Page 26 of The Cabin
She’s sorting through the bottles, reading the labels with a certain professional curiosity. She lifts one. “Adrian. Really?”
I know what’s she’s got: the little blue pills. “I get by with a little help from my friends,” I say, trying to smile. “I just needed…I needed you to—to know that I still…that I’m not—”
“Oh, Adrian…” she chokes out.
“It’s taking so much from me,” I say, swallowing hard, my words feeling thick and slow. “I wasn’t going to let it take that. I don’t need them, especially when I’m not doing chemo, which I haven’t since I was in Boston. It just helps things…last longer. Helps me out, when my body is using all its resources elsewhere. Doesn’t leave a lot left over for sustaining erections, or sexual stamina.”
“Coulda fooled me,” she whispers. “Did fool me.”
A long pause.
“I have another question,” she whispers.
“’Kay.”
“Is this why we haven’t been able to conceive?”
“Didn’t help,” I admit. “Chemo kills everything—it doesn’t discriminate. So yeah, it killed all my swimmers. But I also think there was an issue there before, honestly. I remember when Mom was in the hospital she was kinda delirious for a while and was just rambling, and she said she and Dad tried for years before they had me, and were never able to conceive again, which makes me think I’m either sterile or I just have shitty sperm.” I take her hand again. “So, I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I couldn’t…” My voice breaks. Fuck, this is hard. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you that.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t apologize.”
“I know you want a baby, more than just about anything.”
“Well, I did. Now I just want you to…to not fucking die.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind that myself.” I cup her cheek. “Still. I’m sorry, Nadia.”
She sets her mug on the side table, roughly, the coffee sloshing over the rim and dribbling down the side, smearing in a ring around the base. Climbs onto me, stretching onto my body, curling her hands behind my head, breathing in my scent and clinging to me.
“Hold me,” she whispers.
I hold her.i love you, for the millionth timeIf I close my eyes and focus, some days I can almost pretend we’re just on an extension of our Paris vacation.
We sleep in late, stay up late watching movies and bingeing all the shows we used to talk about watching but never got around to. We just sit together in the living room and listen to entire movements of classical music. Sometimes just sit and breathe together. He cooks, when he can. Or we cook together. Or I cook. Some days, neither of us has the energy, so we just order a pizza.
My favorite, though, is reading together. It’s approaching winter in Atlanta, now, so the days are cooler. We turn on our gas fireplace and sit on the couch and Adrian reads to me. At first, it was just once in a while. But gradually, it becomes our Thing. We stopped watching TV. I’d buy books on Amazon, print or e-book, depending on the price, and he’d read to me. Sometimes when his voice got tired, I’d take over, but I’m not as good at it as he is.
He reads to me for hours. We read everything together. We go through the entire Little House on the Prairie series in a week. We read Nora Roberts, Stephanie Meyer, Harry Potter, we even start on the Game of Thrones series. Sometimes he reads from one book in the morning and a different one in the afternoons, after lunch.
But as the days crowd together, one after another, never leaving our house for much of anything, it becomes harder and harder to pretend that what’s happening isn’t real.
I want to keep pretending.
Pretend the days reading on the couch are just a magical interlude before our regular lives resume, me working in the ICU, him writing and researching.
But I can’t.
He needs more and more pills to keep the pain and nausea and everything else at bay, and then it gets to the point of diminishing returns, where the drugs take away his lucidity along with the pain. And he hates that, more than anything. Says he’d rather be present with me and in pain than lost in narcotic la-la-land.
I try to make him promise that when it’s bad enough, he’ll take what he needs to be comfortable, but he refuses.
“We’re doing this your way,” he says. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I’m going to live out my remaining days on my terms. And I’m going to be here, with you.”
A month after his reveal, his doctor makes a house call. Wonder of wonders—but then, Adrian has always had a way with people. After a checkup, some poking and prodding and questioning, the doctor says there’s no point going in for MRIs and all that. Meaning, don’t waste your time learning what you already know. He prescribes what he calls the nuclear option, some kind of strongest-possible opiate.
