Page 79 of Look on the Bright Side

“Oh, I see.” Hence his leaving when they were talking about Addie’s brief stint in the fashion world.

“Lorenzo thought she was shallow. Turned out he was right. She dumped me for someone else.”

“Did you love her?” she asked.

“I did.” He glanced at her, then back at the road. Just then, his phone rang, and rather than have it on the truck’s speakers, he switched it to private. “Sorry. Gotta take this. It’s work.”

His end of the conversation informed her there was an issue with a grievance filed about a lieutenant, and Dante was part of the group who was handling it. She turned to look out at the familiar landscape of Route 6—oak trees and scrubby pitch pines, the sky overhead turning more and more gray. Good. They needed rain. The traffic had thinned, and they cruised along.

She dumped me for someone else. Ouch. So Dante Santini had had his heart broken. She wondered how long ago that had been.

After about half an hour, Dante hung up. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Work politics, irritating coworkers, all that. I’m on a committee, and you know how that goes.”

“No problem. I guess even the best jobs have their moments.”

“How about you? You like your job, Lark?”

She hesitated. “Yeah, I do. I’m kind of on hiatus, though. I really want to work in oncology, not emergency medicine.”

“Hm.”

She looked at him, a little curious at his lack of a follow-up question.

His gaze was fixed firmly ahead.

Suddenly, that dark, unpleasant electrical buzz wrapped her entire body and amped up. Her eyes widened, and she couldn’t breathe.

That profile. His hands on the wheel, the tattoo. He had been younger, obviously, but it was definitely…

Her throat slammed shut, all breathing cut off. She tried to suck in a breath and failed.

“Lark?” he asked, glancing at her sharply. “You okay?”

“It was you,” she managed, her voice choked. “Oh, my God, it was you.”

FOURTEEN

LARK, SEVEN YEARS AGO

Twelve weeks after Justin was diagnosed with his relapse, things were looking really, really good. It was practically miraculous.

Yes, he’d lost a lot of weight, dropping from 165 pounds to a low of 126, less than Lark. But he’d gained back 11 pounds, and in the past two weeks, he seemed to have adjusted to the regimen. He was tired, but not comatose, and he wanted to talk when he was awake, or have her read to him, or watch TV. He’d lost muscle mass, but he was simply weak, not “neurologically challenged,” meaning he didn’t list to one side, fall, show any facial drooping or slur his words. In other words, the cancer hadn’t gone to his brain.

While his blood pressure was low, he wasn’t fainting. His lungs were clear (Lark had picked up some diagnostic skills wicked fast), and his pulse was steady. He had to wear a mask anytime he was in public, and so did Lark and his parents. Addie, too, when she came to see them. She was the only Smith who was allowed to visit, and she’d been a champ, bringing delicious vegan treats from Clarke’s Cakes & Cookies, picking up organic vegetables, making soup, which was the one thing Justin had been able to keep down from weeks two to eight. Addie would then flop in the chair and not ask about Justin’s symptoms, instead complaining about regular life, their siblings, Nicole’s irritating brother. She bragged a little about the trip to Ecuador she and Nicole were planning, first-class tickets, a spa resort in the rainforest…being herself, in other words. She was Lark’s portal to normalcy, a glimpse of the future when Justin would be past this.

Nine of the twelve weeks had been sheer and utter hell. A few times, Lark thought he’d die, he was so sick—a headache so bad he lost his vision for two terrifying hours, violent shivering during his infusions. One particularly horrible night, when diarrhea caught him in bed, he’d cried because of the indignity. She’d gone a little Captain America herself and carried him to the bathroom to clean him up. As she was kneeling in front of him, he vomited into her hair. She’d managed to get him into the tub and rinsed him off (and her own hair), and even though the water was gentle and warm, he cried out in pain.

That was the normal stuff. The “don’t be surprised if” side effects. Then there were the complications. He’d been hospitalized once for pneumonia, once when his heart rate went up to 180 because he was so dehydrated from vomiting and diarrhea.

Then, miraculously, he turned a corner at the end of week nine. He woke up and didn’t have a headache. Ate a pancake and a half for breakfast. Kept it down. Wanted to take a walk around the block. The next day, he didn’t need Lark to help him get out of bed. He took a shower by himself. He opened his laptop and looked at a project he was still included on, out of the kindness of his manager. By the third day, his inimitable sweetness returned, and he was once again not just a cluster of symptoms, but Justin. Day by day, his appetite increased, his strength grew and his attitude went from grim determination to a sense of wonder. He was getting better. He was doing it, just as he’d said he would.

At his twelve-week checkup, Justin’s T cells, blasts, red blood cells and leukocyte count were all moving in the right direction. Dr.Kothari seemed almost surprised. “This is excellent news,” he said, raising his eyebrows as he looked at his computer screen. “You’re doing so well, Justin.”

“Of course he is,” Heather said. “Honestly, the power of positive thinking is amazing.”

“He’s a fighter,” Theo said, his eyes shining with tears of pride.

Lark squeezed his hand, and Justin smiled at her. “Told you,” he said.

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