I'd wanted to believe it.
But as the months passed and her condition worsened, those words became something I could no longer bear remembering.
Now Tucker was looking at me with those enormous brown eyes, waiting for an answer.
I took his little hand between mine.
“Buddy, I don't know what's going to happen.”
His expression tightened.
“Does that mean yes?”
“No, sweetheart. It means nobody can promise exactly what will happen. Your doctors are giving you treatment because they're trying very hard to help you get better.”
He looked toward the medical equipment beside his bed.
“Even when the medicine makes me feel bad?”
I nodded.
“Sometimes the treatments that help fight cancer can make you feel pretty miserable along the way. But your doctors are watching you carefully.”
He looked down at Captain Chomp, the stuffed dinosaur resting against his blanket.
“I don't like being sick.”
“I know.”
“I want to run again.”
My throat tightened.
He continued.
“I want to go to the park. I want Mommy to stop crying. And I want to ride my motorcycle.”
I smiled faintly.
“That last one's going to require you to get a whole lot older.”
He didn't smile.
Instead, he looked directly into my eyes.
“Did Sarah want to do those things too?”
I swallowed.
“Yeah, buddy. She did.”
He thought about that.
Then he asked, “Was she scared?”
I looked toward Angie.
She had turned around, and tears were running freely down her cheeks.
I looked back at Tucker.
“Sometimes she was very scared.”
“Did you help her?”
“I tried.”
“How?”
I took a breath.
“I held her hand. I read her stories. Sometimes I told terrible jokes until she laughed.”
Tucker considered that.
“Like Ron's jokes?”
I almost laughed.
“Worse.”
His eyebrows rose.
“That's really bad.”
This time, I did laugh.
So did Angie.
It was only a small laugh, but it softened the terrible silence that had settled over the room.
Tucker squeezed my finger.
“Bear?”
“Yeah?”
“If I get really sick, will you still come see me?”
I looked at him.
The question hurt more than the one about dying.
Because I understood what he was really asking.
He wasn't only afraid of the cancer.
He was afraid that if he became too weak, too tired, or too difficult to care for, the people around him might disappear.
His father had already left.
He had watched his mother lose sleep and struggle to keep their lives together.
Now he wanted to know whether the enormous biker who called him boss would still be there when visiting stopped being fun.