Terminal

“That would suck.”

The abruptness of his statement made me laugh and I was grateful, because the laughter kept me from screaming. It kept me sane.

“Yeah, you’re right, little man. That would suck. Hey, I’ve got an idea. How about we play something else now?”

“Okay, Daddy. What do you want to play?”

“How about hide-and-seek? I’ll even be it.”

“Sweet.” He scampered away.

“Hey,” I called after him, “can I come out of the jail now?”

“No,” he shouted over his shoulder. “You have to count from there.”

I wrapped my fingers around the bars that separated me from my family, closed my eyes, and began to count.

The chills had almost left me by the time I got to twenty.

* * *

Later, after we’d gotten home, I grilled some steaks and made baked potatoes and corn on the cob for dinner, while Michelle gave T. J. a bath. We ate, and when the meal was finished, the three of us curled up together on the sofa with a bowl of microwaved popcorn, and watched The Lion King for the four hundredth time. It was just as good as the first time we’d seen it—

except for the part when the father dies. That had always choked me up before, and it really knocked me on my ass now. T. J. fell asleep between us during the last half hour, and when it was over, I lifted him in my arms and carried him to bed. He stirred, mumbled something, then went right back to sleep. I kissed him on the forehead, smoothed his rumpled hair, and shut his door, leaving it open a crack to protect against monsters, just the way he liked it. Michelle and I finished the popcorn; and then we made love, right there on the couch. She smelled just as good as she had that morning— the vanilla-sugar lingering in the air. When it was over, we snuggled together, still naked, smoking and soaking in the afterglow. We didn’t say anything. We didn’t need to.

After a while, she fell asleep too. I carried her to bed, pulled the blanket over her, kissed her forehead and smoothed her hair just like I’d done with T. J., and crawled under the sheets next to her.

I didn’t sleep.

* * *

I wish that I could tell you it was a good day, but it wasn’t. Except for the panic and guilt attack during the game of cops and robbers, and my battle with nausea earlier that morning, it should have been the perfect day. Sounds like it was, doesn’t it? Well you weren’t there. You weren’t inside my head. I should have been grateful— should have loved every minute of it, every second. Except I didn’t. How could I? How the fuck was I supposed to? My wife and son had enjoyed a beautiful spring day as a family, and in their hearts they thought that there would be thousands more of those days to come.

But I knew better. I knew that this would be the last. And that knowledge was a fucked-up thing. It ate at me in ways the cancer never could. It devoured me from the inside. If I shared that knowledge, it would destroy them. And by not sharing it, I destroyed what we had. I lay there in the darkness, listening to my wife breathing next to me, and my son snoring softly down the hall. Anger suddenly overwhelmed me. Silently, I cursed God and the Devil and the tobacco companies and the doctor and my vanishing father and bitch of a mother and the owners of the foundry and everybody else I could think of. Most of all, I cursed myself. The thought occurred to me that maybe I should just commit suicide. Sign up for a life insurance policy with a big payout and take one of the pistols and blow my brains out the back of my head. But that would never work. Most insurance companies would want some kind of physical, and they’d find out about the cancer right away. Besides that, I didn’t think they paid out if you killed yourself.

Still, it would be an easy way out, a way to stop the lies and the pain and the sickness, a way to stop the dread I constantly felt in my gut, the dread that was consuming me, gnawing at me like a worm.

I tossed and turned. The sheets stuck to me. After a while, I got up and tiptoed to the front door. I opened it quietly, knowing that if Michelle woke up now, I’d have no choice but to come clean. Slipping outside, I made it to the truck, opened the door, killed the dome light, and reached under the seat. For one terrifying moment, I couldn’t find the box, and all kinds of things went through my head. Michelle had found it or a neighbor had stolen the guns or maybe the cops knew about the buy. But then my fingers brushed against it, and I pulled it out, relieved. I lifted the lid and the pistols stared back at me in the moonlight, whispering of a means to an end. Robbery. Suicide. Peace. Whatever I wanted, they were more than happy to provide it. They were shiny, happy things, full of promise and release.