Silas Cleary, Friday Morning 

Silas Cleary awakes slowly. Friday morning. It is grey with wind and rain.

He draws the covers aside and lifts one leg, and then the other, over the side of the bed. He feels the cold floor on the soles of his feet as he walks into the kitchen. His sleep had been fitful, interrupted, and difficult falling back to sleep.

He takes his morning meds from the cupboard and swallows them with a cup of warm coffee from the pot Mirette had made for the two of them before she left for work.

The day is his. Nothing required of him. Only what he wants to do. And what needs doing.

Rain thrums against the roof shingles. After coffee, Silas sits at his desk to write a few emails. He is wearing headphones, listening to a recording of Dion in concertat the Tropicana in Atlantic City in 2004.

A brief intro followed by two, three, and four beats of silence. The next thing you hear is an acapella solo, by a bass-baritone, his lips and breath pushing out heavy, propulsive consonants into the mic: Dun-dun-dun-dun, Dun-dun-dun-dun-dah, and in comes Dion riding above the bass, with his B-flat tenor, asking, I wonder why, I love you like I do. is it because I think you love me to?

The do-wop, the rhythm, the lyrics of teen angst, wonder, and the anticipation of first love.  All as real and present for him as in ’58 when he first heard it on the radio in the back seat of his brother’s black 1951 Ford Custom Tudor sedan … Dun-dun-dun- dun- dah...

Last night, as he has done on every-other Thursday night for the last sixteen weeks, Silas went to sleep wearing an infusion pump as he will for two nights and three days. Chemotherapy agents flowing through a port in his chest. The pump emits a low whir and click. In the days after the infusion begins, the fatigue, the neuropathy, the GI symptoms, and low appetite come again.

Silas has cancer. It is treatable the oncologist says. Treatable, but not curable. It was diagnosed five months ago.

An endoscopy had revealed a bleeding gastric ulcer which would be biopsied.

Two days after the endoscopy, the hospitalist came into his room, pulling aside the curtains between the beds. “You have cancer,” he said. He’d been brief, disconnected, barely making eye contact. If he’d said more, Silas could remember none of it. And then when he was done, Silas was left alone, sitting in bed.

It, the diagnosis, was unexpected. A surprise. Coming at him like a sand-spreader truck backing out of a blind alley onto a dark, icy road towards his car at three o’clock in the morning.

And as it is backing out, for an instant, time slows to a slouching crawl; the mind moving at one-quarter speed in the single second before the crash.

In a way, though, it was less of a surprise: the slow motion truck coming toward him was real. For years he’d had heartburn, anemia, fatigue, cramps, taking Tums, and pantoprazole. It all kept getting worse.

And then he’d gone to the ER.

Alone in the hospital bed, surrounded by sadness, he felt the tickle tears that would have come if only someone else had been there by the bedside. But no one was, and the tears did not come.

It didn’t matter that the doctor didn’t stay. The diagnosis had become the new incumbent shape of reality. The frame, the context, the backdrop.

But within that, nothing had changed. The room. The light through the window. The metal chair in the corner. The closet with his coat, shoes and a bag of his belongings. The white board with his last and first name, date, and who the on-duty nurse was. The book he brought, the phone, and a plastic cup of water on the wheeled table. Everything was the same, exactly the same, as moments before, but everything was different.

Later, Silas will feed the dog and then they’ll walk up into the woods behind the horse farm, avoiding the puddles and mud, and  taking the path that circles the lake and leads up through the cemetery. 

When they come back, he’ll make something for breakfast, pay the bills coming due, and write for a few hours. Maybe a nap before starting dinner.  Tomorrow he’ll return to packing up books for the thrift store and the used bookstore, considering which ones to be left on the shelves.

Yesterday had been the last infusion in the first treatment cycle. Eight, three-day infusions, two weeks apart. Sixteen weeks of first line therapy. Whatever line might come next will depend on the results of the PET scan he’ll have in four days.

Don’t know why I love you. I just do.

Silas no longer wonders why. There is no point to wondering why.

Not why his life has taken the turn it has. Nor why he loves Mirette or their dog or cooking, or mowing the lawn, or reading books about slavery and the Third Reich, or why he spends his time writing short stories. This is what he does now, what he wants to do, what he will continue to do.

By next week, the fatigue will have worn itself out, and the mouth sores and tingling fingers will lessen. He will call a friend, and they’ll meet for coffee and talk about the novels they’re reading, Wimbledon, and the state of the world. And they’ll make plans to play tennis one morning, and to go to the little seafood place on Hanover Street in the North End and they’ll order a skillet of the black ink pasta and garlic calamari meatballs with a house salad with oil and vinegar, and maybe also a bottle of Nero d’Avola… if the spirit so moves them.

 And come fall, he and Mirette will rake and bag up the oak and maple leaves, and they’ll plant the bulbs they’ve kept in the basement. Maybe they’ll plan a vacation to someplace simple and warm, and with a language they will not have to practice and learn to speak beforehand.