And, so far, he has been.

I feel that long-ago dammed-up deluge working its way up from just above where that burrito is sitting. I bunch my fists up under my closed eyes, hoping that no one sits next to me, that no one hears me sniffle like some brokenhearted teenager. Stifling the urge to cry, I pull my phone out of my pocket.

My cell has only a tiny percent of battery left. I close the cover, praying that Artie will call me before I run out of juice. I have no idea when I’ll be able to recharge it.

By the time the bus pulls into the bus station in Erie, it’s full dark. I have a long night ahead of me.

7

I manage to recharge my cell phone while waiting for the 8:40 bus to leave from Erie—the city, not the county. I’m leaning against the wet counter in the ladies’ room, my charger plugged into a random outlet beside the hand dryer, when the phone rings with my “Puttin’ on the Ritz” ringtone, startling the bejesus out of me as the music bounces off the tile walls of the hollow room. My hand literally shakes as I flip the phone open, praying that Artie’s number is on the display. It isn’t.

“Where are you?” My stepmother doesn’t even begin by saying hello.

“Erie. Waiting for a bus.”

“I don’t know how much time you think you have to get here, but you should hurry up. This isn’t a drill. I thought you’d be here by now.”

“It’s a long story.”

“It always is with you.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“Why didn’t you fly? You could have been here two days ago. I could use the help.”

“You know why.”

“Because you had to bring that dog?” Adele smacks the word dog.

“No. Because I couldn’t afford it.” I say this loudly enough in the echoing rest room that my voice is amplified and the woman just shaking the wet off her hands and hunting for the dryer that I’m blocking stops and walks out of the room, wiping her hands on her pants.

“It’s not that expensive. You should have just done it.” Good old Adele. Wanting something and not being able to have it just isn’t part of her world. I find it slightly curious that she doesn’t even suggest that they might have helped me get home, not even as an afterthought.

“I’ll be there tomorrow.” I would like nothing better than to hang up, but I don’t. I wait. I listen. When the silence builds, I finally ask what she should have been offering. “How is he?”

“Dying. How else do you think he is?” Adele sounds royally pissed off that she’s going to be a widow.

“Please don’t.”

Adele finally drops the outdated angry-stepmother role. “He had a good night last night. The pain is manageable with the morphine, but he’s not very talkative.”

I bite back the obvious jab—that she never let him talk anyway, so why should he start now. “Can you still keep him home?” I’ll give her that; she hasn’t opted out for hospitalization or a nursing home. Last spring, when my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer, no one seemed overly concerned; it was treatable and I didn’t get the feeling that there was a time bomb ticking. So when it metastasized into his bones, it was a complete surprise to me. Adele’s call last week to say I should come home really did come out of the blue. She didn’t bother me with “details,” as she liked to say. She waited until it was almost too late to have me come. But he was still at home.