I’m twenty-two when Duke gets diagnosed.
Five months ago, we’re halfway into our camping trip on the coast when Duke’s skin turns a weird shade of yellow. He argues with me for two straight days about seeing a doctor. But on the third day, he’s throwing up too much to stop me from taking him in.
There’s no one to call, even if he’d let me. It’s just the two of us now: Uncle Jake’s dead, Will’s at school, Miss Lissa’s in Fir Hill. So I sit in the ER waiting room by myself and work hard at not being scared.
Two days later, test after test, scan after scan, and suddenly it’s a brand new world: stage four, spread to the liver, a year, maybe less.
We’re quiet for a long time after the oncologist leaves, the surgery scheduled for the next morning. It’s no cure, just hoping to buy some time: some sort of stent thing so the stuff that’s turning him yellow will stop. Jaundice caused by bile or something? I don’t understand half of the words the doctor uses.
A part of me has always been prepared for losing him. Nights when I thought he wouldn’t make it home alive. Days when I was sure he’d die on me like Uncle Jake or go up in flames like Momma. There were times I thought he’d end up in prison, his doings finally catching up to him.
But in the end, Duke McKenna’s greatest enemy is his own damn body.
I’d never even thought of cancer bringing a man like him down.
We’re still not talking when the nurse comes and checks on him, fiddling with his IV drip to up the dose. But when she leaves, his eyes drift open, hazy from the morphine.
“Gotta promise me something, sweetheart,” he mumbles.
I squeeze his hand. “Anything.”
“Gottadoitforme.” His words slur together as the morphine kicks in.
“Do what?” I stroke his upper arm, where there aren’t as many tubes and needles sticking into him.
“Gotta…” His eyelids droop, and his head sinks deeper into the pillow, but his hand reaches out and grasps mine with surprising strength. “He’ll get you. Gotta kill Springfield. Gottaendit. Gotta do it for me. Gotta kill him. Only way…only way, Harley-girl.” His voice trails off to a whisper, his eyes close, and his grip loosens, his hand dropping onto the quilt again.
“Shh,” I say, brushing his wiry hair off his forehead. “Don’t you worry about that. Get some rest.”
I wait until I’m sure he’s asleep before I stand up and make my way back through the quiet halls. It’s late, one or two in the morning by now, and I can smell salt and fish in the crisp ocean air as I walk out the sliding doors.
I cross the parking lot to the smoking area set far from the ER entrance. It’s empty of people, but I’m not surprised to see roaches mixed with cigarette butts in the overflowing ashtray. We are smack dab in the middle of the Emerald Triangle.
I sit down on the redwood bench and pull my hoodie tighter around me as the wind whips at my braid. I bend at the waist, my head hanging low, my forehead pressed into my hands.
Stage four, spread to the liver, a year, maybe less.
My hands shake.
I can’t stop it.
Duke’s going to die. He’s going to die, and I can’t stop it.
My chest tightens like someone’s pushing with both palms against it, pressing me against a wall. My toes curl inside my boots. I haven’t changed my clothes or showered since we got here. All I’ve done is drink crappy coffee from the cafeteria and wait for the biopsy to confirm what we’ve known since the first night: Duke’s got pancreatic cancer, that it’s spread, it’s everywhere now.
He’s gonna be gone soon.
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
I won’t cry. I won’t. I breathe in and out through my nose, biting the inside of my cheek…fighting, fighting…
Failing.