34

Beau

“Grandpa, mind if we talk?” I ask.

He turns toward me and sets down the book he’s reading. His eyes are tired and the sun has only just risen.

“I figured you’d notice,” Grandpa says.

I keep quiet to hear exactly what he means.

“Charlotte’s already come to me, of course,” he says. “The girl notices everything under the sun, that one.”

I had actually meant to discuss a different strategy to find the killer. The police aren’t doing a good enough job, and I can’t seem to get the dying girl’s face from last night out of my mind. It’s haunting me, and I fear the only way to stop it is to find the killer. But now, the need to know what exactly Grandpa means pulls at me.

“Charlotte knows. Suppose you do, too.”

“Sure,” I lie.

His eyes narrow. “Damn.”

And then he does an unexpected thing. He laughs good and loud. He laughs so hard that he coughs, which turns into a fit. He puts a hand to his mouth to stop it.

“Grandpa, you okay? You catch something?”

Finally, he stills and pulls his hand back.

His chin and palm are covered in bloody speckles.

“Well, hell,” Grandpa says. “Here I thought you came to talk about me dying, when all along, you didn’t know. I caught something, all right. A fatal lung cancer.”

I stagger back a step.

Fatal.

I try to blink away the shock of his statement. Despite my best intentions to stay so carefully guarded, I’m going to lose another person in my life.

“But you’ve never smoked a day in your life.” I don’t know why I say it. It’s just the first thing that comes to mind.

Panic surges through my veins. I wonder if the anguish I feel is reflected in my expression. I consider Grandpa closely. My stare goes again to the red flecks on his skin. Does it hurt to know he’s dying?

“Don’t be dense, boy. You don’t have to smoke to get cancer. ’Course, you sure increase your odds if you do, but cancer handpicked me, and so here I am. For all my sins, seems like a mighty right way for me to go. Could have been worse.”

I grab a towel from the side table and hand it to him.

“How much longer?” I ask. I don’t want to know. But I can’t not know.

“A week? Two? I don’t know. Haven’t eaten much. Can’t keep most things down. Mind is going in and out. I’m tired, Beau. It’s close to time.”

“How long have you known?” I ask. My voice is steady, though my thoughts are not.

Grandpa is dying. I feel as though I am dying, too. And suddenly, the weight is too much. I take a seat, my head in my hands. I stiffen, fighting back the sobs that threaten to wreck me. Not again. Not Grandpa, too. I can’t lose him, too.

“About six months. Went to the doctor in town. He sent me to the hospital. Know what it’s like to get stuck with needles and poked a million times, feeling like a pesky porcupine went and put its quills in you? Well, it’s about as awful as it sounds. Actually, worse.”

“What about medicine?” I ask. “There must be something they can do.”

Grandpa wheezes. “They offered treatments, sure. I’m not taking them, though. I want to die the right way. Here in my own home.” He stops to catch his breath, which never seems to happen. “Let the swamp have me when it’s over, will you? That’s all I ask. Sink my ashes in the muddy gator water. Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

I came to talk to Grandpa about strategy, and now I’m taking an oath to respect his death.

“I’ll do it, you know I will,” I say. A pinch of anger rolls through me. “But were you ever going to tell me? Was I just supposed to wake up one morning to learn that you never will again?”

Anger gives way to sadness. I take a ragged, steadying breath and place a palm against my chest, over my heart, where it feels as though I’m being split in two.

Grandpa shrugs. “What would you have done, Beau? On the one hand, I suppose telling you lets you see it beforehand. But I wonder what good that does. Can’t change a thing.”

“It gives me a chance to say goodbye. That’s more than I got from Dad and Mom.”

“Then say it,” he replies.

“Not now, you’re not that close to being gone yet.”

“Might as well be. The worst is comin’. Can’t promise I’ll remember if you don’t say it now.”

“I’m not going to,” I say, a note of finality in my tone.

It’s not fair, none of it. I press two rough fingers to my lips to keep the goodbye from slipping out. Each breath feels as though it’s sawing through my lungs, too painful to bear.

“Suit yourself. Maybe I can tell you something, though?” Grandpa requests. “I want you to know that I’ve only truly loved a few people in my life, and you happen to be one of them.”

I’m silent. I’m stone, unmoving. The Cadwell family doesn’t express emotions. It’s not who we are, damn it. But I see it anyhow. It’s written in the way my hands shake. In the way I open and close my mouth several times in indecision. I want to tell him how much he means to me, too.

Maybe I should be telling Grandpa that I love him, but I can’t seem to pull the words out past the rock in my throat.

Grandpa wraps a blanket around his shoulders even though it’s about a hundred degrees with the windows open. His eyes are getting heavier, drooping nearly closed, like even sitting here and staying awake is too much of an effort for him.

Charlotte rounds the corner. Grandpa takes shallow breaths, sounding wet like the slurp of mud tugging at boots.

“You’ve told him, then,” she says.

Grandpa nods, saving his voice. Even the slightest sigh sends him trying to swallow down coughs. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. He’s been weak, tired. Staying to his room. Off balance, maybe due to dizziness from not eating much. The cancer is swallowing him whole.

For once, Charlotte’s face is somber.

“Now what?” she whispers.

“Now we wait,” Grandpa says.

The end of his sentence hangs silent and invisible, but I say it in my mind anyway.

We wait…for his death.