"Be it so, friend, as you say. And may you know as well
the friendship of my house, and many gifts
from me, so everyone may call you fortunate."

"The Odyssey," Fitzgerald Translation. Book 15, Lines 649-652.
Used without permission.
 

MICHAEL:

Driving to Jo's is a trip. I don't get lost. I have good sense of direction. And if I'm in doubt, one word-Mapquest.

Mapquest can tell you how you get to Jo's, but doesn't tell you what a pain in the ass it is. How she can get in and out of here in winter, I have no clue.

Least Ally's car can take the bumps. You do this in the 'Stang, well, your joints are in bad shape, they're gonna be in worse shape when you get out of the car. And Kelly's car? Can't even get up the hill to the condo complex where she lives. Only six condos, real secluded, and Jo thinks most of her neighbors are CIA. She's not sure, she's not home much and she never talks to them.

Jo lives in the last unit. #6, it's on the far end, covered by a bunch of trees. I go and ring her bell. I suddenly realize if she's sleeping, this is probably real rude, but ruder to ring the bell and then run away. She can always send me packing.

But she doesn't. She looks a little tired, but I don't think she was asleep. In fact, other than the fact that she really does look like Dolly Parton on one side and Kate Moss on the other, and she's got two drains coming out from under her arm, you'd think it was just, well, Jo.

"Michael. What a nice surprise. Come in, dear." She puts an arm over my shoulder, just friendly-like.

"How're you doing, Jo?"

"I'm fine, dear, I'm fine."

I think she's lying...but maybe not. Maybe she got good news. I hope so.

"Would you like something to drink? I'm rather thirsty, I was just going to get some iced tea."

"That's okay." Jo drinks iced tea all wrong. No sugar, no lemon, no nothing. Best iced tea I ever had was at the shore, where it's all nice and sweet, but Jo wouldn't touch it there. Which I think is real weird. But to each his own.

I offer to get hers, and she tells me to go and sit down. She's listening to the Rolling Stones. You meet Jo, you don't think of her as being a Stones fan, but she's been into them for like forever. Right now she's listening to 'Exile on Main Street.' I don't know if my dad has this album. I don't think so. I think he stopped buying after 'Let it Bleed.' And unlike Dad, Jo went to CDs. Trying to convince Dad to get into the 21st century is tough.

She sits down with me again. "I guess you're wondering if I got my results."

"Well, yeah, actually, I was."

"I did."

I look at her. I'm scared now. Not because of how she looks-she's got no real expression. But I was thinking, if she got the good word, she'd probably tell me faster. And she might smile.

"It...wasn't exactly what I'd hoped."

I just nod. I feel like I'm gonna cry. Shit.

"How bad?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know yet. And I'm not going to get all upset until I do. All I know right now is that none of the tissue margins of what they removed were free of the disease." She puts on her nurse voice for this. I know what a nurse voice sounds like. My mom's a nurse.

"So like, what's that mean?" I feel about five years old here, not 25. I'm like, no, no, no, this can't be happening!

She shakes her head again. "As I said, without further testing, I don't know. And for all I know, it will be very treatable with radiation or chemotherapy. So let's not get all upset before we need to, Michael. While I breathe, I hope."

"Um...like...aren't you kind of scared?"

She nods. "Yes, I am. I'm very afraid. And you can be, too. I know you are. But it's too early for you to be sad. And for me."

"My dad doesn't know yet, does he?"

"No. I'm telling him tonight. He's bringing by pizza from Bustamante's for us."

Good. Gets him out of the house and office and off my case for a while.

He's gonna go nuts when he hears this. I think I might stay out late tonight.

Except I got a hangover and I feel like shit.

I hand her the big envelope I'm carrying. "Got these from the photographer today. My dad wanted me to pick them up."

She opens the envelope, and instead of crying and stuff, her face lights up like it's Christmas. Me, I think if I was missing a body part I used to have-well, at least one that mattered, I am missing an appendix but I don't give a fuck about that-I'd be real bummed to see myself like I used to be.

But not Jo. She's like, this is so nice!

I don't get people sometimes. But it's nice she can feel good about it.

She looked awesome in that dress.

I think about what Kelly will look like in 35 years. I bet she looks just as awesome.

I hope...God. Nothing like this could ever happen to Kelly.

Could it?

No. Not ever.

That's too horrible to think about.

No. Kelly will live forever. Longer than me, at any rate.

And Jo can't die. She can't.

She has to get better. She makes it sound like she can.

I guess I better hold on to that. Or I'm just gonna cry.
 

We talk about me and Kelly and school and what I'm gonna take and what Kelly's taking and stuff like that.

"I wish I knew what to take," I grumble. And I feel stupid doing it. It seems so trivial next to what's happening to her.

