Sorry for the delay, friends, that whole real life thing getting in the way again. Thank you for your support. I hope you enjoy. Get your tissues ready. ;)


"Is it bad that they aren't back yet?" Philip asked me as I stirred the boiling pot.

"Nah, Thea just wants to spend some time with her mama."

"Is she going to live with us if her mama dies?"

I set the spoon down on the stovetop and turned to face him, sitting at the breakfast bar.

"Well, first off, that's a pretty big if, but, no, she's still got her dad." I leaned over the counter.

He looked contemplative, but nodded, going back to his homework.

Finally, John and Thea walked in. Thea's spirits seemed a little higher. I dished out bowls of spaghetti and salads, the kids settled around the table and John pulled me into the back garden, the cool night air bristling us.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

He hugged me, dropping his head against my shoulder, "it's really bad, Alex. Really, really bad."

I nodded slowly and rubbed John's back, wishing I could do anything to ease his pain, struck with empathy, knowing that if he was hurting this much over it, Thea and Burr had to be even worse off.

"What happened?"

He picked his head up and looked at me, his eyes were grey and sad, "she has, like, no white cells. Her body isn't healing. She isn't even a transplant candidate like this, and they don't think that they can even start chemo until her count's up. It's only a matter of time."

"Fuck," my fingers twitched for a long forgotten cigarette.

"Yeah."

"How much does Thea know?"

"She knows that Theodosia is really sick. I don't think she knows… that she's not gonna make it."

I nodded, trying to make a game plan, "do we tell her? Does Burr want her back? What do we do?"

He threw his hands up and they dropped heavily on his thighs, "he asked if we'd keep her for awhile, y'know, still take her for visits, but I think he's still trying to figure everything out."

"Fuck, I'm going to get so slammed at work."

"Alex," he chided that that was where my mind went.

"I know. I know. Just… it's true."

He squeezed me to him, "I know, I hate it when you have to work extra."

"Well, and since next week you're-"

"-Damn, I'm out of town next week. Crap. We'll figure it out." He pressed his lips into a thin line.

I tipped his chin down and kissed him, "we always do."

We went back inside, the table was abandoned, Philip's bowl was empty, Thea's hardly touched. The kids were curled up into the chair in the living room, Thea's shoulder shook quietly, her face buried against Philip. Philip rested his chin on her shoulder and patted her back, whispering something that neither John nor I could hear. John reached out and clutched my hand, the scene before us too heartwrenching to not seek out human contact. I rubbed the back of his hand with my thumb and he cleared his throat.

Philip looked up at us, a mask of worry clinging to his face as his friend sobbed against him. John squeezed my hand and let it go and took a seat on the ottoman. I stood still, not sure where to go, how I could possibly make this better. I silently retreated upstairs to my office and shut the door, I slid my back down the wall and felt my breath catch. It happened faster than my mind could make sense of. I leaned against the cold wall, feeling the chill of the plaster through my sweatshirt.

I pulled my knees up against my chest and buried my face in the crevice between them, couldn't catch a full breath, panting in little wheezes, drowning in panic. My fingers drummed on my shins and I tapped my toes, clinging to the metronome of the tapping, the speed of my pulse, to anything that I could use to ground myself. So sick. So sick. So powerless. So little.

Why are you sick, mami? A question that lingered through the sands of time. A question met always with, I don't know, Alex, love. So much hope, because God doesn't make mistakes. So many questions that never got their answer, so many questions written in the book of my life, words waterlogged, bleeding ink, washed out to sea, floating in standing water - water filled with disease, water harbouring parasites and insects to make you sick - never getting their answer. So sick, both of us so sick.

My hands found the drawer pull to the bottom compartment of my desk and I retrieved the bottle of whiskey I kept there. The burn was a friend on my mouth as familiar and comforting as John's own lips. I took another deep gulp. That goddamned sensation of water on my face, this is drowning, this is drowning, this is drowning. I gasped and placed myself in time and space. Home. Our home. My good life. Loved. Safe. Dry. Home. Philip. John. Together. Safe. As I took in my surroundings: the New York brownstone, where thirty-six year old Alexander lived his blissful upper class life, where most days John could be heard upstairs through the vent singing while he developed his beautiful photographs, where Philip made up poems and songs while playing in his room, I realized that the only salty spray of ocean water hitting my face had come from my own eyes and I jerked my glasses over my ears and pawed at my face with my sleeve.

Slowly, I stilled my breathing, it settled, catching some feeling of normal to hold onto. I ran a hand over my face again, twirling the scruff at my chin and took another swig from the bottle. I panted as hard as if I'd run a mile, sweat clung to my neck and under my arms leaving me chilly on the hardwood floor. Time was immaterial to me, I took another pull from the bottle and nestled it back in my desk, far from drunk, but enough to sand down the sharp, cutting edges of my mind.

