When we got back to Toronto, Ken met us at the airport. “Dad looks more tired than when he left.”

“He’s picked up a cough that won’t go away. It might have been the dampness.”

“Make a doctor’s appointment,” said Ken.

It was our wedding anniversary and a lot of family were there that day, and after dinner there was an impromptu baseball game on the front lawn. Little Miguel hit the ball with his plastic bat, and Bob picked him up under his arms and ran the bases with him. When they got to third, Bob had a coughing fit and Ken stepped in and ran Miguel home. Bob still couldn’t catch his breath.

Our family doctor listened to Bob’s lungs and prescribed some cough syrup with codeine. By the second day, the cough had subsided, Bob was feeling better, and we were getting into the busy routine of autumn in Toronto. Kathryn was back at university; Bob was back at the coffee company; my American publisher was arranging a book tour through the northeastern states; and the Supino Social Club was organizing the dinner dance in honour of the feast of some September saint. Bob came home from that meeting in early September and he was coughing again.

“Feel like taking a drive after dinner?” he asked. “One of my customers told me about a second-hand store up near Highway 89 that has an old-fashioned coffee grinder for sale. It’s a big one like they used to have on the counter of general stores. I thought it might be good for the bar in Supino. Not to actually grind the coffee, unless the grinder’s really precise, but just for the effect, you know.”

We drove to the second-hand store. The grinder was solid, with a large wheel and a wooden handle. Bob pulled a handful of roasted coffee beans out of his pocket.

“Does it work?” he asked the storeowner. “Can you adjust the grind?”

The storeowner didn’t know, but just as Bob suspected, the grind was too coarse and it was inconsistent.

“It’s really just good for display,” Bob said, “but I’ll take it.”

The storeowner helped Bob lift the grinder into the back of the car and, as Bob closed the trunk, he started coughing again.

“Bob,” I said.

“I know. I’ll call tomorrow.”

This time our family doctor sent Bob straight to the hospital for x-rays. “I’ll call you tomorrow as soon as I see the x-rays,” the doctor said.

The phone rang at five minutes after nine the next morning.

“I made an appointment for Bob to see the radiologist at the hospital today at 11.”

It was September 11. We stopped for gas en route to the hospital and I went inside to pay and to buy Bob another bottle of water. The proprietor had the television on. Some planes had crashed into a tower. When we got to the hospital waiting room, everyone including the medical staff was watching the televisions screens. Bob couldn’t concentrate on the magazines or the television. My eyes were on the television, but I couldn’t connect to the disaster. I needed all my energy and strength to deal with our own disaster.

This became one of those pivotal moments where people would remember exactly where they were and what they were doing. My reason for remembering September 11 would be different: I’d remember the feeling that I had buried deep under my heart that something was wrong with Bob and that cough that wouldn’t go away, but I couldn’t think about what it might mean. If I allowed that thought to surface, then a hundred other thoughts would emerge and I’d crumble, as surely as those towers on the television were doing, over and over again. Our 11 o’clock appointment stretched out to noon and then 12:30, and still we hadn’t seen the doctor. The nurse was tired of seeing me and I was tired of asking how much longer.

“Let’s go,” said Bob. “I’ve waited enough.”

“If we leave now, we’ll only have to come back again.”

Finally, the nurse motioned us into an examining room, where we waited another 10 minutes. Bob sat with his head leaning against the wall and his eyes closed; I paced the small room. At last the doctor walked in, holding the x-rays as if they were heavy sheets of metal. His movements were slow. Again, I thought of those images playing over and over again in slow motion on the television. It seemed as though the world was in shock and everyone and everything was moving slowly. The doctor listened to Bob’s chest and said there was definitely some congestion in the lungs. He said that the x-ray was a little blurred and it was difficult to give an exact diagnosis without seeing Bob’s medical history.

He said, “When’s your next appointment with your oncologist?”

“Next week.”

“I’ll renew your prescription for the cough syrup. That’ll make you more comfortable in the meantime, and I’ll send the x-rays down to Princess Margaret. No hurry.”

The next week Bob’s cough had cleared up, but he asked me to drive to Princess Margaret and let me drop him off at the main door while I went to park the car. Usually we took the stairs to the doctor’s office, but that day Bob stopped at the elevator. He walked very slowly down the long hallway to the oncologist’s waiting room.

“Give them my name, will you?” Bob said, motioning to the receptionist, and he sat down in the closest chair to catch his breath. In a few minutes, the receptionist called Bob’s name and we followed her to the doctor’s office. I stood at the oncologist’s door, holding it open, waiting for Bob, who was walking slowly so he wouldn’t aggravate his cough.

Bob’s oncologist pulled the x-rays from their brown manila envelope, put them up on the lightbox, and said, “What the hell happened?”

“You tell us,” I said. My heart was pounding in my ears, but I could still hear Bob’s laboured breathing.

“I’m sorry, Bob. You can see your whole left lung is grey and your right lung’s already beginning to fill with fluid. It’s lung cancer and it’s pretty advanced.”

“Is there anything we can do?” asked Bob.

“No.”

Bob reached for my hand. I felt like someone had dropped a cement block on my chest and I was destined to carry that weight for the rest of my life. I heard the doctor’s voice, but I couldn’t decipher his words.

When Bob stood up, I saw that the doctor was gone. The door was open, and we walked back down the long hallway together. I stopped to phone Kathryn, and then we were in the car driving home. I remember the day in stills, like someone fast-forwarded a movie, stopping here and there.

We were back home sitting on the edge of the bed when Bob finally spoke about the doctor’s diagnosis.

“The doctor said the cancer’s right through my body. He said there’s a sort of web of cancer around my heart. Wouldn’t it be funny if I died of a heart attack instead of lung cancer?”

