Life and Other Near-Death Experiences (11 page)

TWENTY

Shiloh was stretched out beside me, eyelids half-mast as he ran a finger up and down my arm. “Libby?”

“Mmm-hmm?” Having died the little death three times in a single night—my all-time personal record—I’d already passed blissed-out oblivion and was on a fast track to unconsciousness.

“I need to tell you something.”

Suddenly I was wide awake. “Please don’t say you have herpes,” I said, although STDs fell somewhere between splinters and parking tickets on my end-of-life list of concerns. I was certain he was straight, but what if he had weird fetishes, or a criminal record, or—

“I had cancer,” he said. “It almost killed me.”

Suffice to say, this was not the bombshell I’d been expecting, though it did explain why he’d been so worked up at dinner the other night. “Wow—I’m so sorry. What kind? When?”

“Leukemia. Sixteen years ago.”

“Cripes. You were young. Leukemia is curable, isn’t it?”

“Well, I’m lying here next to you, right?” he said with a small smile. “And usually, yeah. Mine was pretty bad, though. Lymph nodes, bones, groin,” he said, waving in the direction of his lower extremities. “No one said it, but basically the doctors, my family, my wife—they were all expecting the worst.”

Wife? His ring finger was bare. I let it slide. “So what happened?”

He kissed my shoulder. “I lived. To this day, I’m not sure why, but I did. I mean, I was in my twenties and I really, really didn’t want to die, but that’s true for most people with cancer, right?”

I nodded, grateful he’d phrased it like so. One of the few things that seriously pissed me off was when someone talked about how so-and-so would
definitely
survive cancer because he or she was a “fighter” or “too good to die.” While I understood the temptation to think a winning personality can tip the scales toward survival, it still made my blood boil. Because my mom? She was the best person I’d ever met. She would have had her hands and feet amputated if it meant staying alive to see Paul and me grow up. She didn’t die for lack of trying; she died because cancer is a serial killer. “You’re okay now?” I asked Shiloh.

“Um, yeah. I guess. My marriage fell apart before I was even done with chemo, but I’m alive. Although”—he made an exaggerated frown—“I lost a ball.”

I peeked under the sheet. “Pretty sure I saw two.”

“The right one’s fake.”

I started laughing. “You mean you have neuticles?”

“Neuti
cle
,” he said, tickling me. “And you weren’t complaining a few minutes ago.”

“Are you infertile?”

“As far as I know, the left one works just fine. But I don’t have any secret children, in case you’re wondering.”

“That’s a relief.” I laid my head back on the pillow. “So this is why you were so upset with me the other night.”

“I guess, yeah. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Libby. Even if we’d known each other all our lives, that’s not the way I operate. But I’m guessing I’m not the only one who wants to see you try your best to live. And I still mean what I said about the plane thing. Usually I’m not big on fate and all that jazz. But I don’t know. I just . . .” He trailed off. Then he lifted the sheet again, and pointed to my stomach. “By the way, I’m pretty sure that’s infected.”

I quickly yanked the sheet over my abdomen. I’d been trying to keep the wound out of sight, but clearly wasn’t doing a bang-up job. “No, that’s what it looks like when it starts getting really bad.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to sound firm even as I began to wonder if he could possibly be right. “So now that we’re trading info, I need to tell
you
something.”

He frowned. “About Tom?”

“Yeah.”

I gave him the rundown, from the cutlery incident to the cash liquidation to the fact that Tom didn’t know I was sick. Afterward, Shiloh looked thoughtful, but not upset. “Well, I’ve never slept with a married woman before, but this seems like a good time to start.”

“Sorry,” I said for the seventh time.

“Libby, it’s okay. Are you all right, though? I mean, aren’t you concerned that Tom has a lot to do with why you said no to treatment?”

I shook my head, thinking of Tom’s blurry face coming into focus in the kitchen, of how less than a minute’s delay on my part had resulted in an entirely new narrative for both him and me. “I decided that before he told me.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure you weren’t the first person to initially say you were going to skip treatment. The difference is, you’re sticking with it. Any way you shake it, your husband coming out plus cancer is an insane amount of stress for one person. It’s no surprise you freaked out on the beach.”

“I did not freak out,” I said crossly.

He kissed me lightly. “Okay, cutie. Just don’t be so set on your decision this early in the game. Think about it, okay?”

Cutie.
Unless “Libs” counted, Tom had no pet names for me. I kind of liked it. Even so, Shiloh’s gentle nudging made me wonder if deep down, he wanted to take me on not just as a lover, but also a charitable endeavor.

