Bill Trebelov stood frozen and helpless, watching his beloved wife snuggle warmly into the arms of their next door neighbor, Roger. Emily smiled so brightly, she seemed to illuminate from within. She wore a flimsy yellow sundress that left little to the imagination. Her shapely body fit perfectly in Roger's embrace, as if they were two pieces of a puzzle.
They were laughing, surrounded by friends and neighbors with familiar, yet strangely indistinguishable, faces. Roger whispered something into Emily's ear, and it made her giggle like a little girl. She gave him a playful slap on his shoulder, and then raised herself on the tips of her toes to give him a kiss.
Bill opened his mouth to scream, but no words escaped. He struggled to breathe. It felt as though he were underwater. He began to panic, and could feel his chest tighten and his pulse race. Roger looked right into his eyes and acknowledged his presence with a wicked smile. He winked, and kissed Emily again, right there in front of all their friends and neighbors.
This time, as he kissed her, his tongue protruded grotesquely from his mouth and his hands boldly explored her body. He lifted the hem of Emily's dress, exposing her naked buttocks to the warm summer air, and squeezed her firm cheek with his finely-manicured hands. She responded with a playful coo, and returned his kiss him with gratuitous lust.
Roger broke from their kiss and directed his eyes toward Bill once again. This time, his smile contorted into laughter. He pointed a finger at Bill, and all heads turned to follow the path of his direction. The surrounding audience erupted into raucous laughter. Several laughed so hard, they spilled their drinks. Even Emily failed to hide her laughter behind her dainty hand.
Bill followed the gaze of the crowd and lowered his head. He was naked. Completely naked.
He awoke, wild-eyed and gasping for air. He turned to the table beside his bed, and the alarm sounded at that exact moment. He shut it off and turned to the other side of the bed. Just as it had been every morning for the past three years, it was empty.
***
At first, Emily thought it was just the flu. She began vomiting, and couldn't keep down any food or liquid. Then, the constipation began, and that led to bloating and unbearable stomach pain. When Bill found her curled up in a fetal position on their bathroom floor one evening, that's when he finally insisted she go to the emergency room and have someone look at her.
When the doctors ordered an ultrasound, the first thought that popped into Bill's mind was that she was pregnant.
I don't want another kid,
he thought.
We finally got the other two out of the house! I'm too old to start over again!
In the years to come, he would spend countless lonely nights reflecting on the selfishness of that thought, and berating himself for having it.
"There's no reason to panic," the doctor assured them, but the expression on his face indicated otherwise.
The doctor described a "suspicious" area on Emily's ovaries, and explained that a laparoscopy would be needed to get a better view of the area. Although his insides churned with concern, Bill maintained a calm demeanor and insisted there was no reason to worry.
"We'll get through this," he assured her, gently stroking her hand as she waited to be wheeled away for her procedure. "No matter what ever happens to us, we get through it. Remember when Janie got sick? We thought we'd lose her forever. But we didn't. We got through it together. Remember when we first got married? We lived in that shitty little apartment in that run-down neighborhood?"
Emily gave him a brave smile. "We didn't have two nickels to rub together. And then I made things worse by getting pregnant."
"Yes, well, I suppose I had something to do with that, too," he responded with a smile. "And you worried that we wouldn't have enough money to raise a child. But I told you it would be okay. I told you I was taking classes at night, and I'd make enough money that you wouldn't need to work, and could stay home and raise our baby. Eventually, I'd make enough money that we could move into a nicer place."
"And we did," she said, gripping his hand and looking at him through glistening eyes. "You worked so hard, and provided for our family so well. I couldn't have asked for a better husband and father for our children."
"Well, don't talk as if it's over. There is still a lot more we need to do."
"I'm scared, Bill."
"I...I'm scared, too, Em. But we will get through this, I promise."
While Emily lay in the recovery room after surgery, her doctor marched into the waiting room, wearing that same serious expression Bill had seen before. A growth was found, the doctor explained, and a sample was taken. The results would be known shortly, and there was still hope that it was benign.
"Given her symptoms, however," the doctor added bluntly, "you should prepare yourselves for the worst."
Bill plodded down the hallway toward the recovery room, the floor barely perceptible beneath his feet and the walls growing hazy and colorless. The emotion overwhelmed him so suddenly, he wasn't prepared for it. He quickly made a detour to the nearest restroom, entered the stall furthest from the entrance, locked the door, and collapsed to the floor. He had been taught to believe that real men don't cry. But for the first time in his adult life, he wept like a baby.
