The Wish Read online

  Moreover and most importantly, he excelled at the job. He treated customers with courtesy and charm, moved the cancer groupies gracefully toward the exits, and excelled at sales, probably because he wasn’t pushy in the slightest. He answered the phone, usually by the second or third ring, and carefully wrapped the prints before shipping those ordered by mail. Usually, to complete all of his tasks, he would stay for an hour or more after the gallery had closed its doors. Luanne was so impressed by him that she had no worries about her monthlong holiday in Maui with her daughter and grandchildren in December, a trip she’d taken almost every year since she’s started at the gallery.

  None of that, Maggie realized, had been much of a surprise. What did surprise her was that in the last few months, her reservations about Mark had slowly given way to a growing sense of trust.

  * * *

  Maggie couldn’t pinpoint exactly when that had happened. Like apartment neighbors regularly riding the same elevator, their cordial relationship settled into a comfortable familiarity. In September, once she began to feel better after her last infusion, she had started spending more time at work. Simple greetings with Mark gave way to small talk before segueing to more personal subjects. Sometimes those conversations took place in the small break room down the hall from her office, other times in the gallery when it was devoid of visitors. Mostly they occurred after the doors had been locked, while the three of them processed and packaged the prints that had been ordered by phone or through the website. Usually Luanne dominated the conversation, chattering about her ex-husband’s poor dating choices or her kids and grandkids. Maggie and Mark were content to listen—Luanne was entertaining. Every now and then, one of them would roll their eyes at something Luanne had said (“I’m sure my ex is paying for all the plastic surgery on that tacky gold-digger”) and the other would smile slightly, a private communication meant just for the two of them.

  Sometimes, though, Luanne had to leave immediately after closing. Mark and Maggie would work together alone, and little by little, Maggie came to learn quite a bit about Mark, even as he refrained from asking personal questions of her. He told her about his parents and his childhood, which often struck her as something akin to an upbringing imagined by Norman Rockwell, complete with bedtime stories, hockey and baseball games, and his parents’ attendance at every school event he could remember. He also spoke frequently about his girlfriend, Abigail, who’d just started working toward a master’s degree in economics at the University of Chicago. Like Mark, she’d grown up in a small town—in her case, Waterloo, Iowa—and he had countless photographs of the two of them on his iPhone. The photos showed a pretty young redhead with a sunny, midwestern affect, and Mark mentioned that he planned to propose after she received her degree. Maggie could remember laughing when he said it. Why get married when you’re still so young? she’d asked. Why not wait a few years?

  “Because,” Mark had answered, “she’s the one with whom I’d like to spend the rest of my life.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Sometimes you just know.”

  The more she learned about him, the more she came to believe that his parents had been as lucky with him as he’d been with them. He was an exemplary young man, responsible and kind—disproving the stereotype that millennials were lazy and entitled. Still, her growing fondness for him sometimes surprised her, if only because they shared so little in common. Her early life had been…unusual, at least for a time, and her relationship with her parents had often been strained. She herself had been nothing like Mark. While he’d been studious and had graduated with highest honors from a top university, she’d generally struggled in school and had finished less than three semesters at a community college. At his age, she had been content to live in the moment and figure things out on the fly, whereas he seemed to have a plan for everything. Had she met him when she was younger, she suspected that she wouldn’t have given him the time of day; when she’d been in her twenties, she’d had a habit of choosing exactly the wrong kinds of men.

  Nonetheless, he sometimes reminded her of someone she’d known long ago, someone who had once meant everything to her.

  * * *

  By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, Maggie considered Mark a definite member of the gallery family. She wasn’t as close to him as she was to either Luanne or Trinity—they’d spent years together, after all—but he’d become something akin to a friend nonetheless, and two days after that holiday, all four of them had stayed late in the gallery after closing. It was Saturday night, and because Luanne planned to fly to Maui the following morning while Trinity left for the Caribbean, they opened a bottle of wine to go with the cheese and fruit tray Luanne had ordered. Maggie accepted a glass, even though she couldn’t fathom the thought of either drinking or eating anything.

  They toasted the gallery—it had been far and away their most successful year ever—and settled into easy conversation for another hour. Toward the end, Luanne offered Maggie a card.

  “There’s a gift inside,” Luanne said. “Open it after I’m gone.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to get yours yet.”

  “That’s fine,” Luanne said. “Seeing you back to your old self these past few months has been more than enough gift for me. Just make sure you open it well before Christmas, though.”

  After Maggie assured her that she would, Luanne stepped toward the platter and grabbed a couple of strawberries. A few feet away, Trinity was speaking to Mark. Because he visited the gallery even less frequently than Maggie did, she heard Trinity asking the same kinds of personal questions that she had over the last few months.

  “I didn’t know you played hockey,” Trinity offered. “I’m a huge Islanders fan, even if they haven’t won the Stanley Cup in what seems like forever.”

