Page 20 of Forever Full Circle
After a while, he excused himself. “Come on, kid, let’s go to the garage and practice a few measures,” he said, meaning Chantelle. “That jazz tunes your teacher’s got you on is a bear to play.”
Chantelle looked up, and then jumped up. “Yay! Awesome, Papa Roy!”
Daniel offered to join him, but Roy waved him off, smile sharpening just a touch. “No need to babysit, Daniel. I’ll holler if I need backup.”
Emily knew he hadn’t meant the babysitting for Chantelle.
The minute he was out of earshot, Cassie’s mask dropped. “He barely touched his breakfast,” she said, voice pitched low. “That’s a first.”
Daniel rubbed his temples. “He said he was tired from the party, but he didn’t seem right last night either.”
Cassie nodded. “He’s been pale since Christmas. And the cough’s back.”
Emily turned to Daniel. “Will you keep an eye on him during the lesson? Not, like, obviously, but—”
Daniel nodded, understanding. “I’ll make up some errand to the garage.”
Charlotte dropped her spoon, which landed with a dull splat in a puddle of yogurt. Emily let it go. She wiped the baby’s mouth and tickled her until she laughed again.
Cassie poured more coffee, then lowered her voice further. “Do you think we should call his oncologist? Or wait it out?”
Emily’s jaw tightened. “I tried already. And he’ll know if we’re plotting. Let’s give it a few hours and see.”
Cassie’s expression was unreadable. “Your call, honey.”
Emily lingered at the table, wiping up stray crumbs and rolling used napkins into tight balls, even after the others had left, Cassie insisting on taking Charlotte to walk around the garden for the fresh air. The detritus of the meal felt oddly precious: each berry stain, each coffee ring, another proof of life.
After a while, she stood and carried the dishes to the sink. She felt the urge to tidy, to restore order. But instead of cleaning, she dried her hands and ducked into her office just off the main hall downstairs. The door was thin, the space small, but when she closed it, the world receded a few decibels—the clatter of the dishwasher in the inn’s big kitchen, the sound of guests in the front parlor.
She sat in her rolling chair, then spun once, just for the sensory reset. The room smelled of lemon from the hand lotionshe kept by the keyboard and, faintly, of ink from a leaky pen she’d failed to throw away. Emily pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. She tried to focus on anything but the image of Roy’s hands—how they’d looked so strong when she was a kid. Now, the memory of his tremor played in a loop.
She wanted to fix it. Or, barring that, to manage the decline, do something that would keep the inevitable at bay. She knew now what Daniel had meant about the fear of being helpless. But there was also a part of her, old and raw, that remembered what it was like to be hovered over, to haveherboundaries dissolved by good intentions.
She picked up her phone and typed out a text to Daniel:If anything seems off, let me know. I’m in the office.
Emily pressed send, then stared at the empty input box. She closed her eyes. She tried to let herself exist in the moment, to trust that she didn’t have to control every outcome. Not Roy, not the new baby. The air in the office was still, and for a minute, the world outside her door receded even further. She heard only her own breath. In that pause, she found the smallest measure of peace.
But it didn’t last.
The office door banged open so hard it rattled the wall. Daniel stood in the threshold, breathless and wide-eyed. “Em, it’s Roy,” he said. “He just—”
She was up before he finished, half-expecting to hear sirens. Daniel was already coloring in the details: Roy, while standing, had tipped forward, going slack. Chantelle had panicked in two seconds flat. Daniel had caught Roy under the arms just as the old man had keeled over.
“He says it’s nothing,” Daniel said. “Swears he just stood up too fast. But he’s pale as a sheet, and…” He didn’t finish the sentence, which was worse than anything he could have said.
Emily’s mind snapped into procedural mode. “Where is he now?”
“Parlor. Your mom had just gotten here, she’s with him. He’s insisting on getting back to the guitar lesson, but I made him sit.” Daniel’s hands fluttered uselessly before balling into fists.I can’t fix this,she knew he was thinking. “Should I go sit with him? Or—?”
She nodded, already opening her phone. “Go. I’ll call his doctor.”
Daniel hesitated, clearly wanting to be with her and Roy, but finally nodded. “Cassie’s got the girls in the kitchen. She says she’ll keep them out of the way.” Then he turned and jogged back down the hall, footsteps heavy on the old wood.
Emily locked the office door behind him, less to keep people out than to keep her own anxiety from spilling into the rest of the house. She pressed the phone to her ear and navigated the endless labyrinth of the clinic’s automated prompts.
The phone chirped, and a nurse’s voice came on the line, brisk and efficient. “Sunset Harbor Oncology, this is Jeanette.”
Emily modulated her tone, aiming for competent concern, not panic. “Hi, this is Emily Morey. My father, Roy Mitchell, is a patient there. He just had a dizzy spell—almost fainted. He’s conscious, but very pale. No fever, no vomiting. He’s had cancer for about a year.”
