Saint Nicholas (18 page)

Carter did a double-take at the polite tone of his voice, and dad looked him in the eyes for a moment before answering, “No, but thank you. Just water for me.”

“Suit yourself,” Nicholas quipped.

“Thank you, I will suit myself,” Dad replied.

That set the standard for the evening, and as we all gathered around the table to eat, the conversation didn’t necessarily feel forced, but there was an undercurrent of tension running beneath it that no amount of wine could resolve. Nicholas was trying to be the best for me though, despite how hard it must’ve been for him, and I appreciated it. I rested my hand on his knee more than once throughout the meal, which got rave reviews from everyone at the table, and he gladly took it in his each time to let me know he was still okay.

When the plates were cleared and everyone’s bellies were full, Dad retreated to the living room to be by himself, leaving the three of us to our own devices.

“So, Carter,” Nicholas started. “Sarah tells me you’re helping her with Novel Idea.”

“That’s right,” Carter said, reaching out to rub my shoulder. “Our girl here is going to be the best damn bookseller in all of Staten Island.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Nicholas raised his glass and sipped some more wine, winking at me.

“Now if we can just get the funding in order, everything will be roses,” I said.

“How much do you need?”

“Between inventory, renovations, rent…I’d say about three quarters of a million to get started for the first year.”

Nicholas’s eyes widened.

“I know, it seems like a lot, doesn’t it?”

“How much just to get the doors open?”

I looked to Carter, who was the money man in all of this, doing his part to trim the budget as much as he could while looking into places we could get a loan.

“To open the doors comfortably,” he said, “about a hundred thousand.”

“And what’s your time frame?” Nicholas asked, looking at me.

“I’d really like to have it open sometime next year. We’re still in the planning stages right now, working on the business proposal, but if everything stays on track then I think that’s a realistic goal.”

He didn’t say anything else, just sat there chewing the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. What was there to say? I was just glad he seemed to be taking a genuine interest in what I was doing. After all, Novel Idea had been ours when we were kids, so it was nice to see that as much as it had turned into my dream, Nicholas still wanted to be a part of it somehow, even if it was as an outside observer.

“And what about you?” Carter asked. “How’s the book writing business?”

“Started off well enough, but then the bottom fell out after I thought Sarah was…”

His voice trailed off and he looked at me.

After you thought I was dead.

“You’ll get there again,” I smiled, rubbing his shoulder.

He nodded. “I hope so. I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, and if I don’t figure something out soon, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Maybe you should write a romance novel. Make it real steamy. Everyone loves a good sex romp every now and then.” Carter laughed at his own joke, causing Nicholas to smile uneasily.

“Maybe,” he said quietly.

There was an awkward pause in the conversation and I took the opportunity to get up and grab the box of cupcakes Carter’d brought. I placed it on the table and put one on a plate to take out to my father.

“Be right back,” I said.

Dad was on the couch, watching the TV on mute, which I thought was strange. Had he been trying to listen in on the conversation?

“You’re more than welcome to come sit at the table with us, Dad.”

He shook his head, not meeting my eyes.

“Well, here, I brought you a cupcake,” I said, cheerfully presenting him with dessert.

“I don’t want any,” he said gruffly, quickly adding “but thank you,” in a more civil tongue.

“Are you sure? They’re your favorite.”

“I said I don’t want any damn cupcakes!” He jumped to his feet, staring me in the eyes, and suddenly I was fifteen years old again.

The dish shook in my trembling hands as my father stood there, his chest rising and falling with deep, methodical breaths. The cancer had done much to lessen his once strong frame to the point where he was now considerably smaller than he used to be, but in that moment I saw the man who had once stood over me while I cowered on the ground before him.

“Daddy,” I said, my voice shaking in fear. “I—”

He batted the plate out of my hand and I screamed, backing away from him.

From behind me, Nicholas and Carter came out from the kitchen, and I thought for sure this was going to be it. That Nicholas was going to come charging at him and put an end to my suffering once and for all. I glanced back to see the anger in his eyes, and Carter holding him in place with a hand resting firm on Nicholas’ chest.

