After our first meal of barbecue and Cheerwine, Sebastian and I spoke every night. We each sat on our respective couches, with our dogs by our sides, and watched TV together. He liked to shoot holes in the logic of police procedurals and I complained about how homicide detectives could never chase down criminals in high heels and tight slacks. In dribs and drabs, Sebastian told me how his fiancé left him the same week he was diagnosed with cancer and how his students had kept him going through the last few years. I related enough strategic details of my life to explain my shock at seeing Dale a few months before. Sebastian pronounced my life story Dickensian.
Our conversations helped. Telling my story, even without some of the more lurid details, drained it of color. My memories were beginning to fade into the past. Still, for three weeks I didn’t let Sebastian closer to me than a telephone connection. Finally, after much coaching from Vanessa, I agreed to meet Sebastian at the botanical gardens for a run. The gardens seemed like a good choice for our date. If we ran out of things to talk about, I could comment on how lovely the roses were or how many different varieties of dogwood the gardens had. They had eighty-two. I looked it up. It was just a running date, yet I was as excited as a sixteen-year-old getting ready for the prom, or so I imagined. I gave Barkis a bath that morning and strapped his jaunty new dog pack to his back. I wanted Mitzi to like him.
It turned out my anxiety was unfounded. It was as easy to talk to Sebastian in person as it was on the phone. We chatted about current events and the books we were reading. We had similar taste in novels, short on sentiment and long on plot. At the end of the two-mile loop, we tied the dogs’ leads to a picnic table in the cafe area. I put my foot up on the table to stretch my hamstring. Sebastian took off his prosthetic and readjusted the sock over his stump. I thought it was a good sign that he felt comfortable enough with me to do that.
“How did that big presentation go yesterday? Did that woman ever send you her stuff for the meeting?”
“No. I sent her, and our boss, a list of the topics I planned to cover but she never replied to my email.” I switched legs and leaned into the stretch. “You know, actually, the meeting went way better than I could have dreamed. Letitia showed up late, her PowerPoint looked like she threw it together the night before, and she just kind of rambled. At one point, our boss cut her off and asked me a question about what she was presenting.”
“Could you answer it?”
“Sure, it hasn’t been that long since I worked for Letitia. I still know that stuff.” I did a few lunges and remembered Letitia’s petulant frown when one of the directors thanked me for clarifying a point. “The best part, though, was after the meeting. My boss pulled me aside and told me that this guy Greg, who I used to work with, asked him if he could work with me instead of Letitia.”
“I didn’t think you had anyone but those interns working with you.”
“I don’t right now,” I said with a devilish grin.
“So what did your boss say?”
“He didn’t say anything definite, but he hinted that if I keep doing good work and Letitia keeps screwing up, he might reassign some of her markets to me. My goal is to have a whole team in place by the time this other guy, Peter, gets back from disability.”
“He’s the guy with kidney cancer?”
“Yeah, I used to call him Pathetic Dog Owner in my head.”
“Speaking of dogs and your competitive streak, are you planning to do any other races this year?”
“I hadn’t planned to,” I said. “Are there many others to do?”
“Oh yeah, there seems to always be a couple pink ribbon runs.” I thought about Jane’s disdain for the pink ribbon brigade and smiled to myself. “There’s a triathlon to feed the homeless, a walk for AIDS research, there’s one for the ASPCA. We should do that and take the dogs with us.”
“That might be fun.” The idea of raising money for orphaned animals appealed to me. I touched my toes and continued to stretch out my muscles. I could feel Sebastian watching me and held the stretch.
“And then there’s always the big brain tumor run.”
I stood up and spun around. “There’s a race to help people with brain cancer? When is that? Could I still sign-up?”
Sebastian strapped his prosthetic back on and looked at me, head akimbo. My heart skipped a beat. “Why that race in particular?”
“I met a little boy. He had a huge dent in the side of his head, but he was so…” I sat down and extended my legs out to rest on the bench next to Sebastian. I recalled how free Rory had been when we played with his little men, “…innocent. And his mother. She was such a mess.”
“So, it’s personal.” Sebastian played with the stitching on my running shoes, almost touching my feet. “I think if everyone knew a cancer patient, we wouldn’t need to go begging for research funds.”
“I always thought cancer only affected old people, but the people I’ve met were just… well… people.”
