Author: LAMFan
Rating: PG-13
Note: Alan-Michael's POV
Though it was well after dawn when Lucy pushed her chair away from the table, the rest of the house was still quiet. Since she had squeaked out that dreadful news ("I have cancer" being the only word combination Lucy -- or anyone -- has ever uttered that scared the hell out of me more than "I'm going to marry you"), I had divided my time equally between staring at Lucy, who was in turn staring into her mug to avoid making eye contact, and checking beneath my fingernails as if I was concerned there may be dirt there. Pressing her palms against the wooden surface of the table, Lucy pushed herself up and slid the chair in, glancing at the sunlight that was starting to peek in through the panes of glass on the door behind me.
She looked at me...finally. "You want to go for some breakfast or something?" I smiled as widely as I honestly could and nodded gently in response.
It's odd how the mind works sometimes. As she stood bathed in early morning sun my attention narrowed in, not for the first time since we'd known each other, on how tightly Lucy's bathrobe fit her compared to most of her clothes. Despite the baggy short set she was wearing underneath, I could still make out every curve. Where under normal circumstances I would have at least afforded myself the one pleasure of letting my eyes linger on my favorite areas of her body, on this day I instead gave her the once-over, wondering what part of her had been affected by the malignancy.
After looking at each other for a few moments in thoughtful silence, Lucy headed up to get dressed. I watched her begin her ascent and waited carefully for the door to the staircase to swing closed before exhaling deeply, as if I had been holding my breath the entire time. Maybe I had been.
Lucy and I walked aimlessly, discussing the usual meaningless things that old friends talk about when trying to catch up with one another, though I can't remember anything in particular that was said. My focus was entirely on the formations her exhaled breath was making in the winter air. I counted each breath she took from the moment we stepped outside the boarding house: Twenty-three in total by the time we reached the deli on Sixth Street. Compared to me, she didn't seem to breath that often. As I pondered which one of us was breathing abnormally, I caught something of Lucy's words....
She was thinking of getting a parrot? I could have been unknowingly repeating what she was saying, of course, and that was just her way of making fun...or she could have simply been trying to get my attention. Either way, "You're not the bird type," was my response. "You seem more content to talk to plants, you know?" She laughed, at the comment or at me. It didn't matter to me which, so long as she was laughing. Lucy paused as I motioned for her to enter the deli, her incandescent smile suddenly replaced with the look of someone deeply troubled. Her eyes shot to the ground and she sighed in seeming frustration.
"I hear they've got good coffee," I said, nodding inside with a feeling of complete helplessness. Finally she looked up at me again with ready eyes and I pushed the door open, holding it for her as she entered. Treating Lucy to a cup of coffee and a cruller, I bought the same for myself. Although it wasn't the most nutritious meal in the world, it did the trick; breakfast wasn't really what the trip was about, and I don't think either of us was hungry anyway. Food and drink in hand, we decided to head for Roosevelt Park.
By the time we arrived at our destination, Lucy and I had both devoured our crullers. Naturally, given the season and early hour, there was no one around but us. It hadn't snowed in days, but the ground, as well as the playground equipment, was thoroughly enshrouded in white. I stepped high, trying to avoid getting the cold dampness in my shoes while Lucy led the way, leaving her place beside me. She dragged her feet along the ground, nimbly plowing a path through the snow.
Lucy trudged her way to the swing set, taking the second seat from the left and leaving the far-left for me. I grabbed the chain with one hand, holding a cup of black coffee in the other, and began to ease myself down. Lucy stopped me just as I was about to make contact and I stood up to see her brush an inch of snow off of the wood. With gratitude I returned the sweet smile that she had let overtake her entire face just for me. I've taken my knocks, but I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to cold weather, regardless of how much time I spend at my family's mountain-top cabin. Of course, Lucy was the only person I'd ever really let in on that little secret. (When I told her, she reacted accordingly by pummelling me with snowballs.)
Lucy and I sat silently at first as we watched birds land and take off before us, the snowy ground at our feet being made to glow a dull yellow by the sunlight that was hitting both it and us. Squinting, I looked at her for a moment, trying desperately to come up with the right words. I formed my thoughts carefully into an eloquent kind of bullshit (eloquent bullshit she once suggested I was quite handy for before finding the nerve to actually request a committment), but general curiosity was all that came out. "I don't want to push you, Lucy, but you haven't really told me..."
"It's breast cancer." I stopped suddenly and looked at her. There she went, cutting me off again to drop a bombshell in the most casual way. She was in that somewhere else of hers that she'd fled to earlier, and I felt that same imaginary something from before sock me in the stomach again with a heavy force. It could have been worse, like brain cancer or something.... But there's a line between fairly decent and bad, and the moment that line is crossed you lose your ability to grasp just exactly how far from 'fine' you've come, and how far from it you may end up in the long run.
(In the long run.... Who was it that said we will all be dead in the long run? Whoever it was made just enough impression on me to have my subconscious whisper that little nuggest of joy into my ear at the very moment I most didn't want to acknowledge its truth.)
I had always thought myself to be a ready man. Although it sometimes required that bullshitting talent of mine, I was able to profess my love or my hatred to anyone at the drop of a hat in whatever manner was called for, and yet the most I could do in this situation was let the words sputter about my head until they hit a mental wall and the fragments dashed off into all directions. How, it, I, you, tree, concrete, gray, grayer...black, was about the best I came up with. Black, black, black....
