Chapter 9: The Truth

She told him on a Wednesday. Not because Wednesday was the right day or because she'd planned it for Wednesday. She told him because the kitchen wall had been out for three weeks and the light was exactly what her mother had wanted and the garden was taking shape under Justin's hands and she had been telling herself there would be a better time and had run out of ways to believe that. Justin was measuring the back fence line for the raised beds when she came out with two coffees and sat on the steps and said: 'I need to tell you something.' He came and sat beside her without rushing. She told him. Three months, the oncologist had said, with the range qualifier. Four if she was careful. The specific kind of cancer, the specific progression, the specific reason treatment would extend things but not reverse them. He was very quiet. 'How long have you known?' he asked. 'February.' 'It's May.' 'Yes.' He looked at his coffee cup. At the garden taking shape. At the light coming through the new window. 'You've been doing this alone,' he said. 'Theo doesn't know either.' He turned to look at her. 'Mara.' 'I know,' she said. 'I've been practical about it. There are things to do and I've been doing them and not—' She stopped. 'Not letting the weight of it stop me from doing them.' 'That's not practical,' he said. 'That's lonely.' The word landed exactly right. 'Yes,' she said. 'It is.' He set down his coffee and looked at the garden for a moment. 'What do you need?' he asked. Not: what can I do. Not: I'm sorry. Just: what do you need. Which was the question she hadn't known how to ask herself. She thought about it honestly. 'I need to finish the house,' she said. 'I need to see the garden done. And I need—' She stopped. 'I need to stop being alone with it.' 'Okay,' he said. 'Then you're not alone with it anymore.' He picked up his coffee. They sat on the steps in the morning light and he didn't try to fix anything and she didn't need him to and it was, she found, exactly enough.