I want to believe the prayers do something. Anything is worth believing in, when you’re facing your own end, and soon.
I find the strength, from somewhere, to look at her. “Did Mom tell you?”
“About what, my love?” Her dark eyes are kind. Loving. Patient. Understanding. Compassionate.
“My last visit with Dr. Miller.”
Grandma sighs. “Yes. She told me.”
“I think if God was going to do some sort of miraculous healing, he’d have done it by now, Grandma.”
She shakes her head, smiling. “Last-minute miracles only feel last minute to us. Because our point of view is utterly dependent on our own limited understanding of time. God sees all of time, start to finish, so what is to us last minute, to him is exactly when he means for it to happen.”
“What if there is no last-minute miracle, Grandma? What if I’m really going to just…die, and that’s it?”
“Only God knows what’s going to happen, darling.”
“That’s not much comfort.”
“I suppose not. I don’t have all the answers, honey. I just know I believe that God loves you, and that he’s capable of healing you. So I will continue to believe he’s going to, every moment, every day. I pray for you all throughout the day, Jo. All day. Every day. And I just know you’re going to be okay.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“I don’t imagine it does.”
I sniffle. “It’s hard not to be angry.”
“You’re allowed to be. God’s not threatened by your emotions, honey.”
I fumble for the remote. “Can you stay and watch this with me?”
“Of course I can. As long as you want.”
The next week, I’m a little better. Which is amazing, because it coincides with Mom and Dad taking me to Italy for a week and a half. Rome is everything I imagined it to be. So are Florence and Venice. The countryside is my favorite part, though. The rolling hills, the sun setting on endless vineyards. It’s like the sun is just brighter and more golden in Italy.
My favorite moment, though, is in Venice. Dad pays for me to have a gondola ride all by myself. The boat guy is handsome, rugged with dark eyes and dark hair and a neat beard and he even sings to me in a quiet voice. I don’t know what he’s saying to me, but it sounds beautiful and romantic simply because he’s singing in Italian.
I close my eyes and imagine he’s my lover. He’s singing a love song to me. It’s just us on the canal, and all the rest of the world is hidden from us. Giving us this private moment alone.
It’s over all too soon, and he’s sweet and thoughtful, holding my hand to help me up and out of the boat. He murmurs something to me in Italian, but I just smile and shrug.
“Ciao, bella. Andare con Dio.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Italian.”
He clasps my hand. Smiles, handsome and kind. “You are beauty. I pray to all the saints for you.”
Ah. He either was told that I’m sick, or it’s just obvious.
“Thank you.” I do know this word, in his language. “Grazie.”
I join my parents up top, and I’m thankful that they don’t say anything. It’s easier to walk with them and continue my imagination’s game of pretend—that I’m here with someone special.
Dad wraps an arm around me. “You hungry?”
Dad thinks food fixes everything. He’s the most stereotypical internet dad there ever was, and I love him for it. He’s unironically wearing white New Balance sneakers with white crew socks pulled all the way up. Khaki cargo shorts. And, most embarrassing of all, a shitty screen-printed T-shirt with a photo of himself pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The shot is not even lined up right, for crap’s sake. His hat is the kind of ball cap that has a low, narrow crown with a long brim, and a floppy piece hanging off the back where he has it cinched as tight as it will go. His wallet is a good three inches thick. His phone lives in a case that clips to his belt, which is braided leather.
Dad’s way of coping is pretending like everything is normal and fine. Gruff hugs. Asking if I want to throw the frisbee with him on a Saturday morning, when I spent half of the night before vomiting bile because I’d long since barfed up anything I’d eaten. You hungry? It’s his go-to. And as embarrassing and annoying as he can be, he means well. His intention is to provide normalcy, stability. He’s the same, no matter what. I crave that, desperately, and I love him for it as fiercely as I’m utterly mortified by him just in general.
He doesn’t treat me like cancer girl. Like I’m defined by the cells that are killing me from the inside out. He’s just my dad. He thinks music stopped with James Taylor and AC/DC. The movie HEAT is, to him, the final word in cinema, followed closely by Dances with Wolves.
He has never, to my knowledge or in my presence, directly addressed the fact that I’m even sick, let alone weeks at most from dying.
I fall against him on purpose. “Can we get pizza?”
He sighs dramatically. “I know we’re in Italy, babe, but there is other food here besides pizza.”
“But you eat with a fork and knife! You could almost eat it with a spoon.”
He staggers with me, as if my weight is just too much for him. “I guess. But if we eat too much more pizza while we’re here, we’re gonna need a C-130 to fly us all home.”
“Charles!” Mom scolds. “You are so bad.”
He grabs his belly and jiggles it. “I was doing okay with my diet, and then we came to Italy and eat pizza four meals a day. You’re gonna need a damn Chinook just to get me to the airport. Good thing we’re leaving in a couple days or I’d be an actual walrus.” He winks at me. “A sexy walrus, but still a walrus.”
I snicker. “Dad, gross.”
He wiggles his eyebrows at Mom. “Hey, your mom thinks I’m sexy. How do you think we ended up with you?”
“OHMYGOD, Dad! Gross!”
Mom rolls her eyes. “Yeah, that one time. And I think there was champagne involved. Lots and lots of champagne.”
Dad claps a hand to his heart and staggers. “You wound me, Sherri. I may never recover my Alpha male confidence, after that blow to my ego.”
“Stop embarrassing your daughter—my god. You’re incorrigible.”
I laugh, though. “Pizza. Then tiramisu. And cannoli.”
“As you wish, my lady.” He finishes this with an elaborate bow, complete with a foppish flourish of his hand.
I cover my face with both hands. “Stop, ohmygod, stop. God, you’re so embarrassing.”
“Hey, you remember Princess Bride, right? Westley, Buttercup, Humperdink?”
I groan. “Yes, Dad. It’s only one of my top ten favorite movies of all time.”
Mom snickers, failing to suppress a laugh. “Yeah, only because you’re in love with Westley Britton.”
“Who?” Dad asks.
I glare at Mom. “I’m not in love with him.”
“Are too.”
“I just like him. A lot. He’s a triple threat: he can sing, dance, and act.”
“The jumping around on stage he did with that boy band he was in doesn’t count as dancing, Jolene. You said so yourself.” Mom is just goading me. She knows my favorite topic is Westley Britton.