“Oh, Bob. Don’t . . .”

“It’s going to be okay. I don’t want you worrying about this. There’s nothing we can do, but I can say how I live my life until then and it won’t be waiting in hospitals and doctors’ offices,” said Bob. “I want you to do something for me. I don’t want to be in a hospital bed, hooked up with tubes and oxygen tanks and machines. I want to be at home with you, and our family. Mmm?” he said.

“Mmm.”

Bob was still able to get up and dress every day. We continued with our work routines, but that only lasted a few short weeks. Ken and Kathryn went into the coffee company instead. The next week, they moved our double bed into a room downstairs so Bob wouldn’t have to climb the stairs. The room had two windows — one framed the front lawn and the other the long driveway. We placed the bed so Bob could see either view. When he couldn’t breathe without help, we arranged for an oxygen tank, but we kept the tank behind the bed.

The end of September marked our youngest grandson Miguel’s second birthday. Bob was determined to come to the dinner table. He couldn’t make the trip from bedroom to kitchen without his portable oxygen tank. Bob parked the tank behind his chair and tied a balloon on Miguel’s chair. “I’m turning off the oxygen when it’s time for dessert,” he said.

“We don’t have to have candles. We can just have cake and ice cream,” I said.

“No,” said Bob, “let Miguel have his two candles.”

That was the last day that Bob was able to come to the dinner table.

Now, the older grandchildren took turns riding the scooter down the long driveway to get the mail, a trip that Bob used to make daily with the youngest grandchildren. They waved to Bob on their way down and waved the mail on their way back. People sent cards and flowers, but Bob didn’t want them in our room; instead we arranged pictures of the children and grandchildren and photos of Supino. We also took the telephone out of the room, putting it in the kitchen, where I used it, often late at night, sitting on the floor behind the kitchen door, updating a cousin or a friend.

Joe called late one night from Supino. “Bloody cancer,” he said. “Try to be strong, Maria.”

Then Davide called to speak with Kathryn, and later with me. “Maria, sono Davide. My father said to tell you he’s there with you and Bob, ogni momento, ogni giorno, every moment, every day.”

“Maria, sono Liounna. Guido says, ‘Mi dispiace, mi dispiace.’”

We had 42 days together. Bob made a small list of people he wanted to see one last time. No one stayed long; no one cried; no one mentioned the reason for the visit, except for cousin Bill.

He said, “That’s got to be a heck of a moment, Bob, to hear the doctors say they can’t do anything.”

“One minute I’m making plans in Supino and the next minute a doctor’s giving me a death sentence. Telling me that it’s all over,” said Bob. “But I got a few weeks’ notice. I can spend my last days with my family. That’s what it comes down to in the end.”

The hospital bed was delivered in October; Bob needed to sleep in an upright position and we couldn’t manage it properly with pillows. Now I slept on the chesterfield beside the bed. During the day, I spent most of the time sitting on the chair beside the bed. We passed a lot of hours just holding hands. In the evenings, the children and grandchildren took turns sitting with Bob and telling him stories of work and school. I spent that time sitting in the living room, reading. I was reading a booklet about death. It listed all the signs of death’s approach and I was trying to convince myself that Bob was not showing any of these signs, yet.

I brushed back the curls from his forehead. Bob opened his eyes. “Every time I wake up,” he said, “I’m surprised I’m still here.”

“I’m glad you’re still here,” I said.

“I’ve got something for you. I had given it to Kathryn, to give to you at Christmastime, but I’d like to see you open it.”

He reached beneath his pillow and pulled out a small box as dark as a blue Supino sky. Gold letters spelled out the name of the jewellery store. Inside was a pair of gold earrings.

“Oh, Bob, how am I going to live without you?”

“You’re strong. You’re going to be okay. Tell you what, let’s listen to that CD.” Bob had bought the soundtrack from Big Night and loved that Louie Prima song about the little jewellery shop and the moon above the Mediterranean Sea. “Even though he’s singing about Napoli,” Bob said, “it reminds me of Supino.”

On the Tuesday morning, Bob removed the oxygen tube. The oxygen dried out his nose and sometimes he liked to have a break from the dryness. I knew that in a few minutes, he’d put it back on. But he didn’t.

“You need to keep that on,” I reminded him.

“No, I don’t. I’m going to die today.”

For a moment, I stopped breathing. Had I heard correctly? Was he hallucinating? Was I? The questions flashed through my mind as quickly as shooting stars and all I could grasp were the question marks.

I looked at Ken: he’d heard Bob’s words and seemed to be waiting for my response. I wanted to say something positive and comforting, but although Bob’s emaciated body was in the room with us, his mind and his soul had already begun to soar.

“No,” I said.

“I have to go. He’s waiting for me at the gate.”

“Who?”

“Your father.”

Bob was looking beyond us, as if he could actually see the gate and my father waiting there. I couldn’t think of anything to say or do. Bob was so calm, almost joyous. There was no sense of hurry, no glimmer of fear; a peacefulness had settled into the room. Ken was sitting beside the bed, holding his father’s hand.

For 42 days and nights, I’d watched helplessly as Bob’s body grew weaker, the fluid in his lungs gurgling in the night as he tried to find a space to breathe, his muscles so weak that he couldn’t lift the ice chips to his mouth. The oxygen tube was lying on his pillow; if he put it back on, he might breathe a few more minutes, but he was beyond us now, heading somewhere that we could not go. And that somewhere would be peaceful.

I leaned down to kiss Bob’s forehead. He spoke so softly. “I’m flying to Italy now. Your father’s waiting for me. He’s been waiting a long time . . .”