"Hard choice. And you're such a smart one, Michael."

I feel embarrassed.

"Having that many talents makes it hard to choose," she says, smiling.

Everyone keeps telling me how smart I am. Kelly, my mom, Jo, the prof, Ally, Carl, hey, just about everyone but my dad. To listen to him, I'm the village idiot. Even Langly says, sure, you can do it, but not my dad.

"I dunno. I think I'm just a moron, I got no idea what I'm gonna do with my life."

"That's reasonable. You're just a young man. A lot of people your age don't know what they will do with their lives."

"Not that young. And everybody's on my case about it."

I shouldn't be bitching to her. She has enough troubles.

"Only the people that care about you," she says it real gentle.

Yeah, yeah, I know-but it's a pain in the ass.

Like I'm not trying or something.

Get real, people. I mean, I only think about it about as often as I do about sex. Which, by the way, is constantly.

"I just wish everyone'd quit pushing on me. 'Specially my dad. It's like nothing I ever do is good enough."

She smiles. "Now, Michael, I know that that's not true. Your dad is very proud of you. And he loves you more than anything in the world."

"Yeah, well, he's got a hell of a way of showing it."

She laughs a little, which annoys me. I mean, this isn't funny to me. "Michael, you know your father."

No, I don't. Not very well, at any rate.

"You know that he's a very private man."

"Yeah, well, wish he'd be a little more private lately about busting on me. And all of us. He is just kicking ass everywhere."

She smiles at me a little, but loses it. "You know he's under a great deal of stress. I'm afraid I've been part of that stress, Michael. And I never meant for him to take it out on you. Try to be a little forgiving of him. He's going through a lot right now."

"We all are."

"And he knows it. It's just...this is a very hard time for him."

"Times are tough all over. I mean, can't be any harder for him than for you."

She laughs, but just a little, and this time it's a gentle laugh. "Michael...do you remember the funeral for Kelly's mother and sister?"

Well, duh. Little hard to forget about.

She turns serious again. "Michael, what I'm going to tell you, I don't think your father wants you to know, but I think you should at least be aware of what's happening with him."

I don't like it when conversations start out like this...

"Is he sick?"

"Well, as you know, his ulcer is getting worse...and he, of course, won't do anything about it. He's a very stubborn man."

No duh!

"But no, that's not it. And yes, he's been worried about me, that's true. But he worries about all of you, all the time. That's just the way he is. You're not going to change that, dear. Melvin was born a worrywart, and he'll die one. I think he needs something to worry about in order to feel complete." She gives this wicked little smile for a second.

"I keep worrying...I mean, sometimes I think he's gonna have another heart attack."

"Hmm. I can't say he would, and I can't say he wouldn't. He does need to take better care of himself, though."

"I'm trying to do the best I can."

"And he knows it, dear, he really does."

"So what's his problem?"

She hesitates. I think she doesn't really want to tell me this, but I think she feels like she's got to. And if this is something bad, well, she's got enough details to sweat.

"Michael, dear, your father's in love."

"Say what?" I'm not sure I heard that right.

"He's in love."

"He told you this?"

"In so many words...Friday night, after the ball, we were at Alyssa's eating breakfast, having overimbibed in champagne, and we got to talking. And in so many words it came out that he's fallen for someone. And hard."

Well, Dad, if he's anything like me, he doesn't fall any other way.

Dad? In love?

"With who?"

"Michael, do you remember a woman who came to the funeral...she came in after the rest of us arrived?"

"Not really." I don't. The whole day was sort of a blur.

"Well, just before the priest opened the Mass, a woman came in, and sat in the back. Very quiet. Your dad spoke to her for a few minutes after it was over. I think you and Kelly had left by then."

"Well, I didn't think anything of it at the time. I thought she might be someone from one of the places he consults. And nothing really fell into place until we were eating and talking...and it clicked. That was the woman."

"She got a name?" I'm like real curious now. And a little bit freaked out.

No, make that a lot freaked out.

She shakes her head. "He didn't give me her name. He says she's a nurse, though."

What is it about my dad and nurses? Married one, friends with one, now he's gone and fallen for one?

Oh Christ.

"He say how he met her?"

"She was one of Byers's nurses when he was in quarantine."

"Not the real loud one, was it?"

"No. The quiet one."

I'm trying to place this lady. Doesn't come to mind. I remember the loud one. She was pushy. But funny, too. And she knew how to put Mulder in his place, which we were all eating up. Apparently she'd taken care of Mulder a few times when he'd happened to get blown apart.

And dammit, she did make the prof better.

The other one...God, why can't I think of her?

"She was short. Freckles. Glasses. And...well, you know how Melvin appreciates certain...features in a woman."