I sighed and nestled into the crook of his arm. “We’ll see.”

I woke the next morning to a dent where Shiloh had been sleeping. I heard clanging in the kitchen and smiled. A note would have been sufficient, but a warm body was that much better.

He was standing in front of the espresso machine, which I still hadn’t figured out how to use. “
Hola.
I made you a coffee.”

“Thank you.” I stood there for a few seconds, wishing I’d slipped my bra on before coming out in nothing but a T-shirt and underwear, then sat at the bar. He handed me a small cup and stood across from me drinking the coffee he’d prepared for himself.

“Gotta take off soon,” he said. “I have to go to San Juan to take care of some things.”

“Sure.”

“That’s it? Sure?”

“Were you expecting a different reply?”

“I guess not,” he said, looking at me quizzically. Then he leaned across the bar and kissed me, which led to some spirited groping. “I really enjoy spending time with you, Libby,” he said when we came up for air.

I smiled. “I enjoy it, too. Let’s do this again soon.”

He ran his hands through his hair and grinned back at me. “Absolutely.”

My smile faded as I listened to his Jeep pull out of the driveway. I went to the bedroom, lifted my shirt, and stood before the mirror. My stomach was markedly less enthusiastic than I was about the evening’s adventures with Shiloh: it felt as though a very angry squid had worked its way beneath my skin and was attempting to breach the walls of my intestines. I located Advil in the cupboard and took three. I would have to begin prophylactic self-medication, for I had every intention of sleeping with Shiloh again in the immediate future, and I was not going to let this festering fatality stop me.

I didn’t see Shiloh again that night, which I told myself was for the best, even as I did frantic, libidinous calculations in my head. I had just nineteen more days on the island, and with the way my wound was weeping, there was no guarantee all those days would be sexually salvageable. “Nothing gold can stay,”
Paul was fond of saying. As per usual, he was right, even if his wisdom had been pilfered from Robert Frost. I figured this, if anything, earned him a phone call.

“Aw, you finally remembered little ol’ me,” Paul said by way of a greeting.

“Cease ye sulking, for I bear glad tidings.”

“Go on.”

“I’m getting laid!”

“Excuse me for a second.” He made a gagging noise into the receiver. “You’ve now successfully dislodged nine hundred calories worth of burrito. Thank you for speeding my weight-loss efforts.”

“Whatever, Paul. First of all, you don’t have an ounce to lose. Second, didn’t you tell me to find myself a cabana boy? Be happy for me.”

“I
am
happy for you, even if I’m less than interested in the particulars. Who’s the guy, and where’d you meet him?”

I recalled nose-diving into the shallow end of the Caribbean and decided it was best if I again self-censored. “It’s a long story. But he’s a pilot here, and he’s Puerto Rican.”

“Ca-rumba!” Paul said. “Seriously, though, Libs, be careful. You don’t know this guy from Alejandro.”

“His name is Shiloh, and I do know him. And I’m always careful.”

“So says the girl who put her apartment on the market without telling its legal co-owner, then packed a bag and headed to an island in the middle of nowhere without even informing her beloved brother.”

“Hmph. I said I was sorry.”

“And all is forgiven, dear sis, provided you watch your back with any and all men who so much as glance your way.”

I flushed as I recalled Shiloh pressing me up against the tiles in the shower, proving that we were both sportier than we’d given ourselves credit for. “My back’s never been better,” I assured Paul. “Promise.”

“Hola, mija,”
Milagros said when I let myself into her courtyard. “You’re looking
muy
linda
this evening. Love agrees with you.”

“Love?” I said. “Who said anything about love?”

“You share a driveway with old Milly. I can see when certain male visitors leave early in the morning.”

I frowned.

“
Ay
, don’t be angry. Think of me as a built-in security system. Besides, I’m not looking through your windows or coming over. Just making sure you’re okay.”

“All right,” I conceded, if only because this fact would make Paul happy. “Thank you.” I handed Milagros the bottle of rum I’d purchased at the convenience store down the road.

“
Y gracias a ti.
Let’s have some now,” she said and went to the kitchen. She returned with two small glasses, which she filled with two very generous pours of the amber liquid.

“Cheers,” I said, and took a sip. It made me cough, but the liquor spread its heat through my chest and into my stomach, the latter of which instantly stopped hurting. Forget painkillers—I was going to have to drink around the clock.

“Anyway,” I told Milagros, “you can’t be in love with someone you don’t even know.” I knew Shiloh’s last name, that he’d survived cancer, and that he was the proud owner of one saline-filled testicle. However, I had no idea about the everyday minutiae of his life. What was his place in San Juan like, for example? Did he have siblings? What was the deal with his wife?

