You and Me and Us Read online

  “It’s lung cancer, small cell. Stage 4B.”

  “How many letters are there?” I knew about the numbers, but I didn’t know there were letters.

  “Just two.”

  A and B. My heart sinks.

  “It means the cancer has spread outside my chest,” Tommy explains in his shrink voice.

  “Spread? Where? How much?”

  “Pretty much everywhere. Lymph nodes. Liver. They even found a few spots in my bones.”

  Our conversation the other night flashes in my mind. “Your patient. You never tell me about your patients.”

  He turns his face away from me and lowers his head.

  “But you said . . .” I can’t finish the sentence.

  Tommy looks at me with those eyes—one blue, one brown—that see right through me. They look sadder than I’ve ever seen them before.

  “We’re going to fight this.” My voice is shaky, which I know makes me sound uncertain, so I say it again. “We are going to fight this.”

  He squeezes my hand.

  “Say it.” I need to hear him say the words.

  “Lex.”

  “Say we’re going to fight this.”

  “It’s too late,” Tommy says. “The doctor may not use those words, but he’ll tell us the treatment would be tough. I’ll lose my hair.” I narrow my eyes at him. This is not the time for jokes.

  “We’re going to fight this,” I say again, with more conviction this time.

  Tommy’s face falls. “This is why I didn’t tell you before I made my own mind up; I knew you’d try to convince me. But the treatment wouldn’t just be hard on me, it would be hard on all of us. And chances are it won’t work.”

  “But there’s a chance it will.”

  “It won’t. And I’m not going to put you or CeCe through what I went through with my mom. The false hope, the pain and suffering.” His voice cracks with emotion. “I won’t do that to you.”

  “What am I supposed to say to that?”

  “I don’t know,” Tommy says, soft as a whisper. He turns and looks at me, his eyes pleading. “That you’ll stay with me, that you’re not going anywhere?”

  His desperation is palpable, and my heart is suddenly in my throat. How could he think for a second that I would leave?

  I swing myself around so I’m facing him, one leg on each side, careful not to put too much weight on him. “Of course I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him. “I love you.”

  I kiss his neck on the left and then the right. I kiss his cheeks, where silent tears have started to fall. I kiss his mouth hungrily, as if I can make it all better. He kisses me back, but it feels like an apology so I pull away.

  “If you love me, you’ll fight to stay with me,” I plead.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Of course it is. If you love me, if you love our daughter, if you love our life, you’ll fight to keep living it. You are not your mother; medicine has gotten so much more advanced since she was sick.”

  “Shhh.” He brings a finger to my lips. I hadn’t realized I’d raised my voice. “I’m not ready for CeCe to know. And we don’t have to solve everything tonight.”

  “Like hell we don’t.” I slide off him and lean against the porch railing. I look into the Shulmans’ house across the street. Their lights are on and the drapes are open, so I can see Jenna and Corey in their living room, playing a game with their boys, Micah and Brett. Never in my life have I wanted so badly to trade lives with somebody, anybody else.

  My legs buckle, but Tommy’s there to catch me. He holds me up, his hands wrapped around my waist. His touch, which usually calms me, has the opposite effect tonight. Neither of us says anything as we sit back down on the swing.

  “Let’s go to bed,” he eventually says. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

  “You don’t get to control this,” I tell him, my voice sharper than I intended. “And you’re the one who says we should never go to bed angry.”

  “Please don’t be angry with me.”

  “Please don’t give up on me. On you. On us.”

  He sighs. “You don’t understand.”

  “Then make me.” I grasp his hands, as if he could explain it through osmosis. “In what world wouldn’t you want as much time with us as you can get?”

  “Even if I fight it, the doctor says I have six months, tops.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “Two to three.”

  I inhale sharply and hold my breath, afraid I might throw up. Neither scenario gives us enough time.

