CHAPTER 17
Luke stumbled down the stairs behind Clayton’s bobbing bed-head hair. How did he have the uncanny ability to wake up an extra hour early on weekends? Did he have a printed schedule? A hidden calendar or alarm set on Natalie’s phone? Whatever quirk was responsible for the early waking, Luke planned on blaming Natalie’s genes because, let’s be honest, she couldn’t exactly fight him on this one.
The sun was already beaming in from the half circle of windows on the front door and the tall, thin windows flanking each side of it. Summer’s sun made up for the seemingly eternal darkness of the Michigan winter, but today he had a slight headache. Not a great day to have a headache, not when Terry was coming over. If ever there was a headache producer, Terry was one.
“Daddy, you left your letters downstairs yesterday.” Clayton held a pile of mail in his hands. “Annie picked them up.” Luke had been so distracted by his trip with May, fight with Annie, and the date with Felicity that he’d forgotten to check the mail.
“Thanks, bud.” Luke snagged the pile of bills stacked on top of a Natalie letter from his little hand. “Why don’t you go snuggle up on the couch and I’ll make some pancakes? Can you watch your shows, though, until I’m ready?” He measured the envelope between his fingers, counting silently in his mind. Five pages. For sure.
“Can I have a granola bar now?” Clayton was already a skilled bargainer. He knew his dad wanted some peace and quiet, so if it would cost a granola bar, so be it.
“Sure.” Luke grabbed the golden letter opener he kept on the rectangular entry table and ran it under the sealed flap, hesitating for a second before calling after him. “Just one!”
“Okay!” Clayton shouted back, the crinkling of wrappers almost drowning him out.
Luke sat on the bottom stair, his favorite letter-reading spot. The letter unfolded neatly. Every time Luke opened one of her letters for the first time, he couldn’t help but imagine Natalie sitting in her hospital bed in the front room, carefully folding the pages and slipping them into the robin’s-egg-blue envelopes, licking the seal or maybe using a wet towel. He might not always like what was written inside the letter, but knowing she made such an effort to get it to him gave him more comfort than any condolences he’d received.
When Luke saw the date on this letter and calculated the gap between this letter and the one he’d received a week ago, he shuddered. Oh no.
DAY 270
Monday, September 9
Dear Luke,
My doctors are liars. They said I was in remission. They said I could move on with my life, that my hair would grow back, that I’d look back on this whole cancer thing as a little smudge on my book of life . . . well, they’re freaking liars.
Why did I stop writing in this journal when I got those clear scans three months ago? Stupid optimism. Why did I go to that appointment alone? Stupid naiveté. I have cancer on my brain, Luke. On. My. Brain. Unlike the Scarecrow, I do need a brain to live.
I knew something was up when I walked into the office. Usually Dr. Saunders is very chatty, asking about the kids and work, even you. Today he looked at me with these sad eyes, like he was about to tell a kid he had to put down his beloved dog. After a brief greeting he sat in his rolling chair, elbows on his knees.
“Natalie.” Then he sighed. That was a dead giveaway. “So, last week we discussed some abnormal labs and how it was important to do a follow-up scan to be careful.”
I nodded like a good little girl in school. Last week he’d told me it was probably nothing. He’d said I’d be fine. He told me not to worry. So I fasted, drank the disgusting orange-flavored contrast, lay in the PET machine for nearly forty-five minutes. Annie took me out to lunch after for pizza and I scarfed down three slices without any effort, trying to fill the ever-growing pit in my stomach. Maybe it was a premonition, though I’m not sure because when the words “metastasized” and “brain and lungs” and “stage IV” came out of his mouth, all the air sucked out of my lungs and my head spun.
I’m still not sure what Dr. Saunders actually said to me in those next few minutes, something about treatment options and prognosis. It is hard to believe my death sentence started as a microscopic lump of cells inside my body. I’ve let myself blame the chemo and the radiation for how horrible I’ve felt, losing the hair, becoming so unbearably weak. But it was cancer. Hiding. Waiting. Why? What did I ever do to make my body turn on me? Doesn’t cancer know I have children? That killing me so ruthlessly will leave a permanent scar on their lives much deeper than the one on my body?
