“You’ve been quiet today, Older One.”
Holly looked up at him like she was surprised he’d noticed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Maybe I’m just tired. Or worried about your nursing situation.” She laughed for no reason. She’d met one of the main nurses, Frederic, who in her opinion was not careful or focused enough.
“Well, if Frederic kills me, it’ll just rearrange some travel dates for folks.”
She did not laugh at this. He’d found himself with a certain attitude in these last days, not exactly the sense of peace or calm the dumb New Agers gashed on about, but at least a gratitude that he was going to die at home with someone changing his bedpan and giving him pain meds. He’d crafted this attitude from a long-ago memory of Holly, in fact. The girls were still little, Gail was still alive, they were living in La Jolla, and Tony had been driving somewhere with just Catherine and Holly, maybe ages seven and three at the time. He remembered they were running late for something and stuck in interminable Southern California traffic, the kind where you can practically put the car in park. Holly was reading her book and kindly telling her annoying little sister to stop bugging her because all Catherine wanted to do was take different toys and put them on the page Holly was trying to read. “Will you stop? Just stop!” was the incantation coming from the back seat, and Tony was mightily irritated with this traffic. There was an accident and every idiot in SoCal was rubbernecking, watching as two drivers and the cops hashed it out over a couple of crumpled fenders. He kept glancing at the time.
“Damnit, we’re going to be so late,” he kept saying. “Of course these morons are all going to looky-loo. Yeah, it’s so interesting! Just perfect.”
He went on like this for a while because that’s what one did in traffic, until finally Holly spoke up.
“Hi? Daddy?”
He glanced in the rearview mirror to see her watching the two busted sedans and police cruisers on the side of the freeway.
“What, Holly?”
“I just think we should be happy that everyone is safe and okay and gets to go home to the people who love them, right?”
It wasn’t like she said it to scold him. She was genuinely asking. At first this annoyed him, and he wanted to explain to her that no one should be happy for idiot California drivers, but of course he stopped himself when he heard this in his head. Then he was briefly ashamed before having that oh-so-common parental realization: Goddamn, having kids is so weird sometimes.
“You’re right, kiddo. We should be happy about that.”
Now, a thirty-five-year-old Holly stopped in front of a display of an embattled bird species of the Northeast. It was a weekday and school was still in session, so the crowds were thin. They had this part of the Birds of the World to themselves except for the nesting common loons before them.
“Reminds me of mushy stuff,” he said, pointing to the loons. “There was that movie with the talking birds? But it had scenes of the parents kissing, and you hated that. You were always saying, ‘Too much mushy stuff’ about every movie. Your sister couldn’t get enough of the mushy stuff, but you were like a little government censor. Me and your mom used to call you ‘MPA-Holly.’ ”
She stood with her arms crossed, the blue of the display lighting her face. Shadows gathered in the rest of the hall, filling in the cornices where taxidermied animals were posed in motion. When she didn’t respond, Tony cleared his throat and looked back at the display, leaning harder into his cane. All of his tumors ached, and even this small bit of walking had exhausted him. He knew it wouldn’t be long now.
“I was old enough when Mom died,” Holly finally said. “Maybe Catherine wasn’t, but I was. I understood what was happening to her. I read about her cancer. I read a lot about cancer, in fact, and I didn’t forget. It was burned into my brain, so I know there’s no way you went to the doctor and suddenly had mets in all those places. There’s no way you didn’t have symptoms before. So that means you must have been forgoing treatment while you were working in D.C. I just need to understand—how long did you know, Dad?”
He hesitated, but he saw very little point in lying now.
“I had an operation to remove the first tumor before I left for Sun Valley.”
She stared at the display’s fake tree branches for a long time. “And you didn’t tell us. You didn’t say anything, and then you ran off to do… whatever it is you do. Save the stupid planet, I guess.”
“Who else would’ve done it?”
“Anyone,” she spat at him. “Literally anyone else except my father who needed radiation and immunotherapy.”
A tear rolled, then gathered in the crook of her nose, its meniscus swelling as another one joined it. Paradoxically, the closer one got to death, the more life brimmed, including the shape of his daughter’s tear. I am alive, he thought.
“Which ultimately means you were fine with leaving us,” she said.
“That’s not how I saw it.” His throat was tired. His lungs were tired. The words came painfully, the oxygen pack just enough to keep the vehicle of his breathing strong. “I did what I had to do. For Catherine, you, and Hannah. That’s all I’ve ever done.”
“Oh, I know,” she said bitterly. She scuffed her sneaker on the floor, and a few more tears spilled straight from her face onto her shoes. “Catherine and I in our standard order.”
He tucked a hand in his pocket, found his keys to clutch, and looked at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means if I’d asked you to go get treatment, you would’ve said ‘Sorry, Older One, Dad’s gotta go save the world like he’s always wanted to.’ But if Catherine had demanded it, you would’ve been in the hospital getting radiation by the afternoon. That’s why you didn’t tell us. Because you knew she would’ve batted her eyes and made you.”
“What exactly are you saying, Holly? You think I love her more?”
Holly barked a quick fake laugh. “I don’t think there’s ever been anything more obvious between the three of us. Dad, you flew into a firestorm for her.”
He stood there for a moment in the blue light, the sounds of screaming children drifting from other halls. His chest hurt more than usual, like she’d stamped the breath out of him with this revelation. He was quiet for so long, trying to think of anything to say, overwhelmed by dread because he’d never known she felt this way, and he didn’t have any time left to fix it.
“If it ever seemed…” He stopped as an older couple walked up to study the nesting common loons. They took far too long to read the plaque and gander at the stuffed birds flying across painted lake and sky. They finally moved on without a word. Tony took a difficult breath.
“If it ever seemed that way… It was only because you didn’t need my help. Not the way your sister did. She’s always wanted to be as strong as you, but it doesn’t come naturally to her, and she always needed me to lean on. And pretty soon, she’ll need you to lean on. And you have to remember that she needs someone nosy and annoying to keep her straight, and you need to love her and learn to forgive her.”
He looked at his oldest daughter again, jangling the keys in his pocket. Her lip trembled ever so slightly, making her look like the girl who’d seen a fender bender and told him they should be happy everyone was alive and safe. She sniffed back snot and wiped tears from her cheeks. He looked back to the glass display case.
“You were always independent and exacting and brilliant,” he said. “You knew your path. From early on, I always thought what I had to do was more or less stay the hell out of your way. And as far as I’m concerned, it worked. You grew into the most courageous person I’ve ever known, Holly. It’s not just how much I adore you, darling, but how in awe I am of you. You’ve done things—you’ve become a person I never could have dreamed of. And my pride in you, Holly, and my love for you? It’s absolutely bottomless.”