***
Ovarian cancer. Stage Four. It seemed like an impossible diagnosis. A cruel prank. Only days before she was admitted to the hospital, Emily was as happy and healthy as she had ever been. How could she have become so ill in such a short period of time?
Bill refused to accept the diagnosis. He told his wife they would seek a second opinion. If that opinion was the same, then they would seek a third and a fourth. No matter how many doctors it would take, they would find someone with the courage to deliver a more optimistic diagnosis.
"Bill, I love you," Emily said, smiling sweetly. "But honey, you need to face the truth. This is happening, and there is nothing you or I can do to stop it."
"Bullshit," he said. He could feel the anger bubbling toward the surface.
"Honey...I'm so sorry to put you through this."
He looked at her with amazement. Here she was going through this incomprehensible moment, staring into the darkened depths of her own mortality, and her main concern was with him. Over the next several months, he would continue to be amazed at the strength and character of this woman.
Together, they decided that she would undergo chemotherapy treatment in order to prolong her life as much as possible. Bill was never much of a caregiver, and avoided being near sick people as much as possible. With no other choice, however, he quickly learned to become a top-notch nurse. He helped her in and out of bed, took her to the bathroom, and cleaned the vomit from the bucket she kept at her bedside. Toward the end, he learned to clean her drainage tube and switch out her IV bags.
The end came more swiftly than he expected. They were watching television one evening. Emily was lying in her makeshift hospital bed, which Bill had relocated to the livingroom at her request. Suddenly, he sensed that something had changed. He looked at her, and she seemed more calm and peaceful than usual.
He hesitantly moved to her bedside and took her hand in his, taking care not to squeeze too hard. She didn't move a muscle. Fighting back the tears welling in his eyes, he placed a couple of fingers along the main artery on her neck. There was no pulse.
***
The years passed in a hazy fog. Friends and family visited often at first, but those visits grew less and less frequent over time. The kids both lived out of state, but they called often to check in on him. Bill kept himself busy around the house, repairing all of the items that went neglected while he cared for Emily.
He found that as long as he kept his mind busy, he could avoid thinking of her. It wasn't that he didn't want to think of her, but he found that when he did, it would incapacitate him for hours. As time passed, he learned to control it a little better, and focus on the fond memories instead of the horror of her last remaining weeks.
During the day, it was easy to keep his mind occupied on work or with various projects around the house. At night, he was alone with his thoughts. Most nights, he would simply cry himself to sleep. It got to the point where he dreaded going to bed, and he found himself staying up later and later and getting less and less sleep.
It was during one of those sleepless nights, lying in bed with his eyes wide open, staring at the black ceiling overhead, that his life - or, at least, the perception of his life - changed forever. He was thinking about an e-mail that Emily had written to him years ago. It was sweet and romantic, and it filled his heart with overwhelming joy when he read it. He gained a better understanding of how much he meant to his wife, and how much she loved him with all her heart. He would give anything to read those words again, he thought.
Dispensing with the charade of trying to sleep, he rose from the bed and walked into his office to retrieve his laptop. He scrolled through his e-mail in-box to the very bottom, and confirmed his fear that he had deleted all of his older e-mails. He pounded the desk with his fist and sighed.
Then, a thought came to him, and he switched over to Emily's e-mail account. She was always very meticulous about keeping a tidy e-mail account, and it drove him crazy at times, because she would often delete e-mails that he felt she should keep. But she wasn't computer-savvy enough to know that her deleted e-mails weren't actually deleted until she cleared them from the recycle bin.
Sure enough, as he scrolled through the "Deleted" folder of her account, he found messages from several years in the past. He remembered the e-mail she sent to him was written roughly five years earlier, and he examined the messages from that year, one by one.
He paused when he discovered a message from their next door neighbor, Roger. It was titled, "About Last Night", and it was dated July 5th. He seemed to recall attending a neighborhood Independence Day barbeque that year. In fact, it was the last year he and Emily went to that annual event.
With a curious expression, Bill clicked on the e-mail, and it popped open.
Hi, Emily. I just want to say that I really enjoyed last night. I've been wanting to do that for years. It's a shame we were interrupted. If you ever want to finish what we started, you know where I live.
Roger
P.S. - Don't worry about Phil. I had a chat with him, and he's not going to tell anyone.