I tried to call you after the appointment, but you weren’t at your desk or answering your cell. I was relieved because telling you that kind of news over the phone was probably not the best idea. I needed to think before breaking the news to you or even Annie, so I drove to EMU and started walking. I didn’t get far before sitting down on an abandoned bench in the quad. It was packed with freshmen, some flanked by parents, walking through campus wide-eyed and ready for a new phase in their life. That’s when I lost it. I was entering a new phase in my life too, the end of it. That’s not supposed to happen at thirty-six or thirty-seven. It’s not fair. Not fair. Not fair. Not fair!
As I tried to hide my tears behind my hand, the bench shifted beside me. Great, I thought, some oblivious teenager won’t even let me have my “I’m dying of cancer” pity party. But then I felt a warm arm around my shoulders.
“Natalie, what’s wrong?” Dr. Neal whispered in my ear. I yanked my hand off my face, not caring how horrible I must look after the crying jag. He had a gentle smile on his face. “It’s not Tiff and her gang again, is it?”
I laughed, which felt so weird at the moment. “No, I think I got her kicked out and doomed her to a life of ‘Welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order?’ No wonder my karma sucks.”
He told me she probably deserved it, but then his face grew serious, and he asked, “So, are you going to tell me why you are crying on the quad and scaring all the freshmen?”
I shook my head, knowing if I spoke, the tears would start again. He must’ve been able to read it all over my face because he knew, Luke. He just knew.
“It’s back, isn’t it?” he asked, and I nodded. “How bad?” I shook my head, and he asked again.
I said “stage IV,” out loud for the first time. Told him that I’m a goner. Then, how Dr. Saunders said I have a few months, maybe a year if I’m lucky.
I closed my eyes against the flood of tears. His arm tightened around me, and I was suddenly grateful to have the comfort of a friend, especially someone who’d been the recipient of equally terrible news in his own life.
Dr. Neal sat with me for a while and told me it was okay to be scared, but that I didn’t have to spend the last few months of my life terrified. He told me about how his wife, Maria, wasn’t scared to die and how she got all Zen at the end. He kept saying, “She was a good, strong woman.”
That made me mad. Why shouldn’t I be scared? Since I was scared, did that mean I was weak? Did it mean I wasn’t “good” enough? I’m not sure how Maria wasn’t scared, but maybe she had less she was leaving behind. How dare he compare me to his saintly dead wife on the worst day of my life?
But then he asked me a question that I somehow heard through my terror and anger. He asked: “Are you afraid of death, or are you afraid of leaving your family?”
I considered his question carefully. Yes, the promise of pain was frightening, not knowing what would happen . . . after. But the thought that crushed my throat like hands around my neck was the thought of leaving you to suffer alone. Almost worse was the jealousy I felt at you living out the life we’d planned together without me. Leaving. I was definitely more afraid of leaving.
Dr. Neal said that Maria felt the same way, so she wrote letters, made videos, and set aside meaningful keepsakes to leave behind. He said that those plans made it easier to “let go.” “Let go”—the phrase sounded so ridiculous to me. I’d never let go of my family, not willingly. Death will have to peel my fingers off the life I’m living to get me to leave you and our kids. I shook my head, crying harder than I ever had in front of someone that wasn’t family. I asked Dr. Neal how I could “let go” when there were no guarantees?
He responded: “Sometimes you have to be your own guarantee.”
That’s when I realized that I already had my own plan. I’d been writing to you for months. I had two spiral notebooks full of thoughts, stories, and instructions. They’d been a safety net at first, a way to keep my fear of the cancer at bay. But now they are my final opus. I need you to take them seriously. I have so many things I need to tell you before I go. Things I’ve wanted to say for a long time. The only positive thing about dying is knowing I won’t have to see your face when you find out all the reasons you should hate me. Maybe that’s my final gift—when you find out all my secrets, you’ll be glad I’m gone.
I’m in the north lot, car parked, writing. I’m still not sure what I’m going to say to you tonight in real life. I’m half tempted to keep Dr. Saunders’s news a secret instead of making you all go through this again.
Love,
Natalie
Luke read the last paragraph three or four times, reading each word carefully, as though he could figure out her secrets in the spaces between her words. As he flipped back to the first page and started again, the flap on the mail slot clanked, and a single sheet of folded paper fluttered to the floor.
The paper wasn’t framed on one side in spiral notebook fringe. It wasn’t even in an envelope, not to mention that it was far too early for the postman to come. But after reading about Dr. Neal’s and Natalie’s ominous plans for some big reveal, he refused to sit back and wait.
