“Sure,” she said. She kissed him on the forehead and rose from the bed. She stopped in the doorway. “Come on, Alan. Let’s get something to drink, okay?”

To me, it seemed as if Alan were slowly processing the words. Finally, he got up and followed Savannah; she placed a gentle hand on his back on the way out the door. When they were gone, Tim faced me again.

“This whole thing is really hard on Alan. He’s not taking it well.”

“How can he?”

“Don’t let the rolling of his head fool you, though. It’s got nothing to do with autism or his intelligence. It’s more like a tic he gets when he’s nervous. The same thing when he started slapping his thighs. He knows what’s going on, but it affects him in ways that usually make other people uncomfortable.”

I clasped my hands. “It didn’t make me uncomfortable,” I said. “My dad had his things, too. He’s your brother, and it’s obvious that he’s worried. It makes sense.”

Tim smiled. “That’s kind of you to say. A lot of people get frightened.”

“Not me,” I said, shaking my head. “I know I could take him.”

Remarkably, he laughed, although it seemed to take a lot out of him.

“I’m sure you could,” he said. “Alan’s gentle. Probably too gentle. He won’t even swat flies.”

I nodded, recognizing that all this small talk was just his way of making me feel more comfortable. It wasn’t working.

“When did you find out?”

“A year ago. A mole on the back of my calf started to itch, and when I scratched at it, it started to bleed. Of course, I didn’t think much of it then, until it bled again the next time I scratched at it. Six months ago, I went to the doctor. That was on a Friday. I had surgery on Saturday and started interferon on Monday. Now, I’m here.”

“You’ve been in the hospital all this time?”

“No. I’m here only off and on. Usually, interferon is done on an outpatient basis, but me and the interferon don’t get along. I don’t tolerate it that well, so now they do it here. In case I get too sick and become dehydrated. Like I did yesterday.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I am, too.”

I looked around the room, my eyes landing on a cheaply framed bedside photo of Tim and Savannah standing with their arms around Alan. “How’s Savannah holding up?” I asked.

“Like you’d expect.” Tim traced a crease in his hospital sheet with his free hand. “She’s been great. Not only with me, but with the ranch, too. She’s had to handle everything lately, but she never complains about it. And whenever she’s around me, she tries to be strong. She keeps telling me that it’s all going to work out.” He formed the ghost of a smile. “Half the time, I even believe her.”

When I didn’t respond, he struggled to sit up higher in the bed. He winced, but the pain passed, and he became himself again. “Savannah told me you had dinner at the ranch last night.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’ll bet she was glad to see you. I know she’s always felt bad that it ended the way it did, and so did I. I owe you an apology.”

“Don’t.” I raised my hands. “It’s okay.”

He formed a wry grin. “You’re only saying that because I’m sick, and we both know it. If I was healthy, you’d probably want to break my nose again.”

“Maybe,” I admitted, and though he laughed again, this time I could hear the sound of sickness in it.

“I deserve it,” he said, oblivious to my thoughts. “I know you might not believe it, but I feel bad about what happened. I know you two really cared about each other.”

I leaned forward, propping myself on my elbows. “Water under the bridge,” I said.

I didn’t believe it, and he didn’t believe me when I said it. But it was enough for both of us to put it to rest. “What brought you here? After all this time?”

“My dad passed away,” I said. “Last week.”

Despite his condition, his face reflected genuine sympathy. “I’m sorry, John. I know how much he meant to you. Was it sudden?”

“At the end, it always is. But he’d been sick for a while.”

“It doesn’t make it any easier.”

I found myself wondering whether he was referring just to me or to Savannah and Alan as well.

“Savannah told me you lost both your parents.”

“A car accident,” he said, drawing out the words. “It was… unbelievable. We’d just had dinner with them a couple of nights before, and the next thing you know, I’m making arrangements for their funerals. It still doesn’t seem real. Whenever I’m at home, I keep expecting to see my mom in the kitchen or my dad puttering around the garden.” He hesitated, and I knew he was replaying those images. At last he shook his head. “Did that happen to you? When you were home?”

“Every single minute.”

He leaned his head back. “I guess it’s been a rough couple of years for both of us. It’s enough to test your faith.”

“Even for you?”

He gave a halfhearted grin. “I said test. I didn’t say that it ended it.”

“No, I don’t suppose it would have.”

I heard a nurse’s voice approaching, and though I thought she was going to enter, she passed by on her way to another room.

“I’m glad you came to see Savannah,” he said. “I know it sounds trite considering all that you two have been through, but she needs a friend right now.”

My throat was tight. “Yeah,” was all I could think to say.

He grew quiet, and I knew he would say no more about it. In time, he drifted off to sleep, and I sat there watching him, my mind curiously blank.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you yesterday,” Savannah said to me an hour later. When she and Alan had returned to the room to find Tim sleeping, she’d motioned for me to follow her downstairs to the cafeteria. “I was surprised to see you, and I knew I should have said something, but every time I tried, I just couldn’t.”

Two cups of tea were on the table, since neither of us felt like eating. Savannah lifted her cup and set it back down again.

“It had just been one of those days, you know? I’d spent hours in the hospital, and the nurses kept giving me those pitiful looks and… well, they just feel like they’re killing me little by little. I know that sounds ridiculous considering what Tim is going through, but it’s so hard to watch him get sick. I hate it. I know I have to be there to support him, and the thing is, I want to be there, but it’s always worse than I expect. He was so sick after his treatment yesterday that I thought he was dying. He couldn’t stop vomiting, and when nothing else would come up, he just kept dry heaving. Every five or ten minutes, he’d start to moan and move around the bed trying to prevent it, but there was nothing he could do. I’d hold him and comfort him, but I can’t even begin to describe how helpless it made me feel.” She lifted her bag of tea in and out of the water. “It’s like that every time,” she said.

