We sit quietly for a while, and then he says, “You know, Myra, I feel like the only good thing that can come out of situation like this is that you have a chance to finally fix some things. Before I left New York, I went to this support group. Diann thought it would be a good idea. It was a group for cancer patients and those who love them, that kind of deal. They met every Wednesday night in some church basement, folding chairs in a circle, you know the deal. It wasn’t for me. The group leaders and their glowy-eyed acolytes, offering you trays of terrible cookies. The depressed people, sitting bent over in their chairs, moaning and groaning about loss, loss, loss. The fear you saw! And then there were the ones who pretended they weren’t afraid, the ones wearing the healing colors and sporting their baldness like it was the latest fad. The ones who knew they’d lived before and would again, or the ones who knew they’d ‘join with Christ in heaven.’ And there was this grim competition for who could live longest. Or maybe it was who could die soonest, I don’t know. I didn’t want to be in their club, I didn’t want to be in any club.

“But I did like one of the things they said. They said that this kind of diagnosis gave you notice. You could resolve some things that might otherwise never get resolved. I thought about that for a long time. It was why I decided to come home. I feel like I’ve made peace with my mother, and I don’t think I ever would have, otherwise. More than that, I feel like I’ve made peace with something in myself, that there’s been a kind of change in me I never thought I’d experience. I didn’t plan on that happening, but it did.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, just what I was talking about before. I mean, I spent my whole life walking away from any kind of real commitment. I never learned how to be with just one person. I told myself I didn’t want to be, but that was bullshit. I was just afraid.” He looks at me. “I know now, though, what can come from loving just one person. From loving, period.”

I say nothing. Look away.

“You know what I’m saying, don’t you? Myra?”

I swallow, try to speak, cannot.

He takes my hand, kisses it. “I’m glad to know what it’s like. I’m glad I get to have it after all.”

And now I start crying. “But you don’t get to have it! You don’t get enough time to have it, it takes time!”