  Tommy turns my face toward his so I’m looking him in the eye. “If chemo or radiation could give me a few more years with you and Ceese, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But we’re talking months either way. And I want them to be good ones.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, my tears have dried, leaving salty tracks on my cheeks, but I’m nowhere closer to understanding. Tommy is staring straight ahead, not speaking. I don’t want to fight; I just want him to.

  “I don’t know how else I can say it to make you understand. It’s quality over quantity,” he says, slipping into his shrink voice. “I’d rather have fewer good days than more miserable ones, when I’d be too sick to make the best of them.”

  “But what if—”

  “There are no ‘what if’s.”

  “You don’t know everything, Tommy Whistler.” I’m aware that my voice is getting louder again, but I can’t help it. “Doctors are wrong all the time; they might be wrong.”

  I lean back into the swing, trying to catch my breath again. It’s like someone stole all the oxygen and I can’t breathe. I can’t do this. Tommy puts his arm around me, rubbing circles on my back. The repetitive motion and the weight of his hand help calm me. I don’t want it to, but it does.

  “I’m not giving up on this,” I warn him. “I’m going to try to change your mind.”

  “I know.” He pulls me closer so I can rest my head on his shoulder. The weight and unfairness of it all settles over me like a fog.

  “How did this happen? You look so healthy.”

  “Why, thank you,” Tommy says with a smile in his voice, but I don’t let his charm distract me. I need to find the logic in this, but there isn’t any, it doesn’t make sense.

  “You don’t even smoke.”

  “Twenty percent of people with lung cancer never smoked.”

  I sit back up so I can look him in the eye. “Please don’t quote statistics at me.”

  “Not even the one where people who tell their spouses they have less than six months to live have a hundred percent chance of getting laid that night?”

  “Don’t try to make this a joke, it’s not funny.”

  “It’s my cancer, I can joke if I want to,” he teases. “Wasn’t that a Patty Duke song?”

  “Lesley Gore,” I correct him. “‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.’”

  “Please don’t cry anymore,” Tommy says. “I don’t want to remember your face all red and splotchy.”

  I elbow his side and he bends forward, making a dreadful sound. I jump up, causing the swing to sway in my wake. I steady it, afraid I accidentally hurt him. “I’m so sorry, are you okay?”

  Tommy’s shoulders start to shake, and my stomach drops to my knees. When I realize he’s laughing, I step back and cross my arms. “I am so mad at you.”

  He looks up at me with that smile and those dimples and I realize I love him so much it hurts. I cringe when his laughter turns into another coughing fit.

  “What can I do?” I plead.

  “You can forgive me,” he says, his voice strained.

  “There’s nothing to forgive.” I reach for his hand, and we let ourselves back inside, where Tommy turns off the front porch light and locks the door as if it’s any other night. But it isn’t any other night. This is the night that will forever divide the before and the after.

  When tomorrow comes, I’ll find a way to convince him we have to fight this. But tonight, I just
want to close my eyes and drown myself in him, to forget everything except us. I want to pull him as close as he can get, until he’s a part of me. The best part of me.

  I catch a sob in my throat and he silences me with a kiss. There’s no apology in this one. It’s more urgent, as if he’s already trying to make up for the lifetime of kisses he won’t be here to give or receive. I taste the salt of tears; I’m just not sure if they’re his or they’re mine.

  Chapter Six

  Alexis

  Nothing at the office has changed in the two days I’ve been out, but everything feels different. My eyes keep drifting to the stack of Tommy’s love notes on the corner of my desk. I want to read them all over and over again, memorizing each word.

  I should have called in sick for another day, but Tommy seemed desperate for things to feel normal—and my being home, hanging on his every move, is as far from normal as we could get. But being away from him is killing me, because every minute I’m not with him is one less minute we’ll have together.

  “What do you think, sugarplum?” Becky asks, using another of her rotating nicknames.

  “Sorry, what?” I say.

