10. In the beach house, things stood still, unmoved by time. Zero had made it his lair, his refuge from the failures that clung to him, like being a good husband or father. Brokenness isn’t free. It comes with scars, wounds from shattered glass flying at the speed of hate and resentment through the dining room. It comes with stinging screams and panic hidden in the dark because it’s better not to go out, Yamila urged him every time. Silence wasn’t optional. Scared to their bones, three kids sat behind the closed door, heads between bent knees, deafened by their heartbeats, like mad disco music, wishing it’d be over soon.
I’ll get you some ginger tea and honey, okay? Joanie told him. Is Yamila coming? he asked.
She was supposed to be in yesterday, but you know how things go with big sis.
Yes, I know.
Zero stared out the window and saw something that looked like half a cruise ship, but it wasn’t. Besides, cruise ships didn’t sail that way. It looked… yes, it looked… it looked like an iceberg! A fucking, Antarctic iceberg.
A week ago, sunset broke, screeching like God scraping his fingers against the sky. Zero felt a tremor in his chest, his heart falling down his rib cage. Distant murmurings flew in the wind like scared seagulls, but Zero couldn’t sift the words from the noise. He made a slow-motion effort to get off the bed and looked out the window. The fog swallowed the feeble signs of sunlight. Swell chopped, the sea looked dish-flat. Men rowed nervously back to shore. Some didn’t even wait for the boat to reach the sand—they jumped off and seemed to run over the limp waters. Johan, heavy-headed and tequila drunk, squeezed his eyes against the blow of light that penetrated the glass. He thought somebody could be drowning. Not himself. Somebody else. But the scene didn’t make sense. As the fog sneaked away from view, the mountain of ice, blinding white, sea-gouged on the horizon, appeared and what the fuck, Zero said.
What’s going on? a woman asked, shrouded in bedsheets and wiping her light brown hair off her face as she joined Zero by the windowsill.
Oh, my god! What is that doing here?
The Shadow knows…
What?
She dawdled through her thoughts. Bit her thumb. Oh, shit. I gotta go, sweetie, she finally said.
She rushed back to the bathroom after her clothes. Zero, lighting a cigarette, looked at her and felt grateful for the night they’d spent together. Of course, it must’ve been one hell of a night. He knew it by the way his muscles sored, although he’d felt weaker in the past few weeks. Drink your vitamins, Joanie insisted then, but Zero took no heed.
The woman kept mumbling things he couldn’t distinguish outright, or that he simply wasn’t paying attention to. He admired her body, firm and tanned, with the first signs of middle-age sagging skin around her armpit. The woman clumsily tried to put on her Rip Curl summer dress and platform shoes almost simultaneously. She said something about her kids and her husband killing her. Zero smoked and looked again outside the window in disbelief. Don’t we all die? he thought. He didn’t even hear her say goodbye.
11. The weekend arrangements included a barbeque by Executive Chef Anthony López, Joanie’s long-time boyfriend. They functioned as a poetic unit, as one thing, as Master-Blaster, although they took turns between who mastered and who blastered. Bags of chips bought at Costco cushioned the kitchen’s white cabinets, and jars of spinach dip provided a purpose for such exaggeration. To exaggerate is to magnify, Zero always said, so in a way Joanie and Anthony meant to fill gaps and possible weird silences with noisy, crunchy potato chips, tortilla chips, and Ritz crackers. Quite normal and nothing too presumptuous. Just three siblings getting together for what would probably be the last time they would spend together as a family.
To be fair, no one would argue with their past. Once their mother died, they drifted into complicated lives and other euphemisms that sometimes made good for a status update on social media. Particularly Joanie, who was always smiling and laughing. Every picture on her Insta elevated the definition of a happy smile. She was the youngest, of course, and Zero, who took care of her for most of her childhood, made sure she would have good memories to tell in the future, unlike himself or Yamila.
Let me know if you’re hungry, Joanie told Zero. Anthony will be here any minute now. You know, he needed a specific brand of wood pellets for grilling the meat, which, God forbid, has not made it into the freezer. Yet. But it’s still good. Never mind, Zero replied. I’m dying anyway.
Joanie dropped the bag of Lay’s chips and hugged him with such delicacy, as if she feared she would break him.
A month ago, Zero blacked out in the middle of a writing workshop for kids, and the next thing that drilled his chest when he opened his eyes was that he had a terminal cancer condition he hadn’t taken care of properly. When Joanie heard the news, she cried so much that the sky became sad with gray clouds and torrential rain.
The cancer is highly aggressive, diagnosed Dr. Rosado. It has advanced to a stage where it is beyond treatment. I am very sorry, yes. In such instances, the cancer may have spread extensively to other parts of the body. I am very sorry, indeed; it is known as metastasis, and Zero’s overall health might be severely compromised.
While Joanie cried, Zero remained impervious to everything around him. Numb. Shocked.
Several factors can contribute to this situation, continued Dr. Rosado. Mainly… He stopped. Looked down. Checked his nails. Shook his head. I’m so sorry, Zero. We were such good friends in high school… and now… this…
No regrets, Yogi Bear, Zero said, calling Dr. Rosado by his high-school nickname.
Man, it’s just not… fair?
Is life fair? You tell me, doc. You must’ve seen death eye to eye so many times.
Oh, yeah. Many times. But none compromised the life of a friend. God, back in the days I wanted to be like you so bad!
But you couldn’t. Your failure means your success. And look at you now. An oncologist with a reputation, while I have nothing. Except an expiration date. Don’t I? How much more, doc?
Dr. Rosado weighed what he was going to say for some seconds. Some cancers may not exhibit noticeable symptoms until they are in advanced stages, he said. It makes early detection difficult.
How much more, doc.
By the time the diagnosis was made… Zero, the disease may have progressed significantly.
In the silent office, one could hear Joanie’s tears forming in the corner of her eyes.
So, what is it? Where is the bastard located? she asked.
It’s… everywhere… but it started as a form of brain cancer. It grows and spreads rapidly, leaving a short window between diagnosis and the end stage. I’m sorry, Zero, yes.
With such a brand of cancer, resistant to available treatments, the levels of tolerance for aggressive therapies were none. Zero’s body was weak. His age, comorbidities, and overall health would potentially lead to a shorter life expectancy.
And there they were. To say goodbye.
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