“Nearly my whole life.” He looks over the sketches on the table. “My dad says I used to finger paint stories and I picked up a crayon and started drawing as soon as I was able.”
“How didn’t I know this about you?”
He gives me a funny look and asks, “Were you looking?”
Oh.
That’s fair.
I haven’t really paid too much attention to him over the years. Which is probably why I often compared him to a house plant that you don’t notice but is always just there. I had an image of him and maybe my image was wrong.
I bite my lip and think, what else don’t I know about him?
Amidst the sketches for his comic series, I notice a drawing that’s different than the others. It’s done in pencil, with a lot of shading. I realize suddenly that it’s a portrait of his dad, he’s resting in his recliner with an oxygen mask on. The detail in the drawing is remarkable, but there’s something in the curve of the lines that makes me extraordinarily sad.
“He’s really sick, isn’t he?” I ask.
Josh looks toward the drawing I point at. I think he’s surprised that it’s there, like he didn’t realize he’d left it out for anyone to see.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest—”
“He’s dying,” Josh says.
I stare at him, stunned by the rawness I heard in his voice. We’re standing less than two feet apart, and I ache to reach up and put my hand to his arm, comfort him. But then, he gives me his laugh-at-the-world smile, and says, “It’s what you get when you smoke two packs a day for fifty years.”
“I’m sorry.”
Josh shrugs.
“When did you find out?”
He looks away from me, at some distant point across the room. “January fifth,” he says. “Helluva day.”
I think about how at first Josh said no to my donor request, and then, it seemed like out of the blue, he changed his mind. It was shortly after January fifth. And if that’s the case, then none of this is right, he shouldn’t be my donor because he’s grieving for his dad.
“Josh. If this is why you agreed—”
“No.”
“What?”
“It’s not. It’s not why. Forget about it.”
When he looks back at me his jaw is tight and his eyebrows are drawn. It looks like he’s trying to contain a storm of feeling.
“Then why?”
He’s quiet for a moment and then he gives me a half-smile. “Funny thing. You’ve got a big family. But me, I’ve only got my dad. He’s the one person alive that really knows me. That remembers me when I was two, and drawing on the walls, or when I was four, learning to ride a bike. He remembers when I first tied my shoes, and he read my first comics. You, you’ve got lots of people to remember that. But me, when my dad’s gone, all of those memories are gone with him. It’s just me. There’s no one else. Just like that, I’m the only one to remember him. I’m the only one left alive that loved him. There’s no one left to share that with. Just me. Alone.”
I stare at Josh and try to take in the profound loneliness of the future he’s describing. And I realize that even though there’s been a hollow space in my heart, waiting for a child to love, I’ll always have my family. Josh is right. When his dad’s gone, he’ll be alone.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Don’t worry about it. Every ending is a new beginning.” He gives me a flippant smile.
I shake my head. He’s quoting Ian at me. “Josh…”
“Seriously. Don’t worry. I can see my future and it’s bright. I’ll adopt a three-legged dog from a shelter and name him Tripod, then I’ll donate loads of sperm to sperm banks around the country so I can have hundreds of children and essentially be immortal. In a few years, I’ll go a little crazy, possibly cut off an ear like Van Gogh, and then I’ll draw bad comics in my warehouse for the next fifty years. Eventually I’ll die from eating too many of those delicious chocolate cherry liquor candies you can only get at Christmas-time. Trust me. Life’ll be grand.”
I try to hold back a smile but can’t. “Your picture of the future is so appealing. Just wondering, by any chance, do I or our possible child have any role in this hallucination?”
“Sure. You brought me the cherry candies.”
“I’m the agent of your imaginary death?” I ask in mock outrage.
“Then you become a multi-millionaire from my estate, which is worth soooo much money. Because everyone wants a piece of my original work.”