Interview with a Master (27 page)

“You’re sleeping with Trigg?”

I went to her urgently. “Leticia! God, let me explain.” I reached out for her. She stared as though she didn’t recognize me. I took her arm, and suddenly she flew at me, wailing in despair, her arms flailing so that her nails raked bloody lines down my cheek and across my nose.

“I hate you!” she shrieked. “You lied to me. It’s all been a lie!” She clawed for my eyes, vicious and wounded. I swung my head aside and then trapped her wrists.

“You told me there could be no future for us, Jonah. You told me that. And now I find it’s because you’re with Trigg. Why couldn’t you tell me?” she moaned. There was heart-broken pain on her face. “Why couldn’t you just tell me you were in love with her?”

She struggled and lashed out at me. I wrapped
my arms around her waist and pinned her against me. I could feel the rigid unyielding tension in her body, and see her face slickened with tears.

I looked over her head and shot a withering glare at Trigg.

“You call this ethical?”

“No. I call it moral,” Trigg’s voice was imploring. “I had to do it, Jonah. This
has gone on for too long. Can’t you see that?”

I snarled at her, blazing with rage. “Get out!” I shouted. “Get the fuck out of this house, Trigg, and never come back!”

Trigg stood, rooted to the spot. She wrung her hands and then slowly began to shake. Tears welled in her eyes, and then her whole body began to shudder.

I grabbed at Leticia’s arms,
bracing them to her side and held her away from me.

“It’s not how it seems, Leticia,” I said, shaking her
urgently. She wouldn’t look at me. She was crying as though her broken heart would never mend. Tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped from her chin. I shook her again and shouted. “It’s not how it looks! Trigg isn’t my lover. She’s my doctor.”

The word echoed in the silence, seeming to hang in the air for long
dreadful seconds.

“Trigg is my doctor,” I said again, this time more gently, this time with
my voice made husky by emotion. “She has been living here for the past six months – because I’m dying.”

Leticia froze
, and then faltered. She went suddenly soft within my arms. Her outrage turned slowly to confusion, to shock and then finally her face was a dreadful mask of tragedy. She shook her head slowly in disbelief. I nodded sadly.

“No…” Leticia moaned. She turned to Trigg.

“He has a year, maybe two,” Trigg said softly.

“Are you sure?”

Trigg blinked. “Nothing can be certain…”

I let go of Leticia’s arms. She swayed on her feet, reeling. I touched
lightly at the side of my head. “I have a tumor,” I said. “It’s inoperable,” and my voice became choked. I opened my arms and she came into them, and I held her tight against my chest. We clung to each other like two drowning people in a storm. “It’s the only thing that kept us apart, Leticia, I swear to you,” I muttered. “I wanted to love you so badly…” and then there was just the sound of her crying for a very long time while I held her and we rocked gently together.

My
despair came in relentless waves, pounding at me, and then receding, until, finally, I broke our embrace and stared down into Leticia’s eyes.

“It’s the answer to the question you asked last night,” I said softly. “It’s the reason my relationship with Caroline ended. When I found out I was dying, I sent her away. And it’s the same reason I fought so hard to keep you away.”

For a long time we stood in total silence. It took me several minutes to push aside the pain of unhealed wounds, and terrible sadness. I saw images of Caroline’s face again, the anguish in her features, the tears that seemed might drown her…

Sometimes doing the ri
ght thing can feel so very wrong.

I stared up at the ceiling, then closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I opened my eyes again, and saw the same agony in this young woman’s face. The pain I had tried so hard to keep secret and avoid was torn across her features.

“I’ve been getting migraines for the past
year, and moments where I forget what I was just talking about,” I explained quietly. “Then six months ago I had a seizure, Leticia. That’s why Trigg moved in. She’s been monitoring my medication, and going with me to the hospital for the MRI’s.” I made a brave attempt to smile, but it slid off my face. “And that’s why I wanted you to write my story, and why it had to be done now. Because I don’t know how much longer I have to live.”

“Isn’t there an operation?”
Leticia asked. She was sobbing, and her lips trembled with the strength of her appeal.

I shook my head. “There is no operation. Trigg has been here since I sent Caroline away. She’s monitoring the growth of the tumor. There’s nothing that can be done.”

Leticia shook her head with sudden defiance and disbelief. “So you’re giving up on life?” she sounded appalled.

“No!” I said. “I’m going to fight this, Leticia. I’m going to fight with every ounce of energy and determination I have. I’m going to fight to the death – but it’s
my
fight. It’s
my
war. I won’t have your heart broken as collateral damage.”

“So you’ll die alone?”

“I’ll die fighting. Alone.”

“But Jonah, I can – ”

I shook my head. “No.”

She struggled in my arms. “But I want to.”

“No. Leticia, please. Just leave. Go now. Walk out that door, publish your newspaper article and forget me.”

I let her go. My arms fell
heavily to my side. She stood there for long agonizing moments wrenched to pieces.

“Please…” I said.

Leticia turned for the door. She moved in a daze. Her feet shuffled across the cold tiles. I watched her walk down the steps. I blinked. I felt tears scalding my eyes and my determination wavered. I felt a vast desolation crush down upon me, so that I wanted to cry out to her in my anguish to come back.

But I couldn’t
.

She got to
the side of her car and then broke down sobbing. Her whole body shook, as though the pain would crush her. Her shoulders slumped, and she gave a low moan of such despair and shattered agony that I felt the deep raw ache of my heart breaking for her.

I closed the door slowly, and
my world turned dark and cold.

* * *
* *

That’s my story
so far.

As I sit here at my desk and write these words,
the rain is falling outside my window. It’s now been twenty-seven days since that terrible morning when I said goodbye to Leticia, and it seems like it has rained every single day.

The article was published
in three parts, and some of the bigger newspapers around the country picked up the story. I’m glad about that.

And
I have a new doctor. He’s an older guy. He looks a little bit like Robert De Niro. He’s upbeat and optimistic – good qualities to have in a doctor when you’re facing death.

I don’t know what lies ahead. I don’t know what the future holds or
even how much future there is for me.

But
I’m alone, and I’m desperately lonely.

I miss Leticia.
I had waited all my life to find that girl – and she came too late for me to love.