A bird's soft tweeting from the trees over our shoulders pulled me out of my stupor, and it seemed to elicit some newfound wakefulness in Lucy as well. "My mastectomy is scheduled for tomorrow," rolled right off her tongue, and the sputtering began again. Sputter, sputter, sputter. I was aware of the situation just enough to know that if she was looking to me for some verbal comfort, she might as well have been talking to a side of beef.
Lucy, seeing the look on my face, mercifully back-tracked. "About a month ago I fff--"
"A month?" my voice cracked. Just as during puberty, which was the last time my voice had reached that pitch, my comments went ignored by the girl I found myself incredibly, inexplicably enamored with as Lucy bobbed her head once or twice to get back into her story.
"...About a month ago I found a lump," she shrugged. This time I took note of the word 'about.' She had let me remain clueless a while, I gathered, and didn't want to come right out and say it or her reason for doing so. "I went to the doctor and she did what she could, but..."
"I'm sorry," I managed to choke out, finding my words were more intelligent when they shot from my mouth before I had the chance to think.
"You're not responsible," Lucy responded.
"Well, I know, I just..." Damn sputtering. "I mean, I'm still sorry you have to go through this. And I'm sorry I haven't been around for you to talk to about it, either...."
Lucy put up her hand in protest, pushing her swing gently forward with her feet. "You were around, I just chose not to tell you."
"Well, I'm sorry for making you feel like you had to wait, then. If you--"
"Alan-Michael! I haven't really told anyone, okay?"
"You haven't told anyone else?"
"Just my father and your aunt. In fact... you're the first person I've told that I didn't really have to. I only told Buzz because he practically followed me to the hospital once, I'd been avoiding my family so much. Besides, he can always tell when something's the matter with me.... I told Alexandra when I took my leave of absence and she actually was very kind. She was more comforting than my father."
"I can believe that. Alex can be tough, but when push comes to shove, you'll see she's got a heart in there somewhere."
"Yeah, like someone else I know," Lucy said, beaming directly at me. "Are you all right? You seem a little weird." Yeah, news that the love of your life has cancer can do that to you.
"I'm fine," I lied. "I just..."
"You're worried about me," she guessed.
"The thought was always a little frightening when I was a kid," I explained, shaking my head, "and it's no easier now."
"Your great-grandmother died from cancer, right?"
Air froze in my throat as Lucy caught my eyes with her own. "Yeah," I replied, wishing I had had the good sense not to make a reference to Bert. So much for the speaking-without-thinking idea. "You're going to be fine, Lucy. You're young, and strong.... Look, would you mind if I came by tomorrow before the surgery?"
"Sure," she offered. "I mean, no, I wouldn't mind. If you really want to be there."
"I want to. If you want me to." Smoooooth, Mr. Spaulding. Keep talking in circles, and maybe you'll reverse the rotation of the earth and go back in time like Superman!
"I appreciate it, really. I mean, I told Dad only to come by after because... Well, you know how he can be.... But I know you're not going to say or do something to make things worse. Not that my dad doesn't mean well, 'cause I know he does. He just has this tendency to blow things out of proportion, you know?"
"What do you expect," I said smiling as I looked at her through half-closed eyes. "He's a Cooper." With both hands Lucy shoved me hard in the arm and I needed to grip the chains of the swing to keep myself from falling off the other side. The empty Styrofoam cup fell from my hand.
"I resent that," she said with a giggle. "I mean, I'm a Cooper and I for one do not blow things out of proportion!"
"You can't be serious!" I laughed, pulling myself back onto the swing and straightening out. "You are the Drama Queen, sweetheart...."
"I know," she said lightly. We looked at each other, our laughter fading slowly. "Thank you for making me feel good," she said with a smile after a short silence. She tapped my shoulder gently with her fist. "It helps a lot."
"I'd do anything to help you through this. You know that."
"Maybe tomorrow you can show up dressed like a clown? A balloon animal might do me some good."
"Don't give me any ideas," I said, brow raised. "I just might do it."
"I'd pay to see you in the shoes, the clown hair and the big, red nose."
"You've got me for free." I let go of the chain and leaned toward her. Touching the tips of my fingers just slightly to her chin, I turned her face to mine and kissed her softly at her temple. Lucy shut her eyes and then I followed suit. Lingering with my head against hers, I took her hand in mine and squeezed gently.
The moment ended when I felt her stand up quickly. She walked around to the other side of me and picked up my cup. As she threw it into the trash can I cleared my throat, trying to regain composure.
"Well, this was nice," she said, turning back to face me. As a harsh winter breeze blew about us, Lucy pulled her coat closed around her body. Tears glinted in the green of her eyes, and I could tell she had had enough for one visit. "I should get back to the boarding house, though. I haven't been able to sleep much the past few days, but I think it's finally starting to hit me."
I stood and nodded. "No, of course. You should get some rest. Let's go," I said, tipping my head toward the opening in the fence that lined the perimeter of the park.
"I'm fine," she said. "You go do whatever it is you need to do."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yeah. I appreciate the talk we had, though." She chuckled. "...And the food. See you tomorrow, I guess, right?"
"Absolutely," I replied in a solemn whisper.
Lucy tipped her head and smiled at me once more before making her way back through the path in the snow she had made when we came in. I watched her walk along until she faded into the distance, feeling as though she would slip away forever if I didn't grab her and hold on for dear life, but completely unable to move or even to say a word. I stood and looked out for a long time and finally dropped against a nearby bench. Holding my head in my hands, I cried until the silence around me gave way to the busy chatter of day.