Luke threw Natalie’s letter on the stairs, the pages exploding against the steps, and took two long lunges toward the front door. He yanked at the handle, forgetting it was locked. Flustered, he fumbled with the dead bolt and tried again. This time the door flew open, letting in a damp gush of summer air turning warm in the sunrise.
Without his contacts in, he couldn’t focus on the figure walking down the asphalt driveway, but he could make out a tall, slender woman in a formfitting yellow tank top and black shorts, wearing headphones connected to an armband wrapped around her bicep. She stopped at the street to fiddle with the device inside the band.
Luke rushed out of the house, his bare feet collecting dew as he ran through the grass. He grabbed the woman’s elbow and spun her around. Annie’s wide eyes and muffled scream made Luke drop his hand.
“What are you doing here?”
Annie yanked the earbuds out of her ears by the wires and placed a hand over her heart, her face flushed and framed with sweat. “Oh my God, Luke! You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“I’m so sorry. I saw the letter come through the mail slot and thought I might . . .”
“Oh,” Annie interrupted, “you thought it was one of your Natalie letters.”
Luke shrugged, suddenly aware he must be a disheveled mess barefoot, wearing only his boxers and fitted undershirt. He ran a hand through his wild hair, self-conscious.
“I guess. I was being stupid. Wrong time, wrong color, wrong method of delivery. I overreacted.”
“Uh, so you didn’t read it then?” she asked, fumbling with the rubber earpiece on the end of her earbuds.
“No. I didn’t get a chance before running you down like a crazy person. Did I mention I was sorry?”
“Don’t apologize; that was my fault. That’s what the note was for,” Annie said, blushing. Luke started to disagree, but a pointed look kept him silent. “Maybe that was cowardly.”
“Cowardly?” Luke asked, a tightness hitting him between the shoulder blades. What could she tell him in a note she wouldn’t want to say face-to-face? “Listen, I’m sorry about last night. It was such an asshole thing to say. I can’t believe that came out of my mouth.” Luke scratched the stubble on his cheek, wishing Annie would look at him so he could decide if she was still mad or just embarrassed.
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t expect you to understand me and Brian.” She shook her head; a chunk of her clipped-back bangs fell into her eyes. “But we’re working on it. That’s all I have to say about that.” She swept a flat hand in a semicircle in front of her, like she was washing the memory away. Luke gritted his teeth and took a step closer to Annie, touching her on the elbow, gently this time.
“Hey, I won’t make you talk about it, but please”—he paused, trying not to get angry—“if you need me, you can call me, day or night. You don’t have to let someone hurt you.”
“That hasn’t happened in a long time. I swear. We are doing great.” Luke raised his eyebrows. He knew better; he’d seen the finger-shaped bruises on her arm just a few days ago. Annie ignored him. “I know you can’t understand. You and Natalie had the perfect marriage. Not everyone has that, Luke.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t assume my marriage was perfect. No one is perfect.” Not even Natalie.
“Well, not perfect, but still, you guys were happy and in love. It was so obvious. Last night, when I left here, I was mad. Really mad. I didn’t want to talk to you ever again, honestly. But then when I thought about how my life with Brian must look to someone used to such a happy life, I understood.”
Luke ground his teeth, trying to keep himself from reliving all the moments in his early life he thought of when he imagined Brian and Annie. It wasn’t his happy marriage that made him afraid for Natalie’s best friend; it was his unhappy childhood. But Annie didn’t know about any of that.
“Yeah, I thought Natalie and I were happy too.” He ran his hands through his hair, forgetting to care what it looked like. “I don’t even know if any of it was real anymore.”
“You don’t mean that.” Annie finally looked him in the eye, dropping her earbuds.
“It’s true. You can’t assume everything’s okay inside the house just because the paint isn’t peeling and the yard is neatly mowed.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Annie asked, stomping her foot.
“I’m saying that I think . . . I think Natalie had a child with someone else and didn’t tell me about it.” He punctuated each word, lingering on “someone else.” It hurt to think it, but to say it out loud? It was cathartic. The anger he’d been hiding and holding inside rose to the surface, seeping through his skin like sweat.
“Luke.” Annie grabbed his bare arm, her cold hands shocking him. “What haven’t you told me?”
“It’s possible”—he shook his head—“no, it’s probable that Natalie had a baby with Andy Garner and put it up for adoption.”
“Wait, her high school boyfriend? From Pentwater?” Annie’s nails dug into his skin. “Why would you think that?”
