“Shit, Holly.” He shakes his head coming back to himself. “I’m sorry.” He moves to pull out, but I wrap my legs around him.
“Hey, it's okay.” I reach out, holding his face. “It's okay, Sy,” I try to reassure him.
“You’re crying. Did I hurt you?” he asks, but the tears aren’t from the pain of what we just experienced or what he just unleashed on me, but the fear of what his past means for us now. How can I burden him with something that was so devastatingly painful to me, but could possibly be so insignificant to him after losing a living, breathing piece of his heart?
“No, you didn't,” I say as he slowly pulls out of me. Reaching over, he gets me a tissue. Taking it from him, I use it to clean myself up.
“Uhh, sweetheart. That was for your tears.” I look up and see him watching me.
“Ohh,” I say, holding in my smile. I can't help the giggle that comes when he shakes his head.
“Here,” he says, passing me a new one. “I'll get a washcloth.” He stands and heads to the bathroom. He returns a few moments later with a wet washcloth and my sweet Sy is back. I don't say anything. I just watch him carefully as he helps me clean up. He then takes the cloth back to my bathroom. I nestle back under the covers, wondering what's going to happen next. He walks back in keeping quiet.
“Come to bed.” I reach out for him. I’m not sure if I expect him to take my hand or to reject me. I don’t exactly know what’s happening here. He walks forward and climbs back into my bed next to me.
“Three words is all it took,” he says after a few moments of silence.
“Three words?” I ask, unsure what he means but desperately needing to know.
“Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. She was dying. And she wasn’t mine.” He says it so casually that the impact of the words doesn’t register to begin with. Wait, Keira wasn’t his?
“I don’t understand, Sy?” I sit up, needing to face him. He lies on his back, looking up at the ceiling, his arms folded behind his head. If he hadn't just dropped that bomb, I would say he looked peaceful, lying in the aftermath of an orgasm.
“The day we discovered Keira’s cancer had come back was the day I found out I wasn’t her biological father.” He sounds so distant, lost in the past. “We had just finished chemo and were hoping for good news, but it wasn’t, and then I found out she wasn’t even mine.” He looks to me and I don’t feel the anger in his words, but I see it in his eyes. “Not that it made a difference to me. It never has. Keira will always be my daughter, always.”
“Jesus Christ, Sy,” I say as my heart breaks for him. No wonder he lives with so much animosity pouring out of him.
“It was a feeling of having the whole world at my feet then having it pulled out from beneath me. I can’t even begin to explain it.”
“What happened next?” I ask, trying to understand this man. Understand how he lives with the ugliness of what happened.
“Nothing. I walked out of the room and went up and sat with my daughter while they tried to find out if her biological father was a match for her next treatment.” His answer shocks me for a moment, but then it doesn’t. This man is everything I've never known he could be, and at the same time, everything I never knew I needed. Behind the façade, lies a devoted father who is drowning in his own grief.
“So you just went on as normal?”
“I wouldn’t have walked away even if she didn’t have cancer. Even if he was a match and could save her life, she was my life, Holly. I breathed for her. While she didn’t have my blood running through her veins, she was mine.” I don’t say anything. I let his words tell me what type of father he was. He stops for a minute, lost in his head and I don’t know how to comfort him, how to make it easier.
“She was beautiful,” I say, remembering her picture.
“She was so goddamn beautiful. And smart. Jesus, she was so smart. She loved watching the Discovery Channel. She would sit there for hours watching show after show about animals, and everything she learnt, she absorbed.” He becomes lost in the memory. The comment makes sense with all those animal shows he watches. He watches them for her.
“How old was she?” I ask, unmoving, waiting for him to tell me in his own time. I want to know all about her, but I don’t know if I’m pushing his limits.
“Seven. She was meant to start school that week, but instead, she was sitting in a hospital, her small body getting pumped with chemo.”
“God, Sy.” I lie back to match his position, needing to be closer. “You don’t have to tell me,” I say, now unsure if I can even handle hearing his pain.
“I should have told you sooner, but I’ve been holding off.” He turns to face me, drawing closer, until we are laying face to face. I don’t say anything. No words are needed. Rather, I let him hold me in silence and give the moment the respect it deserves.
“I knew she was dying. I had prepared myself for that. I even thought I was ready for it, but fuck, I was wrong. Nothing prepares you for that, Holly. Nothing conditions you for that nightmare of watching someone you breathe for take their last breath.”
I’m not prepared for the sob that tears from my throat at hearing his words. Talking of what he lost only brings more heartache. Knowing I am now keeping something from him like his ex-wife did is going to destroy me.