“About …?”
“The doctor’s responsibility. You tossed it out to the group but never gave your opinion.”
He answered without hesitation. “I think the doctor should tell what he knows.”
“Why?”
“Remember what Aristotle said about using pain correctly? The path to happiness isn’t always fun.” He leaned in, his closeness making my head a little fuzzy. “But dealing with hard things, like a terminal diagnosis, can lead to greater happiness. No pain, no gain.”
I thought of the woman in the park playing with her dog.
“But what if time was so short …” I stopped, knowing it would be nearly impossible to convey the full scenario. Lucas would think it was ridiculous.
“Go on … so short that …”
I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s just a hypothetical.”
“Isn’t all of this?”
“Yeah … but this couldn’t really happen.”
He leaned back, smiling. “Try me anyway. I’m interested.”
I could tell, his eyes, his attention totally focused on me. It was a thrilling feeling that I didn’t want to let go. “Okay,” I said, “what if time was so short that there was really nothing the person could do? What if they had less than twenty-four hours to live, were in no pain, totally unaware of their fate and enjoying their time.” I decided to go for it. “What if they were spending a beautiful day outside, in the sun, playing with their dog or their child? Would you interrupt that day with the news that they were about to die?”
“I thought they were at the doctor’s office.”
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe they were in the park that morning, before their appointment.”
“And the doctor figures out they’re going to die that day? That couldn’t happen.”
“That’s why I said it was a hypothetical.” I shook my head. “Forget it.”
“No, no. Okay, I’m with you.” He thought for a minute. “I’m not sure.”
“Maybe it’s a case-by-case thing?” I suggested hopefully. “If the person seems fine, untroubled, you don’t tell them?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Lucas said, pinching his lip absently. “How could the doctor really know their state of mind? Or how they might use the news that they had such a short time to live? Maybe there were things that had to be done to secure happiness for the child or someone else important.”
I nodded. I had thought that too, and had a creeping suspicion that the right answer was the one I didn’t really want. The harder choice.
Our dinners came then. Lucas was right, the food was delicious. I hadn’t been doing much cooking at the apartment. I’d learned the basics from Nan and together we’d made lasagnas and stews and soups and fish. I’d come to associate cooking with companionship. It wasn’t the same doing it alone and just for me, so I’d been living on easy meals like a true college student: tuna fish, cheese sandwiches, pizza—sometimes takeout, sometimes frozen.
“Now, this …,” I said in between mouthfuls, shaking my fork at the half-empty plate. “This is food.”
“An astute observation,” Lucas said, his grin making me smile too. “See, I knew you were smart …”
Lucas asked about my job, told me a little about his. The behind-the-scenes work of a teaching assistant sounded like a lot of reading, lesson plans, and pipe smoking with Professor McMillan.
When we’d finished our meal, Wallace took our plates and our tiramisu order—one to share. Lucas poured the last of the wine, leaned back, and asked, “What would you do with your final hours if you knew you only had a few to live?”
“I think,” I said slowly, giving the impression of contemplating, “my first impulse would be to find another doctor—and another after that, if necessary—and try to prevent it.”
He nodded. “For the sake of discussion, let’s assume the diagnosis was irrefutable and somehow you accepted that.”
“Okay,” I said. “I think my next impulse would be to do something crazy—try to squeeze in some of the things I’d meant to do but never got around to. See the Eiffel Tower or Statue of Liberty. Go bungee jumping. The problem with having only a few hours, though, is that it’s too short to accomplish anything important. No time for the life goals you haven’t made happen yet, whatever they are: write a book, have a family, try out for Broadway.”
“Those are your life goals?”
“Not mine personally, but you know what I mean. The kind of things that take work and planning.”
He nodded. “So you’d take a trip somewhere on your last day?”
“No,” I corrected. “That would be my first impulse, but I think I’d realize all the problems with it. I mean, what if my flight were delayed? Would I want to spend my final hours sitting in an airport? Just to see some building somewhere?”
Lucas waited, quietly fingering the stem of his wineglass and watching me intently.
What I’d thought about most the many times I’d considered this question was how Nan had reacted: calm, fully in control. I hoped I could be that way.
“I think what I’d really do—and this may sound nuts—is nothing. I mean, there’d be a little business to take care of. I’d write a few letters, make sure I got them in a mailbox, and then I’d take my book and my favorite sweatshirt and find a comfortable spot—the park or a coffee shop—and try to enjoy the time I had left.”
Lucas was silent for a minute, still watching me, still fingering his glass. “That’s a very rational response,” he said finally.
I shrugged. “Well, it’s one thing to say it and another to act it out. Who knows how I’d really be.”
He didn’t say anything, so I asked, “What would you do?”
Without hesitation, he said, “I’d take the first flight to LA.”
“To see your family?”
“To see my family.”
I nodded. I might have said the same thing if I had any family to see.
We finished our wine with dessert. The tiramisu was amazing, as Lucas had promised. When the bill came, Lucas deftly took it from the waiter, shooing away my offers to go Dutch. “Of course not,” he said. “I asked you to dinner. Besides, you’re a poor college student.”
“So are you.”