Oh yeah. That I do.

"I can't recall her name, but I probably could find out." Jo has lots of connections to the medical community.

"So like why hasn't he asked her out or anything?" Seems kind of weird. I mean, if I could do it, he sure as hell could...and it's not like he never did it before. He was married, and he and Dee obviously pulled it together...at least for a while...

"Because she's married."

Oh fuck. Leave it to Dad to fall for a married lady.

"And you know your father. He'll respect that if it kills him."

And the rest of us. Course, he keeps it up the way he has been, it won't be respect that kills him, it'll be all of us ganging up on him.

"There is a catch, though."

Huh? I mean, she's married...he better be fucking leaving her alone.

"Her husband...is very, very ill...and dying. I helped her get some resources to assist her in caring for him. I don't think he'll last long. If he's lucky."

"What's he dying of?" This is real weird. And kind of sick.

"We don't know. He was in the Gulf War. And he became ill about a year after he returned. He was in Special Forces."

"Well, like, what about the VA?"

Jo laughs, and this time, it's not gentle. It's hard.

"Michael dear, the VA is fine if you were in a war that your country wants to recognize and if you're dying of something that they can name easily. If you don't fit both categories, you're on your own."

"And this guy?"

"Gulf War Syndrome...but worse. And as you know, the government has never acknowledged the existence of Gulf War Syndrome, let alone attempted to research it, treat it, cure it. Basically, if you come in with anything like this, you'll be turned away at the door."

"Didn't think they could do that."

"They can, and they do." Her voice isn't so gentle now. "As you know, Michael, I run support groups for women who served in Vietnam. The incidence of the disease I have in the general population is about one woman in nine. In the population of those of us who served, it's about one in three. And our survival rates over a five-year-period are far poorer than those of civilian women."

"And nobody's done anything about this?"

"We keep trying. We keep fighting. Telling anyone who'll listen."

It's going in the September issue, I decide. Right then and there.

"Like Jo...do you have data on this?"

"I do. I've been collecting it for years."

"You mind if I borrow it?"

"Not at all...why?"

"I wanna write about it."

She smiles. "I don't think this is going to be a popular topic among your readers, who, from what I understand, are predominantly male."

"We're getting more women. And they need to hear about it."

She thinks about that one. "I'm certainly willing to give you the supporting data. Any avenue we can get this out, is an avenue I'll use."

"My dad never offered?"

"We...we never really discussed it. Not until I found out."

That annoys me. I'm not sure why, but it does.

"I do ask that you not use the names of the women in my groups. One of the things the groups provide is a forum where they can be anonymous and talk freely. You can't violate their confidentiality. If you don't agree to that, no data."

"That's fine." I don't think that should be a problem. I mean, the idea is to let the data drive the story, not the people. Right?

"All right. I'll get you the diskettes." She gets up, kind of slow, but she's still moving around just fine, considering what she's been through.

Must be weird, though. I wonder if she feels off-balance. I know I would.

She's got a computer in her dining room, and she opens up a locked drawer and hands me a box that's half filled with diskettes. They're in all different colors and they're labeled. Jo is organized. Makes my life easier.

"I do want these back, Michael."

"I can copy them right now."

I go over to her computer and copy the diskettes. She really needs a zip drive, or an LS120, or a jaz. Make external storage a lot easier.

"Just make certain you keep them in a safe place-wait a minute, what am I saying? I don't think any security system is more complete in a civilian environment than what you people have." She smiles. "You're really going to do this."

"Yeah, I am."

She smiles. "I've tried to get this published in journals, in newspapers, in magazines...and nobody wants to get near it. You're the first."

"Well, that's kind of cool."

"Not really. It's a little late for a lot of these women."

"Then maybe we gotta make sure it's not too late for anybody else."

That makes her smile. "Now you sound like Melvin's son."

"People say we sound alike on the phone."

"You do. But it's more than just the voice. You remind me very much of your father."

Oh God help me. I run my hand up to my hair, just to make sure it's all there.

So far, so good. This makes her laugh.

"No, I didn't mean the receding hairline, dear. I meant other things."

"Like what?"

"Like that your father is kind, and decent, and good."

Hmm. I wonder if she'd feel that way if she spent an evening in the office with him these days.

But it's kind of nice that she thinks of me that way, even if I know I'm not up to that level.

"Michael dear, I'd really like to take a nap before your father gets here...and I want you to remember that I broke a confidence to him in telling you what I did. I didn't tell you so you would repeat it back to him. I told you so that you could be a little sympathetic."

"I'm not gonna tell him."

"Just try to be a little gentle with him."

"I will."

I just hope he lightens up a bit.

END OF PART 2