“Will found this envelope in some of her old stuff. It was from an adoption agency in Chicago and postmarked fourteen years ago. Will was having a hard time at school one day and told Ms. Mason . . . Felicity . . . that the envelope was proof he was adopted. So, to calm Will down, I went to visit one of the agency’s maternity houses in Kalamazoo.”
“And they actually told you about Andy and Natalie? I thought that was illegal.”
“They didn’t tell me anything,” Luke confirmed, wondering why he was telling her so much, “but there was a picture of Andy and Natalie there. Another one in the brochure they gave me.”
Annie stood in silence for a moment, playing with the cord to her headphones. “First, I think you should take a paternity test. That should take care of Will’s concerns.”
“We already took a test,” Luke interjected, “after that trip. Will’s imagination was coming up with some wild scenarios. I thought it was the simplest way to get proof.”
“Perfect. So, what did it say?” Annie asked, tossing her headphones over her shoulder. Luke thought she answered with more curiosity than someone so sure of Natalie’s fidelity should.
“Still waiting on results, but I’m not worried about who Will’s dad is. I’m more worried about . . .” Luke shrugged, hoping Annie would pick up on the hint so he wouldn’t have to explain his suspicions again.
“And that brings me to my second thought.” Annie slid her hands down Luke’s forearms, sending goose bumps across his skin. Holding both of his hands in hers, she looked him square in the eyes. “We are going to Pentwater—to figure out this so-called love child Natalie had with Andy Garner.”
“No, I couldn’t,” he sputtered. “I’ve already taken off so much work, and besides, I’m not very good at confrontations.”
“We can’t leave today. We need time to plan,” she said, swinging his arms back and forth. “Brian and I go to DC the twenty-eighth for some house hunting, but I come home before his final interview. That means I’ll be here alone for the Fourth of July weekend. Is Andy still a realtor?”
“Yeah, took over his dad’s business.”
“Okay, I’ll make an appointment to look at houses with him in Pentwater. We’ll drive out there, and when he shows up for our appointment, we’ll get the whole story, together.”
Luke considered the plan, staring past Annie at the pinkish-yellow sunbeams filling the sky, the sun rising slowly from behind the house across the street. Her plan could work, but there was only one flaw.
“I might not want to know.” He wanted to know, and he also didn’t want to know. Imagining Andy confirming that he and Natalie had a child together out there somewhere made Luke want to go back to bed and hide under his covers.
“Take a few days to consider it. I think talking to Andy is what you need. There has to be a less complicated explanation for all of this.”
Luke sighed and nodded, not sure being in the same town—much less the same room—as Andy would be good for anyone. “I’ll be able to think a lot clearer when Terry is gone.” He let go of Annie and checked his pockets for his phone before remembering he was still in his boxers. Desperate, he tapped the screen on the phone strapped to Annie’s arm. Six thirty already. “She’s going to be here in two hours. I need to get breakfast made, cleaned up, and maybe some clothes on Clayton before she gets here. I better go.”
“Sounds terrifying.” Annie readjusted her rogue bangs in a large tan clip and tightened her stubby ponytail. “And I better get back to my run.”
“Okay,” Luke said, folding his arms again, this time from a sudden chill. “I’m sorry, again, for interrupting. I’ll call you later this week about Pentwater.”
“Or you can always text me,” Annie added, raising her eyebrows and pushing her sporty pink earbuds back in. Luke nodded—texting would be a far easier way to turn down Annie’s offer. Turning back for one quick wave, she launched off the driveway and headed down the nearly sunny street. She bounced from one foot to the other in one fluid motion, like it came to her as naturally as walking. He’d never been interested in running before—he’d rather spend his workouts with some dumbbells or a punching bag—but watching Annie run made it look almost enjoyable.
When Annie turned at the end of the street, Luke headed back into the house through the open front door. Sheets of notebook paper littered the entry, crinkling under the ball of his foot. Luke shut the door with his elbow and then leaned over to pick up the pages off the floor, the squeaky voices of cartoon characters echoing through the entry. He tried not to read any of the words scrawled across the papers. Lifting his foot, he grabbed the last remaining page, this one folded in half. Definitely not Natalie’s.
Luke unfolded the page. The stiff, fancy card stock felt strange after spending so much time reading off cheap lined paper. On the top of the page was Annie’s name, written neatly in black lettering, and below it, one sentence:
You were right.