  Becky gives me a look that is full of frustration and concern. I should have known better than to try to pretend everything is okay when it so clearly isn’t. “You, come with me,” she says in a tone normally reserved for whatever poor Tinder guy she’s about to break up with.

  Knowing I don’t have a choice, I follow her out of the office we share and through the open space where our employees are trying not to stare. I feel like a kid being led down a hallway to the principal’s office. At least there will be alcohol where she’s taking me.

  MOE, OUR FAVORITE bartender at Rí Rá, the Irish pub across the street from our office, waves hello when we walk in. “Early lunch?”

  “We’re not eating,” Becky says. “Just drinking.”

  Moe nods and smiles, opting out of our usual chitchat.

  “Now talk,” Becky says, as we seat ourselves at our usual table in the back room.

  “What?” I ask, knowing full well my coy act isn’t going to work on her.

  “Something is clearly going on with you. Is it your parents? It can’t be you and Tommy—that man is crazy about you, all those love notes . . .”

  I reach into my pocket for the note I found tucked inside the visor of my car this morning. I unfold it and hand it over to Becky.

  “I love you more today than yesterday, and I’ll love you more tomorrow than today,” Becky reads out loud. “Where does he come up with this stuff?”

  “Google.” I smile before I can stop myself.

  “You’re kidding?”

  “It started as a joke. He said it was too hard to compete with a copywriter, so he started to Google love notes and quotes and song lyrics.”

  “All these years, you had me thinking he was a closet poet.”

  Adina, one of our usual waitresses, comes over with two beers—a Guinness for Becky and an Allagash White for me. “On the house,” she says. “Moe’s treat.”

  Becky thanks her, then lifts her beer toward mine. We clink glasses, but I set mine down without taking a sip.

  “Shit, you’re not pregnant, are you?”

  “What? No, it’s not that.” I take a big sip to prove I’m not lying.

  “And CeCe’s not pregnant?”

  “Oh god, no.”

  “Then what’s got you so down, lovey?” Becky says. She reaches across the table and puts her hand on top of mine. “I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “You can’t help,” I tell her. “No one can.”

  “I can try?”

  I pull my hand from under hers and take a long sip of my beer. It feels good going down, so I take another. “Tommy’s sick.” I briefly make eye contact before looking back down at my glass. “Sick-sick.”

  “But he’s going to be okay?”

  I lift the glass to take another sip, but my hand is shaking so hard the beer spills down my chin. Suddenly, Becky is on my side of the table, folding me into a hug. As much as I want to find comfort in her arms and let her tell me everything is going to be okay, I know it isn’t and it won’t be. I stiffen like a statue, turned to stone in her awkward embrace.

  “You guys ready for another?” Adina asks, rounding the corner. She retreats without waiting for an answer.

  “So, what is it?” Becky asks, her arms still around me.

  “Lung cancer.” She pulls back, studying my face. “It’s bad. We got a second opinion that confirms it.”

  Monday morning we sat in a waiting room for almost two hours to get less than ten minutes with the oncologist. I shivered as soon as we walked into his office, and not just because the AC was blasting. There was something about the stark white walls and the hard vinyl chairs that made it all feel hopeless. I sat there, afraid to move as the doctor shuffled the thick stack of papers in Tommy’s file, barely making eye contact. As if our grief were contagious.

  “Shit. Is he going to do chemo?”

  I shake my head.

  “Radiation?”

  When I don’t respond, Becky asks, “Then what? Something experimental?”

  I shake my head again, remembering how angry Tommy got on the way home when I brought up a clinical trial I’d found online. He shut me down before the words were out of my mouth, and I lost it, screaming at him for giving up so easily, for not telling me sooner, for making me live in a world without him for even a minute longer than I had to. I yelled until my throat was raw, but Tommy just kept driving, looking straight ahead until he pulled into the driveway.

  He turned the car off and looked at me with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. He looked so hurt and alone that I wanted to take it all back even though I still meant every word.

  “Babe?” Becky asks, bringing me back to the moment.

