For now, I had to sit on it. Even Reckless Jess had to mull over something as momentous as selling yourself to the devil.
Shoving Lucifer and his contract to the far reaches of my mind, I showered, dressed, and an hour later, I had a Pyrex dish filled with the two fat spinach and mushroom omelets I’d whipped up while waiting for my hair to air-dry. I walked outside and groaned as the bright spring sunshine slammed into me like a semi-truck. It’s not like I wasn’t accustomed to Saturday morning headaches, but they were usually due to a wicked hangover from a night of debauchery and bad decisions. Not because I tossed and turned all night, teased by half-nightmare, half-bliss-induced dreams about making a dirty business arrangement with the King of Hell.
I didn’t have a far walk. I closed my door behind me and strode across my porch to the next duplex over where my dad lived. I balanced the Pyrex dish on my thigh as I dug out his housekey. I was about the stab it into the door lock, but the door opened before I could get the key in.
“Dad,” I admonished him with a tut of my tongue. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
Lawrence Sims was a good man, a fantastic father. My mother ran out on us when I was just a baby, and ever since, he’d rocked the single dad role like a champ. He’d always put me first. He was somewhat of a religious man himself, but ever since he came down with pancreatic cancer, I stopped believing in any kind of higher power. At least not one that cared about us.
Dad was getting worse by the day. Chemo had helped at first, but now it was useless against the tumors, and it only made him violently ill. In any case, he was too weak for it now. We’d been to countless doctors, and they all delivered the same heart-crushing news. There was nothing to be done now except make him comfortable. At this rate, he had another three to six months left. Six if we were lucky.
We were never lucky.
Most of his blond hair had fallen out from the chemo and grown back only in patches. His eyes were sunken in, his body so thin it was almost skeletal. His Seattle Mariners t-shirt and brown khaki shorts he wore were practically a tent on him. He held his body in a way that made it clear it was a struggle for him to stand at the moment, and his pale blue eyes swam with pain.
“Don’t be silly. I can still answer my own door. Oh, kiddo, you look like you got hit by a bus. I know I’m one to talk, but I have an excuse.”
He shuffled away from the door, dragging his oxygen tank behind him with effort like it weighed a thousand pounds. He wheezed with every inhale, the surgical tubing in his nose whistling with each labored breath, each exhale rattling from his chest.
I hated seeing him like this, knowing each day that passed could never come back and that each breath he took might as well be a countdown to the inevitable.
“I’m just tired… I didn’t sleep well last night,” I edged as I moved into the kitchen, shutting the door behind me with my hip. “Where’s Patty?”
I looked around the corner into the living room, looking for the weekend nurse we’d hired when I couldn’t be here to look after him. At first, I hadn’t wanted to hire her, feeling bad that I, a nurse, couldn’t be there on the weekends to take care of my own dad. But he’d insisted I spend most of the weekend away from him. Insisted I still had a life that didn’t revolve around him.
“She made a quick run to the pharmacy to pick up some meds for me. She’ll be back soon. I told you, you don’t have to come checking up on me on the weekends when you should be out having fun.”
“I wanted to come see you just for a quick hello. I made breakfast.” I held up the Pyrex dish and gave it a little enthusiastic shake. “Omelets. Hope you’re hungry.”
“I’m feeling kind of nauseated this morning, kiddo. But thank you for making food. You’re so sweet. I don’t deserve you, Jess.”
“Stop that. You deserve so much more than me.”
I hadn’t planned on crying today. Most days, I didn’t, and if I did, it was rarely in front of Dad. I tried to stay strong for him, even if I was faking it. I was faking it for both of us.
“Hey, Jessica. Aw, sweetheart, don’t cry.” He shuffled forward and wrapped his boney arms around me.
“I’m going to start staying here on the weekends again so I can help you with anything you need. Besides, Patty is great, but she’s a bit expensive.”
“Hey, what did we talk about?” He pulled me back into his arms to give me that “cut that bullshit” look he’d given me back when I was just a kid. “You need to live your life, honey. That hospital is working you so hard. Then you come here at night and make me food and clean and take care of me. You need some time for yourself. As long as you stay safe, you deserve to be doing the things you want to be doing. Me and the hospital, we’re not your ball and chain, honey.”
“All I want is more time with you, Dad,” I sniffed.
“Oh, honey. We spend lots of time together. But you deserve to go out and be a twenty-something for once. You busted your butt in college, then you started your job, then I got sick. You’ve been shouldering the bills…” He turned his head away from me, and by the wobble of his voice, I knew he was close to tears himself. “I don’t want to be what holds you back, Alright? So no more crying. I’m proud of you, and I want to start seeing you put yourself first. I’ll be fine.”
A sharp stab of guilt twisted my belly like a dull knife. “Alright.”
“Do you wanna eat your omelet in the living room, kiddo? We can watch the Mariner’s game together.”
“I thought they played last night.”
He looked back over his shoulder to grin at me, the tears gone, and his eyes shining, and for a moment, chasing all the shadows away. “They did. I taped it so we could watch it together.”
My heart throbbed hard in my chest as I watched the most important person in my life hobble into the living room, excited to watch the baseball game. He loved the Mainers, and ever since we moved to Seattle right after Mom left, it was something we’d always done together.
I’d miss that.
I’d miss everything.
