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My mother doesn’t respond. She’s probably hugging him, stroking his hair, as he cries.
My big strong father, reduced to tears by the illness of his best friend.
Dad and Uncle Joe are brothers-in-law, but I’ve always known they’re so much more than that. They’re close like Brock and I are close, only they share no blood between them.
Then my mother’s voice again. “He’ll fight it. You know Joe. He’ll fight this with everything he has.”
“One percent, Marjorie.”
“Who says Jonah Steel won’t be that one percent? He’s my big brother too, Bryce. This is killing me just as much as it’s killing you.”
“I know, baby.”
But my mother doesn’t break down. This is her big brother, and she stays strong for my father. My father—who’s always been the strong one. For her, and for Henry, the girls, and me.
When they’ve been quiet for a few moments, I knock.
“Who is it?” Mom asks.
“It’s me, Mom. Dave.”
A few seconds later, she opens the door. “Dave? Did you need something, sweetheart?”
“Just wanted to talk to you guys.”
Mom places herself between me and Dad. “Your father is…”
A throat clear from my father. “It’s all right, Marjorie. Let him in.”
I walk in. My strong handsome father’s eyes are sunken and sad and bloodshot.
“You okay, Dad?”
He takes a deep breath in. “I will be. Mom and I are just having a hard time dealing with Uncle Joe’s illness.”
“Yeah, I am too.”
Mom hugs me.
“It’s funny,” I say. “I was telling Jesse about how the only catastrophe we’ve had in this family—before all of the current shit, that is—was Aunt Ruby’s breast cancer. We caught it early, and she made a complete recovery. Ava and Gina are now getting annual mammograms, so if anything happens, they will catch it early too. We were so lucky with that.”
“Absolutely,” Mom says.
Dad just nods.
“And somehow now, it’s like the gates of hell have opened, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse have galloped all over our family.”
Dad and Mom both just stare at me.
Finally, Mom says, “That doesn’t sound at all like my David.”
“I’m still in here,” I say. “Just seems like the wheel’s on the bottom right now for the Steel family.”
“Listen, son,” my father says. “I’m taking this hard. I can’t hide that from you, and I don’t want to either. You know I don’t have any siblings of my own, and Joe was more than a friend to me. More than a brother-in-law. Other than your mother and you kids, he’s the most important person in my life. I always thought we’d grow old together, sitting on the back porch, smoking pipes—even though we both hate tobacco—and talking about the good old days. But you remember what you’ve been taught since you were a kid. Remember that you can find gratitude in everything.”
“Are you finding gratitude in this?” I ask him point-blank.
He shakes his head and sighs. “I admit it’s difficult. But I am grateful for the health of you, your mother, your brother, your sisters. It’s bad enough that Joe has to go through this, but if it were one of you…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know if I could survive that.”
