Page 21 of All the Beautiful Things
“You didn’t need to do this for me.”
“I think I have many things to make amends for with you, and Hudson told me you liked the treats here.”
He looked like he hadn’t slept. Possibly close to the reflection I saw in my mirror this morning because I certainly knew I hadn’t.
It was that familiar sadness I always saw in his eyes that had some of the anxiousness lifting. I scanned the desserts he’d already had delivered and managed what I hoped was a smile. “Thank you.”
I reached for my glass of water and took a sip. The glass shook in my hands and I set it back down and clasped my hands together in my lap so he couldn’t see how they trembled. This was nerve-wracking, so much more so than any other time I’d met David.
After a beat of silence that stretched the awkwardness, I finally met his gaze.
“I’m not sure what to say or do here,” I admitted.
He cleared his throat and set down his coffee. “That’s because it’s my job to explain only I don’t know how even though I’ve run through this many times in the last few days.”
All right then. Was the plan to stare at each other awkwardly? I’d lost my appetite, and the cupcakes weren’t the least bit enticing.
“I have cancer,” David said. “And so I guess that’s the best place to begin.”
“What?” All the heat blanched from my face, leaving me chilled. I clung to the scarf in my hands to warm them. I had to have misheard him. “David.”
“Prostate cancer.”
I pushed down the ball suddenly lodged in my throat. “You’ve been getting so tired lately. Hudson had been worried,” I said stupidly, but all the time I was around him, he seemed to tire faster than a man his age should. Hudson had mentioned it once or twice in passing.
“How long?”
He tapped his fingers on his coffee mug and expelled a heavy breath. “I’ve known for a while. I tried radiation already, a common treatment but results came back that it didn’t work the way they were hoping.”
“You…” My head spun like I’d been tossed onto a tilt-o-whirl ride. “You kept this from them?”
He shrugged, seemingly entirely unashamed of his actions and yet I saw the guilt and regret in his dark eyes I’d always related to. Such sad, sad eyes.
I couldn’t fathom his reasoning. Not when he had family who loved him and he had so much help and support at his side.
“The initial diagnosis wasn’t severe and so we watched it for a while before taking any action. I thought, I thought I could get through it and no one would have to worry.”
“David.” Tears burned my eyes as I spoke his name.
“No one knows yet.”
“More secrets, then?” I arched a brow, unable to contain my irritation. “Why?” And what a stupid thought. Love made him do it, his desire to protect everyone. With my own heart squeezing painfully tight inside my chest it was difficult to rasp out a breath.
“I fear I’ve jumped many chapters ahead in the story, but if I start at the beginning, I don’t know if it will make as much sense.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I kind of need to start at the end and work my way back to the beginning if that’s okay.”
Even as the cage around my chest tightened in painful measures, I must have nodded or given some acknowledgement because he started anyway.
“Hudson, he’ll want to save me from it. And I’m worried. I worried for both of my children over the years.” He strummed his fingers on the tabletop, rattling his coffee spoon to the same beat everything inside of me felt rattled. “They had a lifetime of saying goodbye to people they loved without the experience of being able to truly live and love first. Melissa gave that love and cried her tears when we had to say goodbye to kids we welcomed into our home, but Hudson, with many he grew close to, he also closed himself off over the years, slowly, piece by piece when it was time to let them go.”
I shook my head. This was torture. Listening to this from David’s perspective was so drastically different than hearing it from Hudson’s. He always made it sound like his life was incredibly fun, I’d never considered how hard it would be.
“I’m assuming you know my wife, Jackie, died seven years ago?”
I nodded. At least I think I did. He flip-flopped through explanations quickly, and I was still hearing the wordcancerechoing in my brain. “Yes. Hudson told me.”
“She was killed by a drunk driver on April tenth.”
A punch to the gut couldn’t have hit me with more force than those words. “What?” I gasped, hand going to my stomach to try to staunch the sudden urge to vomit. The timing… it couldn’t be.