“Mija,”
said Milagros. “That’s not how it works. Do you respect him?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Do you miss him when he’s gone?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, then, there you go. Though you might need more than a week to make a decent decision.”

A week didn’t sound so awful to me. Since walking into Dr. S.’s office, most of my decisions had been made in less than an hour—and more often than not, in a few short seconds.

Milagros continued. “My point is, don’t count it out just because it’s new. I only knew my last husband, Luis, for two months before we got married, and I’m pretty sure that if he hadn’t hit his head and fallen into the sea during a fishing trip, it would have been forever for the two of us.”

“I’m sorry, Milagros.”

She waved off my sympathy. “That was long ago. This man who’s been visiting you, he looks nice, and you deserve to be treated well. He does treat you well, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” I said. At the very least, I was no longer concerned that I was a pity lay. “But . . .”

“But what?” she said. “Time will tell you the rest.”

I held out my glass. “If you say so, Milagros.”

TWENTY-ONE

Shiloh came by the next morning as I was rolling out of bed.

The sun hit me square in the face when I opened the door, and I squinted at him like a mole rat. “You’re up early.”

He leaned in to kiss me. “Hi to you, too. Do you have plans for the day?”

“Let me think.” I scratched my head. “Um, that would be no.”

“Great. How do you feel about going to San Juan and maybe spending the night?”

“Depends on how we’re getting there. Because if you say ‘plane’ . . .”

He laughed. “I can’t fly right now, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have a pilot friend who wants to see if we’re death-proof.”

“We’ll take the ferry. Puh-lease?” he said, mock begging.

I looked him up and down. He was in another ratty T-shirt, but the thin cotton accentuated his chest muscles in a most appealing way. And although I could detect only the faintest hint of soap, his pheromones must have been powerful because I had to stop myself from sniffing him. I wrapped my arms around his waist. “All right. But don’t kill me.”

The ferry was every bit as choppy as Shiloh had said it would be; by the time we docked in Fajardo, I was amazed that the toast and coffee I’d eaten for breakfast hadn’t resurfaced. Fajardo was a good forty-five minutes from San Juan, and the cab ride from one city to the next did little to soothe my stomach. While the driver himself was adept, the other cars wove around us in a way that made me wax nostalgic for Chicago traffic.

As we traveled away from Fajardo, the landscape shifted from lush mountains to freshly paved roads and cul-de-sacs to crowded housing projects where laundry dried on cords and children clustered on stoops. An hour later, the driver dropped us off at a bustling neighborhood a stone’s throw from the sea.

“This reminds me of some of the beach towns outside of LA,” I told Shiloh as we walked past a café.

He nodded. “This neighborhood is called Condado. And this,” he said, unlocking a wrought-iron gate, “is where I live when I’m not in Vieques.”

Behind the gate was a well-tended garden shaded by large palm trees, and beyond that, a stuccoed building with canopied terraces on each floor.

“Charming.”

“Don’t say that before you’ve seen my apartment,” he said, and led me up a set of stairs.

We stopped in front of a thick wood door, which Shiloh opened. “It’s not much,” he said as we stepped inside, “but it’s mine.”

I loved it on sight. Large windows bathed the terra-cotta-tiled floor in sunlight, and the sky-blue walls were hung with framed music festival posters and Puerto Rican folk art.

I admired an intricately designed guitar-like instrument that was placed on a stand in the corner. “Do you play?”

“The cuatro? I wish. That was my grandfather’s.”

“It’s beautiful.”

A teak platform bed tented with mosquito netting took up the majority of his bedroom. “I don’t have air-conditioning,” he explained of the netting, “although being this close to the water, I don’t really need it.”

I nodded and attempted not to look at a photo on the narrow dresser, which showed Shiloh with his arm around an attractive woman.

He gave me a look that said he knew exactly what I had been thinking. “That’s Raquel—my
sister
. Carla was my ex-wife, and you won’t find photos of her here. Or anywhere, for that matter.”

“Does your sister live in Puerto Rico?”

“No, she’s in Arizona. I don’t see her or my niece and nephew very often, although they come here for Christmas most years.”

“And your parents?”

“My dad’s still here. And my mom’s in New York City. I fly out there as much as I can.”

“No kidding. My twin lives in New York.”

“You have a twin? I can’t believe you didn’t mention her before. What’s she like?”

“She’s a he. Paul. He lives in New York with his partner, Charlie, and their twin boys.”

“You’re full of surprises.”