I looked back at my father who still stood there with a look of disbelief on his face, like he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. His eyes made their way to the cupcake lying frosting-down on the carpet, and back up to me. They were glassy and regretful, and he rubbed a hand across his mouth.

“I—I’m so sorry, Sarah. I don’t know—”

But he never got the chance to finish his sentence, because in that next moment he collapsed to the floor and started convulsing. I backed away in horror, watching as he writhed on the carpet. I didn’t know what to do, and the tears flowed freely while Carter and Nicholas brushed past me to crouch down next to him.

“Call an ambulance,” Nicholas said, and in a flash Carter was back on his feet and running for the cordless in the kitchen.

Nicholas turned my dad on his side and said something to me, but I couldn’t comprehend anything.

“Sarah!” he said once more, snapping his fingers. “It’s okay. He’ll be okay, but what I need you to do is move this coffee table out of the way.”

I nodded, and leaped into action, grabbing the table and dragging it far across the room. I could hear Carter standing in the threshold speaking to a 911 operator, saying things like
cancer
and
tumor
, but that was all my brain would register. I just looked on, watching as Nicholas continued to support my dad while the seizure raged through him. He bent over to whisper something in his ear, and then Nicholas’s eyes met mine and he nodded, trying to console me from his position on the ground. He reached out his hand, still keeping one hand on my father’s shoulder as his knees prevented him from rolling onto his back.

I snatched his hand in mine and squeezed tight. Nicholas guided me around my father and sat me on the couch, and soon I was joined by Carter who placed an arm around me, rubbing my shoulders.

“They’re on their way,” he said.

I looked to Nicholas once more before burying my face in Carter’s chest, sobbing uncontrollably while ambulance sirens wailed in the distance.

TWENTY-FOUR

-
Nicholas
-

Three hours later we were still in the waiting room of Staten Island University Hospital patiently waiting for test results to come back. Sarah sat next to me, leaning her head on my shoulder, gripping my hand in hers. Carter sat opposite her, and while he would rub Sarah’s arm from time to time in a gesture of comfort, he didn’t say much of anything. Neither of us did. What was there to say?

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall, taking a deep breath to help steady my beating heart, which wouldn’t stop racing. The scent of Sarah’s hair wafted up to me and I silently kissed the top of her head as images from hours before replayed in my mind.

For a fleeting moment he had been that person again, terrifying his daughter to tears. I was ready and willing to step in and stop it, and if it hadn’t been for Carter holding me back that’s exactly what I would have done, and that scared me. But Sarah needed me at my best, and it was that split second thought that prevented me from barging past Carter and into the living room to step in between father and daughter.

And now here we are.

Sarah shifted in her seat and sat up with a sniffle and a swipe of her eyes. I rubbed soft circles into her flesh with the ball of my thumb as our fingers remained intertwined with one another, letting her know I was here for her.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I didn’t reply, because I didn’t need to. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t try and do for this woman. Not for praise or thank-yous, but because I loved her. I’d never stopped loving her.

She turned to Carter and patted him on the knee, whispering the same gratitude. He reached out and hugged her close. There were puffy circles under his eyes and his normally styled blonde hair was an unkempt mess. It’d look almost comical if the situation wasn’t so damn depressing.

I cleared my throat before saying, “I’m going to get some coffee, does anybody want any?”

Sarah shook her head, but Carter stood up and stretched. “I’ll come with you.”

My eyes flicked to Sarah’s for a moment, silently asking it that was okay. “Go,” she said. “I’ll be here.” She smiled, but it was weak and tired and my heart ached for her.

Carter and I walked down the hall, rounding a corner where I’d seen a vending machine earlier. I deposited some change into the slot and looked to him for a second, inquiring what he took in his coffee.

“Black,” he said.

