Silas turned his head to her, and his eyes latched on to hers. “But then you’re right next to it, and you tense up, and your heart is breaking so you just have to know—except there’s this sudden rush of relief because it’s like a sofa cushion or a wadded-up towel or part of a blanket. It only looked like something that got hurt, it only had the appearance of an innocent animal killed by a cruel intersection of speed and trajectory. So you enjoy this sweet relief afterward, this feeling of…it’s okay. Only a trick of the eyes and the mind. It’s all right.”

He grew silent, his stare shifting away. “I told myself what was happening to my body was…normal. That it wasn’t…death. I would stay awake during the day, staring at the ceiling, constructing all manner of it’s okay, it’s all right…it’s not what killed my father.”

His voice grew tight and then strangled out.

Blinking hard, Ivie took his hand and squeezed. “I’m so sorry. God, I’m just…so sorry.”

“I was too embarrassed to take my clothes off in front of you,” he murmured without looking over at her. “When we were making love. I didn’t want you to see me for what I really was. I loved the way you looked at me when I touched you, kissed you, was inside you. In those moments, I was who I used to be.”

“Stop referring to yourself in the past tense. You’re still here.”

“No, I’m not.” He passed a hand over his abdominal region. “I haven’t been myself for quite a while—and I refuse to pretend otherwise anymore. They didn’t want to tell me I was terminal, you know. They still haven’t used the word to me directly, and I was ambivalent about that for a while. I kind of didn’t want that term to be tossed around. But after my last collapse—well, the one before this one…that’s when they started talking about the private nurse. And someone, I can’t remember whether it was Havers or not, said hospice. That was how I knew it was the end, and it motivated me, you know, to try to be with you. Well, that and it’s impossible for me to fight the attraction I feel for you.”

Silas’s smile was haunting, the kind of thing that stained your brain so you never forgot the image. He was still as handsome as he had been that first night, but she could tell there was a subtle change in his skin color from the liver issues. And the hollows in his cheeks seemed deeper. And his mouth seemed thinner.

It was as if the knowledge of his disease had shaded his features, adding a filter such that that which had not been noticeable before, when his heath had been something she took for granted, was now all too evident.

“I’m going to harp at you to take my vein,” she heard herself say. “And I want to get you home as soon as we’re able to. That way, we can go out together, and—”

He squeezed her palm. “You sure you want to do this? I liked it better when we were on equal footing.”

“I’m in,” she said simply. “No matter how bad it gets, I’m not leaving you.”

“Why couldn’t I have met you earlier?”

“Maybe you met me at just the right time.”

As she spoke, she intended to keep the sorrow out of her voice. She failed, though.

Getting to her feet, she put a smile on her face. “You know what we need?”

“That is too long a list, dearest Ivie.”

“We need some food. I’ll be right back.”

As she headed for the staff door, he craned his head around. “Where are you going? If you’re hungry, the chef will make you anything you want?”

“I need fifteen minutes. Twenty at the very most.”

On impulse, she doubled back and approached the bed. Leaning over him, she stroked his face. Then she dropped down and brushed his lips with her own.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she whispered.

“Well, hell, and here I thought I was going to head out for a quick jog around the block.”

She was a little embarrassed to say I love you again. But she got over that fast. The horrible reality was that patients like him could go into cardiac arrest or multi-organ failure at the drop of a hat, so holding back was not something she could afford to do.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he grinned. “And may I just tell you that I adore the sound of those words in my ears.”

“Well, good, because I love saying them.”

Chapter Twelve

“It’s a Happy Meal!”

As Silas started to laugh, Ivie rolled a table over and sat down next to the hospital bed. “Two Happy Meals, actually.”

“You went to McDonald’s just for us?”

“I did. There’s one that’s open twenty-four hours on the far side of the bridge, and you and I need some happy, right now.”

She unpacked both of their cheery little boxes, lining up their prizes and the miniature french fry bags and the hamburger and the apple slices. They both had tiny cartons of whole milk and puzzles and quizzes to look forward to.

Ivie chowed down on her burger even though it tasted like cardboard—although that wasn’t because it was fast food. She could have been eating filet mignon and the prime cut would have tasted like nothing much.

“Tell me about your childhood,” he said as he pushed his fries around. “And then I want to know about your transition. And what makes you want to do this job. And why you aren’t scared in the face of death.”

Ivie swallowed through a tight throat. She had no intention of telling him she was flat out terrified at the moment.

“Well,” she said, “I was born in the middle of July, on a hot night. My poor mahmen, going into labor like that? The air-conditioner at the house was broken and I gather it was very unpleasant.”

“She didn’t come in here? Wait, she had you at home?”

“Yup, I was born in the house that burned down.”

“But Havers doesn’t charge…well…”

“Poor people?” She smiled to take the edge off. “We could have gone to the old clinic, but my parents are kind of fatalistic. Or maybe it’s the flip side of that, maybe it’s faith. But they stayed put and had a midwife over, and that’s how I came into the world…”

She kept talking, providing him with a distraction from all the food he couldn’t eat. But he seemed to like picking up the milk and taking a test sip from the red straw, and then lifting the burger to his lips. Her stories came out faster and easier than she would have predicted, all manner of anecdotes about birthdays and adventures with Rubes and her other cousins filling up the time.

It was nice for her, she realized, to remember the simple fun of childhood, when a surprise candy bar could make her night or the perfect book could leave her heart fluttering with excitement. In the hustle and bustle of her adult life, she hadn’t thought about any of that for a very long time.

And all the while, Silas’s attention on her was rapt, as if her words were a lifeline.

“So that brings us up to date.” She tapped her heart. “To when I met and fell in love with you.”

God, it was freeing to say that. The only good thing this grim diagnosis gave them was the freedom to express emotions without worrying about whether they were rushing things. “Too early” didn’t exist for them.

“It’s a good story,” he whispered. “I just wish I could stick around for the rest of it.”

And that was when it happened.

Later, much later, she would pinpoint that moment as the awakening of her anger. Because as Silas fell silent, she knew exactly what was going through his mind: Whatever her life turned into, wherever she went, whoever she was around…he wouldn’t know because he would be in the Fade. And the sad resignation with which he accepted that loss, along with all the other gradual chipping-aways of his health and function, made her furious.

Who was he to be cheated out of the rest of his life?

Why was he going to die early?

How the hell was it fair that they were going to have to part?

From out of the depths of her soul, from the very caldron of her will, she had an abiding thought: Fuck. That. Shit.