  “It’s a great sport. I played every year until I got to Northwestern.”

  “Don’t they have a team?”

  “I wasn’t good enough to play at the collegiate level,” Mark admitted. “Not that it seemed to matter to my parents. I don’t think either of them ever missed a game.”

  “Will they come out to see you for Christmas?”

  “No,” Mark said. “My dad set up a tour of the Holy Land with a couple dozen members of our church for the holidays. Nazareth, Bethlehem, the whole works.”

  “And you didn’t want to go?”

  “It’s their dream, not mine. Besides, I have to be here.”

  Maggie saw Trinity glance in her direction before he turned his attention back to Mark. He leaned in, whispering something, and though Maggie couldn’t hear him, she knew exactly what Trinity had said, because he’d expressed his own concerns to her a few minutes earlier.

  “Make sure you keep an eye on Maggie while Luanne and I are gone. We’re both a little worried about her.”

  In response, Mark simply nodded.

  * * *

  Trinity was more prescient than he probably realized, but then again, both Trinity and Luanne had known that Maggie had another appointment with Dr. Brodigan scheduled on December 10. And sure enough, at that appointment, Dr. Brodigan had urged Maggie to focus on her quality of life.

  Now it was December 18. More than a week had passed since that awful day and Maggie still felt almost numb. Nor had she told anyone about her prognosis. Her parents had always believed that if they prayed hard enough, God would somehow heal her, and telling them the truth would take more energy than she could summon. Same thing in a different way with her sister; long story short, she didn’t have the energy. Mark had texted a couple of times to check in on her, but saying anything about her situation via text struck her as absurd and she hadn’t been ready to face anyone just yet. As for Luanne or even Trinity, she supposed she could call them, but what would be the point? Luanne deserved to enjoy the time she was spending with her own family without worrying about Maggie, and Trinity had his own life as well. Besides, there was nothing that either of them could really do.

  Instead
, dazed by her new reality, she’d spent much of the last eight days either in her apartment or on short, slow walks through her neighborhood. Sometimes she simply stared out the window, absently fondling the small pendant on the necklace she always wore; other times, she found herself people-watching. When she’d first moved to New York, she had been enthralled by the ceaseless activity around her, by seeing people rushing down into the subway or peering up into office towers at midnight with the knowledge that people were still at their desks. Following the hectic movements of pedestrians below her window brought back memories of her early adulthood in the city and the younger, healthier woman she once had been. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since then; it also felt as though the years had passed in the blink of an eye, and her inability to grasp that contradiction made her more self-reflective than usual. Time, she thought, would always be elusive.

  She hadn’t expected the miraculous—deep down, she’d always known a cure was out of the question—but wouldn’t it have been great to learn that the chemotherapy had slowed the cancer a little and bought her an extra year or two? Or that some experimental treatment had become available? Would that have been too much to ask? To have been given one last intermission before the final act began?

  That was the thing about battling cancer. The waiting. So much of the last few years had been about waiting. Waiting for the appointment with the doctor, waiting for treatment, waiting to feel better after the treatment, waiting to see whether the treatment had worked, waiting until she was well enough to try something new. Until her diagnosis, she’d viewed waiting for anything as an irritation, but waiting had slowly but surely become the defining reality of her life.

  Even now, she suddenly thought. Here I am, waiting to die.

  On the sidewalk, beyond the glass, she saw people bundled up in winter gear, their breath making clouds of steam as they hurried to unknown destinations; on the street, a long line of cars with glowing taillights crawled through narrow lanes lined by pretty brick town houses. They were people going about their daily lives, as though nothing out of the ordinary were happening. But nothing felt ordinary now, and she doubted things would ever feel ordinary again.

  She envied them, these strangers she would never meet. They were living their lives without counting the days they had left, something she would never do again. And, as always, there were so many of them. She’d grown used to the fact that everything in the city was always crowded, no matter the time or the season, which added inconvenience to even the simplest things. If she needed ibuprofen from Duane Reade, there was a line to check out; if she was in the mood to see a movie, there was a line at the box office, too. When it came time to cross the street, she was inevitably surrounded by others, people rushing and jostling at the curb.

  But why the rush? She wondered about that now, just as she wondered about so many things. Like everyone, she had regrets, and now that time was running out, she couldn’t help dwelling on them. There were actions she’d taken that she wished she could undo; there were opportunities she’d missed and now would never have the time to do. She’d spoken honestly about some of her regrets in one of her videos, admitting to feeling unreconciled to them, and no closer to answers than when she’d initially been diagnosed.

