“Daisy went on tour with you?” Why this surprised him, he had little idea.
“Yes. She was a good little baby and could sleep anywhere. If it had come down to it, I’d have given up the band and stayed home. But we were one big family, and someone was always there to take care of her when I was onstage. Not your typical nine-to-five, but it worked for us.
“Jack and I decided to keep it going as long as we could. We knew one day she’d have to go to school, and that those were precious times, so we took full advantage.” She paused on a shaky breath. “Anyway, Jack got sick. We thought he’d caught Daisy’s cold, and maybe he had at first, but he wasn’t getting better. In fact, he got worse, so I took him to a doctor when we reached Missouri. They gave him flu medicine and sent him on his way. He felt a little better and made it through the rest of the trip. But when we got back to Colorado, it seemed to come back and bite him hard.” Her voice hitched.
“Lily,” Gage made his voice as gentle as he could, “you don’t need to keep going.” He plucked a water bottle from the nightstand and downed a big gulp.
“No, I do. I haven’t really talked to anyone besides Ivy like this, and not for a long time. I need to get it out. If you’re still willing to listen to me ramble, that is.”
Knowing she wanted him as her sounding board was a score that lifted him more than netting a game-winning goal. “Always. And you’re not rambling.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was small, and it tugged at him. After a thorough throat clearing, she continued. “I took him in when we got home, and they ran a battery of tests. They couldn’t find anything and said he hadn’t gotten enough rest and was still fighting the flu. He wound up in the hospital for a night, and the doctor there ran a few more tests. He called us in when he got the results.”
She paused. A long, eerily silent pause.
“I’m here,” he offered, “whenever you’re ready to talk. And if you want to stop, that’s okay too. Whatever you need, Lily.”
“I’ll never forget sitting in the doctor’s office that day.” Her voice shuddered with tears that ripped into him. “He, um, he told us Jack had stage four lung cancer. It had already spread to his vital organs and was in his bones. It was everywhere.”
Gage was stunned speechless.
“The strange thing was,” she continued, “he didn’t smoke. Never had. The doctor said it didn’t matter, that not all lung cancer comes from smoking. Anyway, he told us Jack could undergo chemo, but it wouldn’t do much good because the cancer was too far along. We stumbled out of there that day in a fog. Funny, though. I can still recall a blue Dodge parked next to us; I remember what the clouds looked like that day and that a small flight of geese lifted off from a pond. It’s all crystal clear, almost frozen in time.” Another pause and a sniffle. “We went to a Village Inn, of all places, and talked like we were having a business discussion. What we’d do in the next few weeks, what kind of funeral he wanted, what Daisy and I would do after … after … um …”
“Lily,” Gage whispered. God, this was killing him. He couldn’t fathom what it was doing to her. Frustrated that he couldn’t do anything to chase her pain away, he took another long pull of his water. The cool liquid flowed around the lump in his throat.
She rallied. “No, I’m okay.” He could practically hear her shaking off her sorrow. “At first, he seemed okay. He coughed a lot, but his color was good. He still ate like a horse, cracked jokes, and he was, you know, the Jack I knew. He worked on songs with Derek, practiced with the band, spent time with us. For a short while, I kidded myself that he’d beat this thing. That they’d been looking at the wrong test results, that Jack’s were switched with someone else’s. Or that a miracle had happened. But that didn’t last long.
“It’s devastating to watch someone deteriorate—you’ve seen it firsthand, watching your grandma. Jack’s decline seemed to pick up, like someone flipped a switch or sped up the film, and we couldn’t stop it.”
Her sniffles were coming hard and fast, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered.
“There’s nothing to apologize for.” His whole body vibrated with wanting to reach through the damn phone and wrap her up. He realized he was seated upright on the bed, his knees bent, his elbows resting on them. His core was tight, his muscles taut, as though he prepared to take a stick check to the gut.
On the other end, she seemed to recover. “I stayed with him. In the hospital. I’d get up and take walks through the hallway or get coffee, and by the time I’d get back his complexion would have turned grayer and his body seemed more shriveled. It was as though he was wasting away right in front of me. And oh my God, then the pain took over.” Now her voice took on an angry, gritty quality, as though her teeth were clenching. “It got worse and worse. It was excruciating, no matter how much they upped his meds. And there was absolutely. Nothing. I. Could. Do. Just curl up beside him and watch.”
Gage dug the heel of his hand into his eyes, wiping moisture from them as Lily pulled in a long breath on the other end and released it. And again.
Her voice quavered. “Finally, they had him so doped up that he … I don’t know how much he was aware of at the end, whether he knew we were there