Hot liquid poured into a cup and I handed it to him, selecting black with two sugars for myself. We stood there for a moment, the both of us bone tired and pumping with nervous anticipation at the diagnosis we both knew wasn’t going to be good.

“She’s going to need you,” he said to me.

“I know.”

“No, I mean
really
need you.”

“I know,” I repeated, staring at him from above the rim of the cup as I drank.

He thunked against the wall and sighed. “This is so fucked up.”

I joined him, propping the bottom of my foot against the wall and leaning back. I didn’t know what he meant, so I said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

“She’s been so strong, you know? When he first came back into her life it was hard, obviously, but once she said what needed to be said it gradually became easier for her to move on with her life. Then when he was diagnosed and had no place else to go, everything came to a standstill.”

“What about her mother?” I asked. “She hasn’t mentioned her to me. Is she still around?”

Carter shook his head. “Who knows,” he said flatly. “From what I gather she doesn’t want anything to do with him, and as a result, wants nothing to do with Sarah. They were talking for a while, her mother and father, but it all fell apart and no one but them knows why.

I picked at the rim of my cup. “Has anything like this ever happened before, where he became…I don’t know, that person again?”

“Never,” Carter said, meeting my eyes. “Not once. When he moved in, it was tense at first, but it wasn’t like Sarah thought it would be. She thought she’d be walking on egg shells, like in the old days, but it became abundantly clear that he was sincere in his apology and was a totally different person.”

“Talk about an odd couple though, right?”

“You’re telling me. For the longest time we kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Mr. Hyde to rear his ugly head, but up until tonight, nothing.”

“God, I can’t imagine how difficult that must’ve been for her.”

“It was,” Carter drained his coffee cup and stood with it empty, dangling at his side. “But like I said, she’s strong.”

“You think tonight was a result of the cancer?”

“No doubt. He was originally diagnosed with a grade two astrocytoma. They were able to go in a remove most of it, but not all, so there was always that chance it could resurface. Now, I guess it has.”

“What about treatments after the fact?”

“Not much. Follow-up scans, mostly, but I don’t think he’s been going to his appointments. They suggested some radiation to get the part of the tumor they couldn’t remove, but he refused. Said he’d rather take his chances than be pumped full of poison rays.”

I sighed, glancing back in Sarah’s direction, thinking about her sitting there alone just around the corner. I tapped Carter on the chest and motioned for him to follow, that it was time to head back. He nodded, and tossed his empty cup in the trash.

She was talking to a doctor when we returned, and both of us stayed back a little to give her privacy. Sarah stared expectantly into his eyes as they spoke, never breaking contact with him. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but when a sob escaped her throat I knew the news wasn’t good.

I rushed to her, letting her slump into me while the doctor patted her arm before walking away. Carter joined us, and together we sat Sarah down in a chair. Her skin was hot and flush as she cried into my shoulder. I wrapped an arm around her and drew her closer to me, offering soft words of comfort that I’m not even sure registered with her.

After a few minutes she sat up and looked at my shirt. I glanced down, following her gaze. It was soaked in her tears.

“Hey,” I whispered. “It’s okay. I got lots of them.”

She did her best to smile as Carter offered her some tissues, which Sarah gladly accepted. She dried her eyes, blew her nose, and balled it up into her tightly clenched fist. The red dress she was still wearing was a wrinkled mess of cloth and she tried to smooth it out, but to no avail.

“What happened, honey?” Carter finally asked.

“Grade four,” Sarah answered, her voice dry and husky. She cleared her throat and spoke clearer. “Doctors give him two months. Six, max.”

I stared on in disbelief. For all the pain and hurt he’d caused, I could tell the news was breaking her heart. I wrapped my arm around her once more but she stiffened, pulling away.

“No,” she said. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

She nodded to herself as if to convince us that was true, but Carter and I both knew differently.

We sat in silence for a while before she said, “The doctors are going to keep him for a while until he’s stable, and then we’ll go from there. He’s out cold right now, so I’ll come back tomorrow to see him.”