“I think Millie will dig a smooth head—” He stopped abruptly and rubbed at his jaw, clearly agitated. “Is she here, Mo? With you?”
“She’s at the hotel with Henry. He was exhausted, and she didn’t dare leave him alone.”
Tag nodded and closed his eyes, as if he too were exhausted. “Good. That’s good.”
A nurse bustled in, saw me, and hesitated slightly. I almost laughed. She probably wanted Tag all to herself while she fussed over him. Typical female. He probably had the entire nursing staff at his beck and call. He’d be the most well-cared for patient in the history of the hospital.
I watched as she carefully covered him with a sheet and gently started removing his hair with an electric razor, one long clump at a time, until he sat before me, smooth-headed and scarred, looking so different and defeated, so changed, that I unclenched my hands, releasing some of my rage.
The nurse exclaimed that he “must feel so much better now,” and whisked away the shorn hair and the sheet that covered him. Then she helped him maneuver out of his hospital gown—avoiding his IV and the various monitors—and assisted him in donning a new one. I caught Tag’s eye as she carefully tied the strings at his back. I raised an eyebrow, and he gave me a smirk that let me know that he hadn’t changed all that much.
Still, when she left the room, he closed his eyes briefly, resting momentarily, and I felt the fear swell in my chest once more.
“You look like shit, Tag,” I said.
“So do you, Mo,” he shot back, not even opening his eyes.
“It’s your fault,” I said.
He sighed and then murmured, “I know.”
I didn’t comment, thinking he needed to sleep. But after several long breaths he opened his eyes again and met my gaze.
“I’m sorry, Moses.”
“You shouldn’t have left like that. You’ve put us all through hell.” I guess we were going to go there, after all.
“I didn’t see a better solution.”
“I can think of one,” I snapped, and when he didn’t respond immediately, I exhaled heavily and pressed my palms into my tired eyes.
“Sometimes I feel like death is the only thing I haven’t done,” he said eventually. “Hell, and I’ve even attempted that a couple of times. The problem with death is that it’s exclusive, like sex and child-birth. Once you’ve done it, there is no going back.”
His thoughts were clearly rhetorical, and I waited him out again.
“The thing is, Mo. I’m okay with it. If I’ve learned anything from being your best friend, from watching you commune with the dead, it’s that death isn’t anything I need to be afraid of. I’m not a perfect man. But I think I’m a good man. I’ve lived a hell of a life, even with all the heartache. Millie told me once that the ability to devastate is what makes a song beautiful. Maybe that’s what makes life beautiful too. The ability to devastate. Maybe that’s how we know we’ve lived. How we know we’ve truly loved.”
“The ability to devastate,” I repeated. And my voice broke. If that wasn’t a perfect description of the agony of love, I didn’t know what was. I had felt that devastation. I had survived it, but I didn’t want to survive it again.
“I love her so much, Mo. I love her so damn much. That’s the thing that sucks the most. I can deal with the cancer. I can deal with death. But I’m going to miss Millie. I miss her already.” He swallowed, his throat working overtime against the emotion that choked us both. “I would miss you too, Mo, but you can see dead people, so I can haunt you.”
I laughed, but it came out a groan, and I stood, needing to escape, hating the sorrow, raging against the futility of grief, yet feeling it anyway. Tag watched me pace and when I finally sat back down, indicating I was ready, he spoke again.
“I’m okay with death, Mo. I’m good with it,” Tag said quietly. “But dying . . . dying is different. I’m afraid of dying. I’m afraid of not being strong for the people who love me. I’m afraid of the suffering I will cause. I’m afraid of the helplessness I’ll feel when I can’t make it all better. I don’t want to sit in a hospital bed, day after day, dying. I don’t want Millie trying to take care of me. I don’t want Henry watching me fade from giant to shadow. Can you understand that, Mo?”
I nodded slowly, though doing so made me feel sick, like I was condoning what he’d done, leaving like he had.
“I laid in bed all night after they told me what I was facing. They gave me all the risks, the time frames, best case scenarios, worst case scenarios. By morning, I knew it wasn’t for me. I told my doctor, thank you very much, but I’m gonna go now.”
“And you weren’t going to tell anyone?”
“No.” Tag shook his head, his eyes on mine. “No.”
“But . . .” I didn’t understand. I wasn’t following.
“I got my affairs in order. I met with my attorney, got things figured out. Drew up the will, liquidated a bunch of stuff. The only thing that was bothering me was the money I still owed my dad. I could sell it all—the bar, the gym, the clothing line. If I did, I’d have more than enough, but I don’t want to sell. I want to leave the gym to the guys. I want to leave the bar to Millie and Henry so Millie can dance around that damn pole until she’s eighty-two and no one can tell her no, and so that Henry can have a place where he can talk sports and someone will listen. He loves the bar. I wanted to leave you something too, but I knew you would hate that.”