“Eat your heart out. What’s up?”
I summed up what Brendan told me the night before, that he had a serious brain tumor, with a very poor prognosis, and that he’d elected to have a great summer and not to pursue any radical treatment program.
When I was finished, Max said, “When are you going to stop smoking?”
“Max. Don’t. Please. Besides, I basically quit. Until yesterday.”
“I mean it.” He sighed. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you. GBM is a horror. Brendan is absolutely right about that. The surgeryisdangerous; the treatment fails as often as it works. Brendan knows all of this.”
“Max, can anything be done? Is there any chance he could come through this with a decent quality of life?”
“Ifhe survived the experimental surgery, if he survived the treatment, he’d have a thirty percent chance of living for two to five years. But, Jennifer, he could go through the surgery and be completely paralyzed. Brendan would be able to think but not speak or do anything for himself. Believe it or not, I’m understating the risk.”
I didn’t want to start crying in front of Max, but sometimes he had the bedside manner of a stun gun.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I’m going a little crazy here. Can you tell?”
“Sorry,” said Dr. Max. “My specialty is neurology.”
I glared at him, tears started down my cheeks, and to my amazement, his cold demeanor melted.
“I’m sorry. That was bad,” he said. “Even for me.”
He put his head in his hands and his elbows on the table. “Let me say this in a better way, Jen. It sounds to me like Brendan has decided to make good use of whatever time he has left. He’s chosen to have a beautiful summer with you. He’s lucky to spend a summer with you, and I’m quite certain he knows it. In other words, I think he’s making a very intelligent choice. I really am sorry.” Then Max actually took my hands in his. “You don’t deserve this, Jennifer. And neither does Brendan.”
Forty-four
I TURNED OVERa lot of things that Dr. Max Weisberg had said as I drove toward Sam’s house. I parked the car under the oak, kicked off my loafers, and walked to Shep’s dock. Brendan was out on the lake, swimming. He looked so vital—not sick, certainly not terminally ill. My stomach started to churn.
He saw me and waved. Then he called, “Come in, the water’s perfect.Youlook perfect.”
“No, you come,” I said, patting the dock beside me. “Sit by me. I’m saving a spot. Thedockis perfect.”
Brendan swam my way. He pulled himself up in one smooth motion. Then he put his arm around me and we kissed.
“Not right now,” he said after the kiss.
“Not right now, what?” I asked.
“Let’s not talk about it right now, Jen,” he said. He looked me in the eye, squinting on account of the sun. “It would be a waste of such a beautiful day. We have time to get into the serious stuff.”
Fine. So I made lunch and served it on Sam’s wide front porch: chicken salad with white grapes on eight-grain, chips, iced tea. Below us, sunlight skipped across the lake and the fragrance of Sam’s roses saturated the air. Henry was working in the garden; he seemed to be there all the time.
Itwasa perfect day, wasn’t it? The right guy, the right girl, only the timing was wrong. I couldn’t help it, I felt as though I was going to break down and cry all through lunch, but I held it inside. Maybe Brendan was used to the idea of his dying, but I wasn’t.
He was waterproofing Shep’s deck and the job was only half done, so after lunch Brendan went back to work. I was clearing the table when I found a note folded under my plate. It read:
JENNIFER,
YOU ARE FORMALLY INVITED TO DINNER AT THE GUESTHOUSE.
7:00 P.M. MORE OR LESS.
COME AS SWEET AS YOU ARE.
BRENDAN
Forty-five
