Statistically

Chapter Five

There are a few more hushed whispers before Elle shoots out of their bedroom like a cannon.  She storms past me without a glance, kicking a can of green beans across the floor before running out of the front door.  I hear the sound of gravel beneath her tires as she pulls out of the driveway.

I take a second to make sure my head is still fully attached to my body and not ripped off and laying in a corner somewhere from the emotional whiplash that was the last five minutes.  Then, I get up and start picking up their groceries, trying to stuff them back into the ripped paper sack Elle dropped on the floor when she saw me sitting at her kitchen table.

I hear water running in the bathroom and then a few seconds later Lee emerges from the hallway, red around the eyes and sniffling.  It is obvious to me now that though he does look older, age does not account for the dark circles under his eyes or the way his shirt kind of hangs off of him like it only recently became too big.

"Well," he let's out a huge breath. "That went better than I expected, to be honest."

And even though it isn't funny, the serious tone of his voice makes me chuckle.  Which slowly builds into some kind of hysterical laughter and I worry for a second that I have finally lost my mind, finally slid off of that edge that I have spent so much time precariously balanced on.  But then Lee is laughing too, and as I am laughing I am trying to shove cans into the ripped grocery bag which has pretty much shredded itself at this point.  Every time I try to shove something into the bag, two more things fall out, which somehow only adds to the hilariousness of the situation and pretty soon we are both having to hold onto our sides and gasp for breath because really, what is happening?

The fact that we are both a little buzzed doesn't help anything.

Eventually, we both manage to hobble our way to the couch and as we settle onto it our laughter starts to die down.  We are both wiping tears from our eyes and for a second we are suspended in just this moment and all of the moments that came before it and will come after it are far enough away that we are just two brothers laughing at our own stupidity.

I don't want to burst the bubble, but I feel like I have to.

"When did you find out?"

His eyes are closed, he is still catching his breath.  The smile on his face doesn't match with his words when he says, "The day I called you."

He goes on to tell me that he noticed a lump in his armpit a few months ago, but he had been coming down with a cold and chalked it up to that, a temporarily swollen lymphnode or something.  Yeah, he had been tired, but he was getting older.  Yeah, he had lost weight, but no offense to Elle's cooking - it wasn't that great.  Looking back he admits he was in denial.  "But I didn't want to be sick."

And I automatically know why.  "Because of Elle."

"Yeah."

And I know that no one would want to be sick or want to their wife to worry, but we both know it goes deeper than that with Elle.  Elle has already been through this before.  With her mom.  And that fact weighs in the air as we are both silent, contemplating what it means. 

Elle's mom died.

"It wasn't long before it was obvious I needed to go in.  So I did.  They wanted to do a biopsy, so they did."  He puts his hands in the air as if to say and that was that.  "I called you in the parking lot of the doctor's office, after I got my results.  Right before I went home and told Elle."

I almost ask him why she wasn't with him, but I don't need to.  He wouldn't have wanted to worry her if there was no need to worry.  He would've wanted to hide it from her until he couldn't keep it hidden.  Protect her from it until it wasn't possible.