“Yes, I am,” I said slyly.

He gently pulled me onto his bed. “Tell me more.”

I would have liked for us to stay tangled together beneath that cloud of mosquito netting for the remainder of my life, but Shiloh seemed excited about whatever he had planned, so I slipped on a dress and sandals while he showered. When he came out, he was dressed in a white linen shirt, linen pants, and a pair of loafers.

“You clean up nice,” I said.

“I do make an effort on occasion.” He brushed my curls off of my shoulders, then ran his hand along my back, sending shivers up my spine. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to this?”

He had caught me wincing earlier; I’d have to be more careful about that. “I’m fine,” I told him. “I swear.”

“If that changes, you’ll tell me. Right?”

“Of course,” I chirped, ignoring the mild but persistent throbbing in my lower abdomen.

Old San Juan was a postcard of a city, with tropically colored colonial buildings stacked side by side on narrow streets paved with deep blue cobblestones. After walking along a path overlooking the water, we ducked onto a side street, where Shiloh led me to a tiny bar. The walls were plastered with photos of famous people and what was presumably the family who owned the bar.

“Legend has it this is the birthplace of the piña colada,” Shiloh said.

“Is that true?”

“I don’t know, but José here makes a mean drink,” he said, reaching across the bar to clasp hands with the bartender.

“You know everyone in Puerto Rico,” I said.

He squeezed my thigh lightly. “No, I’m just taking you to my favorite places.”

This was comforting. If he had other girlfriends on the side, he wouldn’t be parading me around town. Plus, he’d shown me where he lived. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself; we had a few more weeks to play couple, and then it was on to the end.

José slid two tall frosty glasses toward us, each filled with an icy mixture so pale yellow it was nearly white. Sweet without being heavy, the drink set off every pleasure receptor in my body. “I think I’m in love,” I told him, face still in my glass.

Shiloh smirked. “I’m fond of you, too.”

I kicked him under the table. “Not so fast, tough guy. I’m still trying to reconcile your fine body with your homicidal tendencies.”

He leaned in to whisper in my ear. “How many more times do I need to replicate this afternoon to make you forget about the plane mishap?”

I smiled broadly, then kissed him, surprising myself. I wasn’t usually the type for affection of the spontaneous or public variety. Then again, I was not the type to sleep with random men while I was still legally married. And yet.

After we finished the piña coladas, Shiloh and I walked a few more blocks to a brightly colored restaurant where a band was playing. We were seated and ordered wine and paella. After the waitress left, Shiloh motioned toward the dance floor. “Come on.”

“No puedo,”
I said, mimicking Milagros during our last lesson.

“Si, tu puedes,”
he said, pulling me out of my chair. He stopped and glanced at my stomach. “Wait, are you feeling okay? Because if you’re not—”

“Very clever use of reverse psychology there, Dr. Velasquez.”

“I’m serious, Libby. We’ve already done a lot today. If you’re not up to it, it’s not a problem.”

For once, my cancerous abdomen wasn’t the issue. The issue was that I was about as graceful as a buffalo mid–accidental cliff dive. “I can’t dance,” I confessed. “I have, like, four left feet.”

“You’re in luck, because Puerto Ricans happen to be born with a right foot, a left foot, and dancing hips. I could salsa before I could walk. I’ll teach you.”

He gyrated exaggeratedly in front of me and I laughed. “Okay, but you’ll have to lead.”

“Not a problem.” He put one hand on the small of my back and took my right hand with the other. “Watch my feet for a minute. Then look up and let me guide you with my body.”

I blushed as he moved me back and forth, again and again, until I managed to operate my limbs in a manner that might charitably be described as dancing.

“You’re not half-bad,” Shiloh shouted over the music.

“For a
gringa
!” I said, mostly delighted that I had not yet broken one of his toes.

“Exactly.” He laughed and spun me around.

The tempo slowed, and he pulled me close. “What’s next, Libby?” he asked quietly, his cheek almost touching mine.

Best to play dumb,
I thought. “After dinner? Maybe we can call it an early night.”

He chuckled. “Sure. But I mean after Puerto Rico.”

He’d seen me stark naked, with all my divots and dimples highlighted in the bright light of day. He’d witnessed my postsurvival meltdown on the beach and my sobbing like a sad sack on the porch. But sharing how I planned to spend my final months felt insanely revealing, and I fought the urge to duck under the nearest table.

“I’m going to see my brother in New York,” I said noncommittally. “Hey, would you mind if we went back to the table? I’m kind of thirsty.”

