“Dad’s been working on this my whole life, hasn’t he,” he said finally.
“I think so.”
“I used to hear him in his office,” Ethan said. “When I was little. I’d sit outside the door sometimes. I thought he was working on a cure for cancer or something.”
“I thought it was for other patients.”
“Mom,” Ethan said. “It was always for you.”
The night before the operation, we lay in bed in the dark.
I could feel Nigel’s hands shaking where they rested on top of the blanket. I put mine over his.
“Are you afraid?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Of the surgery?”
“No,” he said. “Not of the surgery.”
“Then of what?”
He hesitated. A long time.
“Of losing you,” he said.
That confused me. I turned toward him in the dark.
“You’re not going to lose me. Even if it doesn’t work. Even if I wake up and nothing’s different. I’ll still be right here.”
