“Banner,” he calls from his bedroom.
I used to think mothers exaggerated when they said they could distinguish their babies’ needs by a distinct cry, but I get it now. Not that Zo is a baby, but there is a certain note in his voice when he’s dehydrated and a different one when he needs help getting to the bathroom. As a result of the chemo, he has the worst diarrhea. I’ll never forget the day, after a particularly rough session, I walked in and found him crawling to the bathroom. His pajamas were already soiled. In the most stilted, painful silence, I helped him get clean and changed. He turned his head away from me, but I saw the tears adorning his cheeks. I’m glad he wasn’t looking at me because he would have seen mine.
The note I hear in his voice now prompts me to grab the bottle of massage oil I keep by my bed. I walk swiftly to his room to see if I’m right. He smiles, eyeing the bottle in my hand, when I make it to his bedside.
“Crees qué me conoces tan bien,” he says, his dark eyes large and pain-dulled in the gauntness of his face.
You think you know me so well.
I uncap the bottle and begin working the soothing oil into his size fifteen feet.
“Sí lo se,” I reply with a small smile.
I do.
We can go days without speaking or hearing English. Unless he has a chemo session at Stanford, he doesn’t like to go out for various reasons. He hates being the face of something, a poster child. We are inundated with requests for interviews, special appearances, fundraisers. We accept the few he feels well enough to do and strongly enough about. Otherwise, we live quietly here on the periphery of the campus and hospital.
The media is grossly fascinated with his illness. As an agent, I understand fame. I know there’s an exchange you make—your privacy for notoriety and success—but there are lines no one should cross, and we live in a time and in a culture that has erased those lines. We’ve become so conditioned to “following” and “tracking with” that a man who wants to walk this hard road without spectators, without a TV special, without a podcast or a YouTube documentary, only piques their curiosity more.
Why can’t we know everything?
“Are you hungry?” I ask in the companionable silence while I massage his hands and arms. One of the side effects of his treatment is tingling and pain. I’m not sure how much my massages help, but he likes being touched. The massages are painful for me because touching him, I can’t deny how frail he has become. At six foot six, Zo has always been a tower of strength. His weight loss had already begun before, but we didn’t realize the cause and it wasn’t as dramatic as it’s become with the chemo. Over the last six weeks, the well-conditioned giant with the sculpted muscles has vaporized. His limbs have, in even such a short time, become almost spindly. They look too frail to support his tall frame. He’s like a tree trunk walking on branches.
I finish the massage and cap the bottle. One glance tells me he is already drifting off. The fatigue is like a rain cloud dumping bouts of sleep on him throughout the day. I work while he sleeps, though there is almost as much to do for him as for my job. Between managing insurance and keeping notes organized from his doctors, I’m less and less involved in the day-to-day with the LA office.
God, it hurt to tell Cal he should find someone else to manage the office. I worked hard to earn that opportunity, but I couldn’t do it well and give Zo my best here. Fortunately, I’ve been able to keep up with my client load. A nurse comes in a few times a week, which helps me keep my life afloat, but most of it falls to me. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Zo would do it for me. I’d do it for Mama, Camilla, Anna, or anyone I loved.
I’d do it for Jared, but I rein in my thoughts about him as much as possible. They always tell you to count the cost before you undertake a challenge. I can’t allow myself to calculate what I may be losing with Jared by choosing to be here with Zo. Managing this, being here for Zo, requires complete focus. I don’t have time for self-pity or second-guessing. Not when time is not on Zo’s side.
As I figured he would, Zo falls asleep pretty quickly. He had chemo yesterday and is wiped. I’ll take advantage of this time to look over a few contracts for Hakeem. But first, I check the app on my phone I use to manage Zo’s myriad medications. Amyloids, the abnormal proteins produced in Zo’s bone marrow, get deposited in multiple organs. Thank God they haven’t reached his heart, but his kidneys, liver, digestive tract, and even his central nervous system are all affected. Further down the line, he may require organ transplants and most certainly dialysis. For now, we’re relying on a multidisciplinary team of specialists to manage all the various organs and affected areas. Since the proteins travel in the blood to latch onto the organs, his hematologist runs point and coordinates with the gastroenterologist, nephrologist, and the neurologist who are also working with us. There are medicines for each organ, prescribed by each doctor. It’s overwhelming. Thus the app.
I’m double-checking the new doses Zo’s clinical trial implemented, when I get a text.
