Chapter 13
We're munching on our dinner when Edward brings it up. "How did that call go?"
I shrug. "Fine. It's officially over. Not that it was ever anything to begin with."
"Was he nice about it or was he like in his messages?" He's staring at his plate, pushing some linguini around with his fork.
"He was okay. It was clinical, like most everything about us." I let out a sorry laugh. "I can't believe I was okay with that situation for as long as I was."
"What changed?"
I put my fork down. "I guess opening my mind up to seeing a different way to live. I never really gave another option a try. Maybe I'm maturing." I joke. "I don't know. It's nice here, outside the city. Calm. I didn't realize that I wanted calm. I've been to many, many places but never actually lived in them. Like with actual townsfolk."
He smiles at my dig but doesn't say anything for a moment after he sticks a forkful of lobster in his mouth. "I've never lived anywhere else."
"No, I guess you haven't." I think about the college plans Alice mentioned, and tell him. "Why didn't you try to pursue an online degree? Or go to Portland or something?"
He pushes his plate away. "I really didn't have a choice."
"But you did. Not to be crass, but your family has money. You could've attended college after you got well."
"I could've. I could've sold the restaurant to the developer I mentioned earlier and booked it out of here."
It's not my job to question a subject's choices. It's my job to find out the reason for the choices they make. "Why didn't you? What kept you here?"
"Half of Ogunquits' families have either worked in my restaurant or worked for the companies that supply it. How do you turn your back on that? Put people out of work? It's not who I am, and it's not something I would ever consider doing. My dad actually put the nails into the frame of that building. Who am I to let them get taken out?"
Family bonds are not something I'm familiar with, but Edward's passion in his statement feels so true to who he is. "Did you ever regret it? Do you regret it?"
"Not for one minute. This place is my home, and these people are my family."
I think about our conversation we had over the steak. "You said you felt like you had no one, it was you and Joey. But I've seen just how much you are loved. Why did you ever think that?"
He furrows his brow, thinking before speaking slowly. "Cancer is a very lonely, isolating illness. No one can understand what it's like until they've had it. You can guess, sure. You can think you can empathize. But you never really really know."
He looks down at the table, his thumb following a pattern in the wood. "You feel sorry for yourself, a burden to others. You wallow in self-pity while you wonder if you're actually going to live to get out the other side of it," he says quietly. "I've never felt more alone in my entire life, and that doesn't even put into fact that I'd lost my parents. Cancer makes you feel horrifyingly alone. It did for me, anyway."
The lumps are back in my throat and the tears threaten again. "Alice said they all love Joey because he kept you here, with them. What did she mean?"
His eyes turn dark, heavy. It's the saddest I've ever seen Edward look, and that's including when he gazes at Joey. "Joey is the only reason I didn't kill myself, Bella."
My body stills. "You don't mean that."
"I do. I contemplated it many times, when I thought I would never stop treatment, would never go into remission. I planned it." He looks down at Joey, at his feet. "But I'd look at him, and realized that as much as I needed him, he needed me more. How could I just abandon a helpless dog that loved me so much? So unconditionally? I owed it to him to fight, to stay alive, and take care of him."
He looks up, eyes wet and deep blue. "I shut Alice and Jasper out. Alice especially was a good friend to me in school, but I refused to see her. Wouldn't let her come to the hospital, wouldn't take her calls. I didn't want anyone's pity and I thought that was all anyone was capable of. When I finally reached out to her, she didn't even want an apology. She flew to the house and hugged me. Just hugged and hugged me and let me cry. I told her all about my depression, and she found me someone to talk to. No one can really understand it, but cancer never goes away, Bella. It might go into remission and disappear, but it lives forever, forever changes who you are. Good and bad. I still go to therapy when I feel like I need it."
"I'm sure that's more now than ever."
"It is." He rubs his hands over his chest and gets up to put our plates in the sink.
"I have one more question," I say, putting our glasses next to the plates.
"No more for tonight, I'm questioned out," he whines and throws his head back dramatically.
"One more, I promise." I put my hand on his arm.
He looks at it, then me. "One."
"Can we go for ice cream? I saw a Ben and Jerry's in town."
"I never would have guessed you were such a chocoholic," Edward says as he watches me take a lick from my 'Chocolatey Love A-Fair' cone. "I thought maybe a nice classy lemon sorbet."
"There is no point in dessert if it doesn't contain chocolate. And look who's talking, Mr. Double Scoop 'Chocolate PB Chunk'."
"It's what me and my mom always got. My father hated peanut butter, so he'd pretend to be grossed out and sit on that other bench over there." Edward nods his head at the bench opposite. "With his very boring rum raisin."
I smile at his memory as I continue to assault my cone. It's gotten dark out, but the street lamps give off a warm glow. The stores are still open so there are plenty of people out, and there is a live band playing in the bar across the street. The loud music and voices carry over and envelop us. Joey is sitting at Edwards feet, hoping for a taste, but when I joke I'm surprised Edward isn't letting him lick his cone, he informs me that chocolate is toxic to dogs.
"When we get to that moment, you know… I'm going to give him a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. No dog should go to heaven without knowing what chocolate tastes like."
He says it so offhandedly, so simply like an afterthought. Like it's just a fact he's giving me like the weather, but it hits me like a ton of bricks. I knew he was going to have to put Joey down, I just hadn't thought about the actual act.
"Bella? You okay?" Edward asks, and I realize I've stopped eating; I'm just staring at Joey.
"Yes, I'm fine. I guess I just hadn't really thought about the how of it all. The details."
"Oh." He sits back on the bench. "You have to plan, you know?"
"Yeah, makes sense. I guess I was just surprised how offhandedly you mentioned that, um, idea."
He sighs. "I read an article once, from a vet or a vet tech or something. She said that thirty-four percent of owners stay with their pet during the procedure. Thirty-four percent. That means sixty-six percent don't. She went on to say that the majority of dogs she'd put down look for their owners in their last moments, search for their loved ones that aren't there. I couldn't imagine a more horrific scenario. How could you not be with your pet for his final moments? It's baffling that people think of themselves and their feelings first."
"That is truly horrible," I say, sadness creeping in at imagining a poor pet that's given you so much love being alone on a cold table looking for you. "I assume…"
"Every step of the way."
I look at Edward, at his strong profile and even stronger demeanor. What this man has gone through and what's to come – I can't fathom it. For the hundredth time this week I'm learning and seeing and living things I've never given thought to before.
On impulse, I lay my head on Edward's shoulder. I can feel his body move with each breath, and he takes my hand in his. He entwines our fingers together on his lap and presses a soft kiss to my head. My fingers squeeze his, and I hope he can feel just how much support he's got in me, just an outsider not too long ago.
We sit like that, wrapped in the glow of Ogunquit streetlights and peppy bar music, for what feels like forever.
I would eat ice cream all day every day with CarrieZM and LayAtHomeMom. I'll even pay.
This is for Squiggy.