Page 72 of When the Smoke Clears

She tosses the towel aside and leans against the counter. Everleigh is beautiful, gifted, kind, and probably a million other things I’ve been too angry and stubborn to see. But our timing is all wrong.

“But I think either something has already happened to your father, or he doesn’t have much time left,” she says with a sad smile.

I clear my throat. “Why do you think that?”

She lifts a shoulder. “Just an educated guess.”

I haven’t cried, and I’m not going to. He’s not dead. Why can’t she be annoying? Why didn’t she leave the kitchen a mess or run into the mailbox? I need to stay angry.

“I start my last shift tomorrow. Then I’m moving to Somers.”

She swallows.

If I’m not crying over my dying father, she can’t get emotional over my leaving.

“You can shrink me all you want. I’ll take Dr. Reichart right now. Just not . . .” I can’t even say her name, so I pinch my lower lip and slowly shake my head.

“I have the next three days off,” she says, standing straight, shoulders back, hands folded in front. “What can I do to help?”

I open my computer again. “It’s cancer,” I say without losing my shit. “He’s not treating it. They don’t want a second opinion. I’m not trying to save his life. I just want to understand it. To prepare for what’s to come. Can you help me understand it?”

She steps behind me, looking at the screen over my shoulder. I smell her floral tones and feel the warmth of her body.

“Of course I can help you understand it,” she says, resting her hand on my back.

In the next breath, her hand disappears, and she sits in the chair opposite me. “What kind of cancer?”

“Liver. It’s spread to his bones.”

She folds her hands on the table. “What do you want to know? What symptoms to expect? The progression? How they’ll treat the pain?”

I reach for my opposite shoulder, massaging the tension from it. This is an awful conversation. And I never thought I’d have it with Everleigh Reichart. “I want to know how I’ll know when he’s close to dying.”

“Do you want it sugarcoated?”

I shake my head.

“Okay. These are common progressions.”

As Everleigh lists complications including fractures, anemia, jaundice, hypercalcemia, heart attack, stroke, spinal cord compression, paralysis, organ failure . . . it triggers a headache. I hold on to some things she says, such as cool, mottled skin, loss of appetite, extreme fatigue, breathing patterns, confusion, potential “rallies,” and I tuck them away in my memory so I’ll know when I see them, it could be close to the end.

“There is observational data on things like the timing of death. End-of-life care professionals have noticed that some patients appear to wait until they are alone to pass away. Others wait until a specific person is there, or an event is over, like a daughter getting married. Of course, there’s no science behind it, but I think it’s true to some extent that in certain circumstances we choose when to let go. I wouldn’t leave anything unsaid.”

I rub my temples and slowly nod. “I never leave without hugging him and saying ‘I love you’ because even before I knew about the cancer, I had a feeling things weren’t going to get better.”

Everleigh stands, but I catch the tears in her eyes before she turns away. “You’re a good man, William Landry.” She opens the fridge door. “Have you had dinner?”

“I had a protein bar.”

“Well, that’s not enough. What do you put on your egg sandwich? My mom said it made her stomach turn inside out.”

“I’m going to bed.” I scoot back in my chair.

“You have a forty-eight-hour shift that starts tomorrow. Don’t you think you should eat?” She sets the eggs on the counter.

“I’ll survive.” I reach past her to grab a bottle of pills from the top cabinet shelf.

She fills a glass with water and offers it to me. “What hurts?”