“Of course,” he said, guiding me across the room. We sat down, and I downed an entire glass of water before looking up. When I did, he smiled and said, “So, New York, huh? I hear they have some pretty good hospitals there.”

“That’s what I hear,” I said, dabbing at my mouth with a corner of a cloth napkin.

“That’s what I hear, too,” he said, and reached for his wineglass.

The waiter delivered our paella, and Shiloh and I feigned an unusual amount of interest in consuming it, pausing between bites to discuss meaningful topics such as whether I liked mussels, and if the rice had been cooked long enough.

But.

After we returned to his apartment, stripped down, and took to each other like coyotes on carrion, we were lying there panting. And he looked over at me and said, “Has it occurred to you that maybe it isn’t your time?”

I squinted at him, still kind of light-headed from the sex we’d just had. “Given what you’ve told me about your feelings on fate and fatality, I’m going to assume you don’t really believe that.”

“No,” he confessed. “I believe we have absolutely no way of knowing. But I think it doesn’t hurt to assume we’re going to live until we’re absolutely ready to die. You’re not ready. You can’t convince me you are, Libby.”

I pulled the sheet up around my bare flesh and said nothing.

In the low light of the bedroom, his eyes looked nearly black. “Damn it, Libby, fight for your life,” he said in a low tone. “At the very least, get a second opinion.”

Fists wedged into my armpits, I gripped the thin cotton sheet tightly. “That’s not what this is about. This is about
dignity
. I’m fighting for my right to let nature run its course instead of letting chemo destroy what little time I have left.”

“You’re talking to the wrong guy about that one. Trust me, I know how much treatment sucks. Chemo and radiation almost cost me both balls—and that was after my marriage ended. Any time I have a cramp, I think,
It’s back.
I have to work every single day not to let this thing that happened sixteen years ago define the rest of my life. But you know what? It was worth it. I’m alive, and I’d do it again tomorrow if I had to.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said, sniffing as I attempted to maintain my composure. “But this is different. You’re not going to change my mind, and if that’s what you’re trying to do, maybe we shouldn’t see each other anymore.”

His sighed deeply, then put his arms around me and pulled me down so his stomach was pressed against my back. “Don’t say that, Libby,” he whispered as I let myself ease into him. “Aren’t we having fun?”

Fun? I couldn’t argue with him there. After we made love again, and Shiloh had fallen asleep beside me, I stared up at the mosquito netting, listening to him snoring lightly. In spite of our argument, I felt weirdly content. While I wasn’t fond of the inciting incident that had put me there, I liked this parallel universe I found myself in. It was a place in which I was able to ignore trivial matters such as work, bills, and my gay husband, and instead sun myself with abandon, eat and sleep at will, and catch up on the carnal pleasures I’d missed during the first thirty-four years of my life.

If only my resolve about the end of my life was not eroding like the shoreline at high tide. What
would
I do? Was my decision to forgo treatment not brave at all—but rather impulsive and perhaps even selfish, as Shiloh had implied?

As I began to drift off, I heard my mother’s voice, or at least her voice as I imagined it. My father had neither the foresight nor the spare cash to invest in a video camera before her death, and so Paul and I had only a two-minute clip taken by a distant relative at another relative’s party to help us re-create the light, steady timbre of our mother’s speech.

“I’m not worried about you, Libby,” she said, placing her hand in mine. She was at the hospice, tethered to the bed by thin plastic tubes that ran between her legs and into her limbs. It was a week, maybe, before the end, and she had asked to be alone with me. “You’ll be just fine; I know it in my soul. But take care of Paul, please, love? I need you to do that for me.”

“Of course, Mama,” I told her as I sat paralyzed, unable to shed a tear or squeeze her fingers for fear I would make her pain even more severe.

“You’re the joy of my life, Libby Lou.” Her words were slow and strained, as though it took everything in her to push them through her throat and off her tongue. “I love you.”

“I love you more, Mama,” I assured her, holding her gaze until she finally let her eyes close.

This was not the memory I would have preferred to recall, but nonetheless it surfaced regularly. Because it was the moment when I finally acknowledged—if only for a few brief minutes—that she was going to die. My pastor, my father, Paul: they all tried to warn me. I was always a pleasant child, or so I’ve been told. But the day my mother and father sat us down and explained that she had cancer, a switch in me flipped. Forget looking on the bright side. My subconscious decided that if I didn’t acknowledge that there
was
a dark side, I somehow thought life’s negatives would cease to exist. So when people tried to explain that my mother didn’t have long to live, I nodded and mentally filed this probability somewhere between alien probings and a prehistoric mammal breaststroking through Loch Ness.