  “He’s not fighting it.”

  “What do you mean, he isn’t going to fight?”

  I look up to see her eyes shimmering with tears. “He says he’s choosing quality of life over quantity. They gave him a bunch of prescriptions for comfort care—things that will make him feel better, but nothing that’ll cure him.”

  “He isn’t even going to try?” Becky’s voice wavers and the heavy stone is back in the pit of my stomach. I take a deep breath, and when that doesn’t help me feel any better, I take another sip.

  “What are you going to do?” Becky asks.

  “Whatever it takes to change his mind,” I say.

  “How?”

  I shrug. I haven’t gotten that far in my plan, but I figure I’ve made a career of persuading strangers and influencing their behavior, so I should be able to convince the person I love most in this world that life is worth living. I shiver at the thought of life without him. I won’t let it come to that. I can’t.

  Becky finishes the last of her beer and signals for another round. “I used to hook up with an oncologist. If he’ll take my call, I can ask him to help.”

  I laugh for the first time since Friday night, but I don’t say no. It feels good to feel something that isn’t sadness or anger. “If one of your old ‘swipe rights’ can help save Tommy, I’ll marry the guy for you!”

  “I’m pretty sure he was already married,” Becky admits. I shake my head, not wanting to know more details. “And if you’re going to marry anyone, it should be Tommy.”

  “You sound just like him.”

  Becky smiles. “For a man who hasn’t given up on trying to get you down the aisle after all these years, I’m surprised he’s giving up so easily on this.”

  “You and me both.” Adina drops off our second round and I raise my full glass toward Becky before taking a sip. “The irony of it all is that both our mothers are to blame—his for taking the fight out of him, and mine for ruining my idea of marriage.”

  “Maybe you can use this to your advantage,” Becky says. I recognize the timbre of her voice, a tell for when she’s about to share what sh
e thinks is a brilliant idea. “Say you’ll marry him if and only if he gets treatment.”

  “Tried it.”

  Becky slouches back in her chair. “What does he want to do, then? Sit at home and wait to die?”

  The word “die” knocks the wind out of me, but I recover with the help of another sip. “Not exactly.”

  When Tommy told me how he wants to spend the little time he has left, my heart and my jaw dropped. On one hand, it made sense. Destin is his home; he only moved away from the white sand beaches and emerald-green water to be with me. On the other hand, it can’t be a coincidence that Monica will be there, too. I don’t think they’ve been in touch, but it’s not like I monitor his texts or emails like we do with CeCe.

  I look up at Becky’s face, waiting for me to answer. “He wants us all to go back to Destin for the summer,” I tell her. “Until . . .” I can’t finish the sentence.

  She nods, twirling a strand of pink hair around her finger in her signature thinking move, probably worrying about how she’ll be able to handle everything going on at work on her own. That was the reason I gave Tommy when I told him we couldn’t go.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “We aren’t going to go.”

  “Why not?”

  “What do you mean, why not? For starters, if you recall—you and I own an advertising agency that might be losing our biggest client if the new CMO has his way.”

  “You can work anywhere as long as there’s Wi-Fi,” Becky says. “And if something big comes up, you can always drive back up for a day or two.”

  I shake my head even though she isn’t wrong. I’ve done it before.

  When CeCe was in elementary school, she and Tommy would spend most of the summer in Destin, and I’d come down for long weekends as often as I could. The year she was eight, I’d planned a two-week trip down there, the most time I’d ever taken off work. Of course, I ended up having to drive back for a few days because of some big client meeting.

  I don’t even remember what the meeting was for, I just remember how I rationalized it—that I had to prove to my boss that I took the job just as seriously as my male counterparts. And of course, I always thought back to the advice my dad gave me before I started my first real job that included paid time off. He told me never to be gone long enough for them to realize they didn’t need me. He was the ultimate businessman and he trained me to think like a businesswoman. Not a woman balancing her career and her family.