Who was I to feel like this? How was that fair? My memories belonged to a little boy decades away from this moment. I wasn't the little girl downstairs in the throes of premeditated grief, I wasn't the little boy who'd never know the mother who bore him, I wasn't the man who'd had an idyllic life of love and compassion replaced with busted lips and black eyes. I was just me. Living with my foot clenched in the bear trap of the past, how dare I?

A soft knock at the door roused me from my self-deprecation.

I cleared my throat, "yeah?"

John opened the door and peered over my desk to see me, shriveled around myself. He crossed my desk and sat with me.

"Can I touch you?" he asked, holding his arm out awkwardly.

I nodded, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into him, he stroked my hair.

"Panic attack?"

I nodded again, not trusting my own voice.

He chewed at his cheek, wearing his concern so much like Philip, "I wondered where you went."

"Sorry for dipping out."

"It's okay, babe. I got this."

"I know you do. I'm sorry you do… Are you okay?"

He nodded, curls bouncing from where they framed his face.

"Worried about Theodosia? Thinking about your mom? What's up?"

He shrugged, "a little of both. I don't know. I don't want these kids to go through stuff like this. We've worked so hard to give Pip a better life than we had."

I leaned into his side, "I think we have given him a better life than we had. Death comes for everyone, we can either run or let it be, but it still comes. Shitty, but it's life. Pip needs to know that, too. We're honest with him, we've always been real with him. This shit's no different."

The breath that he blew out was sweet and warm on my face, I kissed the tip of his nose and he spoke, "you're right, you're always right. I'm taking the little people out for ice cream, 'cause when your mom is dying, you get ice cream. It's the rules."

I smirked at how different our experiences were, glad that things had been harder on me, that nothing had been quite as bad for John. I could handle it, but he was pure and perfect, I wanted nothing to ever hurt him badly enough to change that… to change him. Callous and bitter looked far more appealing on me than it could ever look on him.

"Did you get a chance to eat, querido?" I stared into his eyes.

"Nah, it'll still be there. You didn't either. You want to come with us? Ice cream is also the best medicine after a panic attack. I was almost a doctor once, remember? I know things."

I chuckled at him, his persuasion working, "I'd love to."

He grinned and I helped him up, pulling him to his full height. I smoothed my clothing and put my glasses back on, we descended the stairs and found the kids colouring together.

"A'ight Pipster, Thea, we ready to roll?" John asked, pulling on his Chucks.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Philip tossed his coloured pencil into the colouring box.

Even Thea seemed excited, maybe John was right that you need ice cream when your mom is dying, I chuckled to myself, that's it, that's my problem, there was no ice cream for me.

The four of us walked together down the street, John and I strolling, lagging behind, Philip and Thea leading the way, giggling with each other and showing off for each other, hopping on one foot, walking backwards, being silly, being kids. We made it to the ice cream shop and ordered. Thea and Philip waited eagerly in a booth and John and I brought them their cups of ice cream.

I leaned over and stole a bite from John's cone, butter pecan, syrupy sweet, the perfect southern cliche.

"Hey!" he gasped at me, personally affronted by my attack on his ice cream, "what kind of monster bites ice cream anyway? Your poor teeth! You guys see this?" He held his cone out to the kids who giggled uproariously.

"Yours tastes better." I shrugged and wiped my goatee of butterscotch.

"Oh, is that right?"

"It's science." I drove a hard bargain.

"Hmm," He leaned over and slurped the top of my cone, his eye contact didn't miss me, the flirtatious glance through his lashes, little devil, "I think you're onto something. Yours is way better than mine."

"What a punk! This guy, am I right?" I pointed at John and rolled my eyes at the kids who giggled at us.

Thea reached over the table and drove her spoon into Philip's cup with lightning speed and stuck it into her mouth, striking like a bird of prey. Philip's mouth hung on a broken hinge as he stared at us.

"Yours is better, Pippy!" She giggled, her face lighting up, split into a grin, eyes glittering like her father's after a victory in the courtroom.

Philip smirked and tried to pull off the same maneuver, but she held her cup protectively, "hey!" he whined, "no fair, jerk!"

"Get faster, loser!" She rolled her eyes and ate a bite of her ice cream.

Philip glowered at her. She let out an exasperated sigh and fed him a bite of ice cream off her spoon.

"Hey, that's pretty good." He laughed.

"Oh, hush. You didn't earn it. I just felt sorry for you."

"Don't care, still got ice cream from you."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

While we waited on the kids to finish up John got a text and checked his phone, his face falling into seriousness. He put on a smile and looked at Thea, pocketing his phone.

"Hey, kiddo, how about we go see your mama?" He tried to sound casual.

"Can we come?" Philip looked at me.

I wrinkled up my face and shook my head, "nah, hijo. Let Thea and daddy go. They'll be back."

It was late, it was a school night, if Burr wanted John to bring Thea up to the hospital then it was bad. I ran the top of my foot over the back of John's calf and gave him a half smile. He nodded and shared a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Finish up, guys." I instructed, holding John's hand over the table.