness, I gave up holding back some of the emotions that had been trying to crowd their way in. Grief over what this awful disease had done to both of my parents. Guilt over how little I’d been able to do to help or even show up once in a while. Shame over the reality of my life that I couldn’t tell them about and how it had kept me away from them all.

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