A Little Hope by Ethan Joella

Author:Ethan Joella
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2021-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

13. The Winter Puzzle

Greg Tyler doesn’t look at himself anymore when he brushes his teeth.

He notices this. He notices a lot of things. That a man’s face needs eyebrows and even eyelashes to look right. That he probably can’t do a pull-up these days (he hasn’t tried). That the day drags by so slowly when you don’t have budget meetings to attend, or board reports to write. That the taste of metal from chemo, even chemo that’s been finished for weeks, ruins everything.

He looks at his wife as she steps into the shower, her blondish hair touching her shoulders, and he envies her healthy skin, the way she can stand so straight, the way the water doesn’t wilt her at all. He squirts out a blob of Colgate original and closes his eyes while he tastes more metal and runs the toothbrush over his molars.

He wonders if he can survive this.

Of course he would have raised his hand and volunteered to take cancer so no one else would have to, and he’s glad Freddie and Addie are spared. That means something somehow, that because he has this, they are spared. Aren’t they? Yes, he thinks so. He always felt the world doled things out this way, like a game of duck, duck, goose. He is glad they won’t feel sick, lose their hair, see the shock on people’s faces. But even still he wishes someone could feel the way he feels for a second, to slip it on like a smock in art class in elementary school, so they’d know what he knows: that there is no God at a time like this, that there is nothing really. That you can’t come this close to seeing darkness without it altering you. He realizes how ineffective it is when someone says, “You’re in my prayers,” or, “Let me know if I can do anything.” You should regard someone who has cancer with silence because it is so heavy, so burdensome, that even when the patient is tough like Greg is, silence is the only thing you should offer. He wishes someone could feel how heavy and cruel this is. Then they could slip it off and shake their heads and say, Oh, Greg. I had no idea.

He blows Freddie a kiss and says goodbye. She must make it a point not to stare at him. She must work on it, because she waves and winks at him, her body glistening with shower water, her hair slicked back, and he slips on his track pants, his Columbia fleece pullover, and heads out the door. The one good thing about all this: it is so easy to get ready. No hair to pat down. No need to shave that often, although sometimes a faint crop of five o’clock shadow creeps across his face like hope.

He wears a ski hat and gloves. It is only one mile to the treatment center, and he uses what strength is left in him—somewhere in some compartment of his body—to walk.

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