I fiddled with the handle of my cup. “I wish I knew what to say.”

“There’s nothing you can say, and I know that. That’s why I’m talking to you. Because I know that you can handle it. I don’t really have anyone else. None of my friends can even relate to what I’m going through. My mom and dad have been great… kind of. I know they’d do anything that I ask, and they’re always offering to help, and Mom brings over our meals, but every time she drops off the food, she’s just a bundle of nerves. She’s always on the verge of crying. It’s like she’s terrified of saying or doing anything wrong, so when she’s trying to help, it’s like I have to support her, too, instead of the other way around. Added to everything else, it’s almost too much sometimes. I hate to say that about her because she’s doing her best and she’s my mom and I love her, but I just wish she’d be stronger, you know?”

Remembering her mother, I nodded. “How about your dad?”

“The same, but in a different way. He avoids the topic. He doesn’t want to talk about it at all. When we’re together, he talks about the ranch or my job—anything but Tim. It’s like he’s trying to make up for Mom’s incessant worrying, but he never asks what’s been going on or how I’m holding up.” She shook her head. “And then there’s Alan. Tim’s so good with him, and I like to think I’m getting better with him, but still… there are times when he starts hurting himself or breaking things, and I just end up crying because I don’t know what to do. Don’t get me wrong—I try, but I’m not Tim, and we both know it.”

Her eyes held mine for a moment before I looked away. I took a sip of tea, trying to imagine what her life was like now.

“Did Tim tell you what’s going on? With his melanoma?”

“A little,” I said. “Not enough to know the whole story. He told me he found a mole and that it was bleeding. He put it off for a while, then finally went to see a doctor.”

She nodded. “It’s one of those crazy things, isn’t it? I mean, if Tim spent a lot of time in the sun, maybe I could have understood it. But it was on the back of his leg. You know him—can you imagine him in Bermuda shorts? He’s hardly ever worn shorts, even at the beach, and he’s always the one who nagged us about wearing sunscreen. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he’s careful about what he eats. But for whatever reason, he got melanoma. They cut out the area around the mole, and because of its size, they took out eighteen of his lymph nodes. Out of the eighteen, one was positive for melanoma. He started interferon—that’s the standard treatment, and it lasts a full year—and we tried to stay optimistic. But then things started going wrong. First with the interferon, and then a few weeks after surgery, he got cellulitis near the groin incision.”

When I frowned, she caught herself.

“Sorry. I’m just so used to talking to doctors these days. Cellulitis is a skin infection, and Tim’s was pretty serious. He spent ten days in the intensive care unit for that. I thought I was going to lose him, but he’s a fighter, you know? He got through it and continued with his treatment, but last month we found cancerous lesions near the site of his original melanoma. That, of course, meant another round of surgery, but even worse, it meant that the interferon probably wasn’t working as well as it could. So he got a PET scan and an MRI, and sure enough, they found some cancerous cells in his lung.”

She stared into her coffee cup. I felt speechless and drained, and for a long time, we were quiet.

“I’m sorry,” I finally whispered.

My words brought her back. “I’m not going to give up,” she said, her voice beginning to crack. “He’s such a good man. He’s sweet and he’s patient, and I love him so much. It’s just not fair. We haven’t even been married for two years.”

She looked at me and took a few deep breaths, trying to regain her composure.

“He needs to get out of here. Out of this hospital. All they can do here is interferon, and like I said, it’s not working as well as it should. He needs to go someplace like MD Anderson or the Mayo Clinic or Johns Hopkins. There’s cutting-edge research going on in those places. If interferon isn’t doing the job like it should, there might be another drug they can add—they’re always trying different combinations, even if they’re experimental. They’re doing biochemotherapy and clinical trials at other places. MD Anderson is even supposed to start testing a vaccine in November—not for prevention like most vaccines, but for treatment—and the preliminary data has shown good results. I want him to be part of that trial.”

“So go,” I urged.

She gave a short laugh. “It’s not that easy.”

“Why? It sounds pretty clear to me. Once he’s out of here, you hop in the car and go.”

“Our insurance won’t pay for it,” she said. “Not now, anyway. He’s getting the appropriate standard of care—and believe it or not, the insurance company has been pretty responsive so far. They’ve paid for all the hospitalizations, all the interferon, and all the extras without hassle. They’ve even assigned me a personal caseworker, and believe me, she’s sympathetic to our plight. But there’s nothing she can do, since our doctor thinks it’s best that we give the interferon a little more time. No insurance company in the world will pay for experimental treatments. And no insurer will agree to pay for treatments outside the standard of care, especially if they’re in other states and are attempting new things on the off chance that they might work.”

“Sue them if you have to.”

“John, our insurer hasn’t batted an eyelash at all the costs for intensive care and extra hospitalizations, and the reality is that Tim is getting the appropriate treatment. The thing is, I can’t prove that Tim would get better in another place, receiving alternate treatments. I think it might help him, I hope it will help him, but no one knows for sure that it would.” She shook her head. “Anyway, even if I did sue and the insurance company ended up paying for everything I demanded, that would take time… and that’s what we don’t have.” She sighed. “My point is, it’s not just a money problem, it’s a time problem.”