  Nor had she cried since her last meeting with Dr. Brodigan. Instead, when she wasn’t staring out the window or taking her walks, she’d focused on the mundane. She’d slept and slept—averaging fourteen hours a night—and had ordered Christmas gifts online. She’d recorded but hadn’t yet posted another Cancer Video concerning her last appointment with Dr. Brodigan. She’d had smoothies delivered and tried to finish them as she sat in the living room. Recently she’d even tried to have lunch at Union Square Cafe. It had always been one of her favorite places to grab a delicious meal at the bar, but the visit ended up being a waste, since everything that crossed her lips still tasted wrong. Cancer, taking yet another joy from her life.

  Now it was a week until Christmas, and with the afternoon sun beginning to wane, she felt the need to get out of the apartment. She dressed in multiple layers, assuming she would stroll aimlessly for a bit, but once she stepped outside, the mood to simply wander passed as quickly as it had come. Instead, she started toward the gallery. Though she wouldn’t do much work, it would be comforting to know that all was in order.

  The gallery was several blocks away and she moved slowly, trying to avoid anyone who might bump into her. The wind was icy and by the time she pushed through the doors of the gallery a half hour before closing, she was shivering. It was unusually crowded; she’d expected that the holidays would diminish the number of visitors, but clearly she’d been wrong about that. Luckily, Mark seemed to have things under control.

  As always when she entered, heads turned in her direction and she noted dawning looks of recognition on some faces. Sorry. Not today, folks, she suddenly thought, offering a quick wave before hurrying to her office. She shut the door behind her. Inside, there was a desk and an office chair, and one of the walls featured built-in bookcases piled high with photography books and keepsakes from her far-flung travels. Across from the desk was a small gray love seat, just big enough to curl up on if she needed to lie down. In the corner stood an ornately carved rocker with flowered cushions that Luanne had brought from her country house, lending a touch of warmth to the modern office.

  After piling her gloves, hat, and jacket on the desk, Maggie readjusted her kerchief and collapsed into her office chair. Turning on the computer, she automatically checked the weekly sales figures, noting the spike in volume, but realized she wasn’t in the mood to study the numbers in detail. Instead, she opened another folder and began clicking through her favorite photos, finally pausing at a series of images she’d taken in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, last January. At the time she’d had no idea it would be the last international trip she would ever take. The temperature had been well below zero the entire time she was there, with biting winds that could freeze exposed skin in less than a minute; it had been an effort to keep her camera working because the components grew finicky in temperatures that low. She could remember repeatedly tucking the camera inside her jacket to warm it against her body, but the photographs were so important to her, she’d braved the elements for almost two hours.

  She’d wanted to find ways to document the poisonous levels of air pollution and its visible effects on the population. In a city of a million and a half people, nearly every home and business burned coal throughout the winter, darkening the sky even in brightest daylight. It was a health crisis as well as an environmental one, and she’d wanted her images to spur people to action. She’d logged countless photographs of children covered in grime as a result of stepping outside to play. She’d caught an amazing black-and-white image of filthy cloth that had been used as drapery for an open window, dramatizing what was happening inside otherwise healthy lungs. She’d also sought out a stark panorama of the city and finally nailed the image she wanted: a brilliant blue sky that suddenly, immediately gave way to a pale, almost sickly yellow haze, as though God himself had drawn a perfectly straight line, dividing the sky in two. The effect was utterly arresting, especially after the hours she’d spent refining it in post.

  As she stared at the image in the solace of her office, she knew she would never be able to do something like that again. She would likely never travel for work again; she might never even leave Manhattan, unless she gave in to her parents and returned to Seattle. Nor had anything in Mongolia changed. In addition to the photo essay that she’d contributed to the New Yorker, a number of media outlets, including Scientific American and the Atlantic, had also tried to raise awareness regarding the dangerous levels of pollution in Ulan Bator, but the air, if anything, had grown even worse in the last eleven months. It was, she thought, yet another failure in her life, just like her battle with cancer.

  The thoughts shouldn’t have been connected, but in that instant, they were, and all at once she felt tears begin to form. She was
dying, she was actually dying, and it dawned on her suddenly that she was about to experience her very last Christmas.

  What should she be doing with these last precious weeks? And what did quality of life even mean when it came to the actuality of day-to-day living? She was already sleeping more than ever, but did quality mean getting more sleep to feel better, or less sleep so the days seemed longer? And what about her routines? Should she bother making an appointment to have her teeth cleaned? Should she pay off the minimum balance on her credit cards or go on a spending spree? Because what did it matter? What did anything really matter?

  A hundred random thoughts and questions overran her; lost in all of it, she felt herself choke before letting go completely. She didn’t know how long the outburst lasted; time slipped away. When she was finally spent, she stood and swiped at her eyes. Glancing through the one-way window above her desk, she noticed that the gallery floor was empty, and that the front door had been locked. Strangely, she didn’t see Mark, even though the lights were still on. She wondered where he was until she heard a knock at the door. Even his knock was gentle.

  She considered making an excuse until the evidence of her breakdown had subsided, but why bother? She’d long since stopped caring about her appearance; she knew she looked awful even at the best of times.