Quinn: Hey, stranger!
Me: Hey, chica. How’s the road treating you?
We made it official with AesThetics a few weeks ago, and they immediately put the Titanium Sweetheart to work as their new spokesperson. She’s been going to conventions and doing trade shows and presentations all over the country. She heads to Europe next week.
Quinn: Not too bad. I’m exhausted but can’t complain. I’m headed into a meeting, but I’ll call tonight so you can complain. Sound good?
I smile because she knows I won’t complain. She’s visited a few times but has been so busy herself it’s hard to get up here.
Me: Sure. Whatever you say. How’s the book coming?
Quinn: Ugh. You just don’t let up EVER, huh?
Me: LOL! This is not a new development. Answer the question.
Quinn: What book? I’m not a writer.
Me: No, you’re a LIVE-er. You’re a how-to manual on surviving hell. People will be inspired by your story. Write it so I can sell it. I have a short list of literary agents I think we should meet with.
Quinn: Of course you do. I’ll think about it. Gotta go. Give Zo my best and hang in there. I love you.
I blink at the tears that would spill over if I’d let them. I miss our talks. I miss having dinner with my friend and laughing about trivial stuff and all the things I took for granted when I thought I had a lot on my plate.
Me: Love you, too.
I’m just setting the phone down to get some work done when it rings.
Madre.
“Mama, hola.” I pop in my earphones and switch to Bluetooth so I can multi-task.
“Hola,” Mama says. “How is he?”
I bite my lip before I answer. I hate worrying her. She sees Zo as a second son and flew up from San Diego when we first moved in to help me set up the house. She’s been back a few times—but not since Zo’s gotten so thin.
“He’s good, Mama.” I pull up Hakeem’s shoe contract, scrolling to the section I need to modify.
“His hair? Has he lost his beautiful hair yet?”
“Uh, no.” I cut and paste from a similar contract into Hakeem’s. “I actually found these cold caps he wears to reduce hair loss. They seem to be working pretty well. It’s minimal, but he went ahead and cut it close anyway.”
“Did he get the rosary I sent?” Mama asks. “You know I used that rosary when your Aunt Valentina had breast cancer.”
“I know, Mama. You told us.”
“Every day I prayed. She ran a marathon last year,” Mama says with supernatural satisfaction. “That’s twenty-six miles, Bannini.”
“I . . . yeah, I know how long a marathon is, Ma.”
“Remission.” She says the word in triplicate, the three syllables like a prayer.
“There is no remission with amyloidosis,” I remind her. “It’s incurable. When Zo’s clear of the proteins, he’ll be in what they call response until they come back. And they will always come back.”
“Not always.”
“Yes, always, Mama. It’s the nature of the disease.”
“We’ll see about that,” Mama says with confidence. “And what about his sperm?”
I stop mid-type.
What the . . .?
“What about his sperm?” I laugh, a little taken off guard by the question.
“You will want to have children later, Banner,” Mama says like she’s talking to the village idiot. “Did he not put the sperm on ice?”
It hadn’t occurred to me. It should have. I can’t think of everything, but anything I miss gouges me with guilt. Even though Zo and I won’t have children together, I should have thought to ask. Maybe he and the doctor discussed it privately, though Zo has so little privacy from me these days.
“I’ll check on it.” I dig back into the contract.
“Those are my grandbabies, Bannini,” Mama says, her voice sorrowful. “Don’t let them fry.”
“Zo doesn’t get radiology,” I say absently. I don’t add that his sperm are not her grandbabies. That would be as hard for her to process as Zo’s illness. By tactic agreement, Zo and I don’t discuss our relationship with each other or with anyone else. The media have basically dubbed him a martyred saint, and I’m the little woman standing by her man. He knows I’ve honored his request not to move forward with Jared, even though he doesn’t know it was Jared.
Is Jared?
I haven’t seen Jared in six weeks. I’m not sure if our tense is past or present anymore, but I miss him. I dream about him often. Conversations we had, jokes we shared in the laundromat years ago, and yes, I dream about us making love. All the time. It’s so real, I almost expect my sheets to smell like him, expect to find golden hairs on my pillow. But my bed is cold and lonely. I can only hope his is, too. I know Jared’s sexual appetite firsthand. I trust him when he says he’ll wait for me, but I wouldn’t blame him if he couldn’t. It would gut me, but I wouldn’t fault him, especially not when the woman you think of as “yours” everyone else celebrates as someone else’s.