“At least you met people, got to know them. I was so angry for so long I could barely speak at all. It wasn’t until after the leg was gone and I was well into PT that I realized how many of us there are wandering around out here.” Sebastian stared at the fading azaleas without seeing them.
I wondered who he was thinking about. Did they make it?
When he came back to the present, Sebastian whispered, “I’d been afraid of stuff all my life, but I never knew to be afraid of getting cancer in my twenties. If I hadn’t fallen off that ladder and broken my tibia, it may have been too late.”
“They found the cancer when you broke your leg? Wow, that’s rough.”
Sebastian untied and retied my shoelace twice before he replied, “Yeah, it was. How did they find yours?”
“I collapsed at the gym. I had symptoms, but I’d been ignoring them.”
Sebastian started to say something just as my phone rang in my pocket. Tom Roberts came up on the caller ID. Anxiety gripped my heart. Oh no, she’s dead. “Excuse me, I need to take this.” I jumped up and stepped behind a tree. “I’ll just be a sec,” I said as I answered the phone.
“Lara?”
“Jane?” My heart raced in my chest. “Are you okay? Why are calling from Tom’s phone?”
“He changed the name on the account. Now his name comes up whenever I make calls.” Resentment dripped through the phone line. “He’s out with that Candace looking at lots. Anyway, I did some more digging on the Internet about those mines in Alders. Did you make an appointment with that lawyer?”
“I’m driving up to see him on Tuesday. Do you want to come with me?”
“I’d love to, but I’m still under house arrest. Do you want to come here for lunch today?”
“I’m sorry, I’m out.” I took a deep breath. “I’m out with a friend.”
“Sebastian?” Jane teased. She was obviously enjoying making me squirm.
“Yes,” I replied coolly. I felt my cheeks getting hot.
“Don’t let me keep you. Call me later and tell me all about it.”
I tucked the phone back into my jacket pocket, returned to the picnic table, and took a sip of cold water from my water bottle. I wanted to splash it on my face.
“Sorry about that.”
“Vanessa?” Sebastian asked. He poured water into a collapsible bowl for Mitzi.
“Actually, that was my friend, Jane, on the phone. One of those people I met during treatment. We used to go out for lunch every once in a while but she can’t really go out much anymore.” I sat down and pulled my knees up under my chin. “The traditional treatments didn’t work. Her doctor—he’s a great guy—found this new drug that’s in its final trials. She won’t even try it. They self-insure and she says it would bankrupt her family’s business. You should hear her rant on about how she and her father worked too hard to get the company to where it is today to let freakin’ lung cancer take it away from them.”
“How long does she have?” Sebastian asked.
“I’m not really sure.”
“It was nice of you to befriend her, especially with your mom passing away and all. That’s a lot for you to handle in a year.”
I knew Sebastian was trying to be nice by showing concern. Normal people love their parents and would need comforting after they died. I was not normal people. I was twisted and strange inside. I had to accept that and move on. “Actually, that was one of the reasons she called. Jane keeps bugging me to meet with the lawyer that handled my grandparents’ estate.”
Sebastian laid his hand on my shoulder and turned toward me. I hadn’t noticed the golden flecks in his hazel eyes before. “You should go. See the lawyer. Finish this thing.”
I hugged my knees tighter to my chest. The idea of going back to Alders was terrifying. What if it didn’t live up to my memories?
Sebastian gave my shoulder a little squeeze. “Do you want me to go with you?” His hand felt wonderful on my shoulder. I wanted him to touch me but I didn’t want the memory of Dale to be in the room with us when that happened.
I jumped up and shook out my legs. “Look, the snack bar is opening. You want an ice cream?”
Sebastian nodded like he understood that I needed to stop talking about Alders and Mama and everything else that had happened to me. He began to pull himself up to a standing position. “Chocolate or vanilla?”
“I’ll go.” I pulled my wallet out of Barkis’s pack. “I want to see if they have jimmies.”
“Jimmies?” He rolled his eyes. “What part of New England are you from, anyway? Do you call water fountains ‘bubblers,’ too?”
“The great state of New Hampshire. And yes, they are bubblers. They bubble.” I sauntered over to the snack bar distinctly aware of Sebastian watching me walk away and exactly how well my running shorts showed off my rear end.