THE TREES

Dan Lewis was not having the best day of his life. He sat there, his right knee bouncing in what he called his “knock around” khakis. The day hard started casually, as any day off from work might, and he threw on some comfortable pants and a slightly faded polo shirt he’d had for years. The knee was bouncing, though, in the familiar way it did when he was either excited or uncomfortable, but today was not really a day for either of those feelings. Today was different and it was worse.

He listened intently to Doctor Rasmussen (Leo to his friends and even a few patients who knew him outside of the office) as he described what the next 6-12 months of Dan’s life was most likely going to be like. He was missing every other word or so because of the shock. No one is ever ready to be told they are dying, but for Dan, it was the timing of the conversation that made it harder to bear.

As if anyone is ever truly ready for this kind of news, he and his fourteen-year-old daughter, Annie, had spent the morning talking about college and marriage and all the things that he wanted so desperately to be there for as she became an adult. Every other word Dr. Rasmussen said was intertwining with the words of Annie in his head. It was almost like they were fighting to see which ones would be heard.

Cancer was not on the agenda even though he had known it was a possibility since he started dropping weight a few months back for no apparent reason. When the lower back pain got to the point where Dan knew it was worth talking to his GP, it was probably already too late. Grandpa Ron had died of pancreatic cancer when Dan was just a boy and, Dan thought, it was just his turn to perpetuate the cycle.

He had asked Dr. Rasmussen about this possibility during his first visit. You know the one, right, where the doctor assures you they just want to rule out the worst? Well, so much for assurances, Dan thought. So much for plans and so much for the future. Dan realized, at that moment, that what he had to go on was right now.

“Do it now,” he said aloud.

Dr. Rasmussen stopped talking and looked at Dan with a mix of compassion, understanding, and a sort of steely professionalism. Dan found it comforting in that moment as he repeated himself.

“Do it now. I’ve got to do it all right now,” he said before trailing off when he heard his own voice rattling around in his head.

Dan and the doctor talked a while longer but there was not much else to say. Dan apologized for not catching everything Dr. Rasmussen had told him and the only slightly older gentlemen walked him through next steps. There would be more tests (Dan nodded, looking down) and there were new protocols available all the time.

“You’ve been coming to me for a long time, and I know you’re a fighter, Dan. That’s not just some doctor bullshit, either, but you’re going to have to want to fight. This is not the time to do anything halfway. Do it now, like you said.”

The men stood up. Rasmussen was a few inches taller than Dan on a good day, but the lower back pain Dan had been experiencing made it hard for him to reach his full 5’11”. For the first time, Dan noticed the Doc had a few inches on him. He always told people, when he was younger that he was six feet tall, but for a second, Dan felt really, really small.

Dan banished that thought from his mind, though, and shook Dr. Rasmussen’s hand slowly, making sure to make eye contact like his father had taught him. Then he turned and walked out of the office.

On the walk to his dark gray Yukon XL parked in the lot, the one with the failing transmission, and more miles than you could walk in twenty lifetimes, Dan remembered an old episode of Seinfeld where the gang is all trying to meet up to see a film called, “Prognosis Negative” and he laughed aloud. It might have been the last time he laughed that day.

What would he tell his family? They would all be home when he got there with the kids home from school this week for spring break and his wife, Jan, who worked from home finishing up her day just before he would arrive. She had been so positive that morning, chiding him about wasting a day off over nothing.

“It’s probably just the mattress,” She said.

She’d been pushing for a new mattress for months and neither of them had been sleeping well. Dan now wished it were that easy. Would a new mattress from one of those ads he heard all the time cure cancer, too? Would it buy him an extra 100 days if he tried it out?

His thoughts drifted back to his family. How would he look at them? As much as he didn’t know what to say, the need to see them was stronger than he could have imagined. He wanted to see them all so badly at that moment.

Ever the planner, he knew Jan would dive right in and start figuring out what they would do. That was her thing. Planning. Figuring things out. She would clamp down her feelings, take charge, and throw herself into working this out.

He was the one who saw how these things would work out. Without thinking about the streetlights, or anything, for that matter, that he was passing in the Yukon, he saw what would come over the next few weeks and months. Eventually his cancer, no, the reality of his death, would consume her completely and she would break down in his arms and this would be wasted time that he couldn’t spare.

The kids were another thing. How could he tell them? How would he share all the things he wanted to share with them?

*****

When he arrived home, Jan knew the news wasn’t good just by looking at Dan. She knew him as well as anyone on earth, at least she thought at the time, and she was not fooled by his “I have something to tell you and it’s not good” smile.

Dan was used to giving people bad news. It was part of his job. As a partner in a call center, he had to give people bad news on a regular basis, although usually he was telling them to go share it with someone else. He hated letting go of things, people, ideas, but sometimes you had to do it.

In the previous six months, he had been the bearer of bad news for just shy of three dozen employees due to the ebb and flow of the sales world. While they had a lot of great clients at work, it was always a revolving door. Selling technology, well, conversations about technology, was a business that moved quickly.

Dan had worked his way up in the business and knew that even the worst callers could sometimes turn it around if they just got on the right campaign. Dan preferred to move his people around until they found the right fit, but some people just never fit. You have to want to be good on the phones and Dan knew this to be true, even if he hated to lose people.

Dan loved to say, “Phone work is hard.” It was even written on a plaque in Dan’s office, and he put it there for a reason. He wanted people to know this from the minute they came to work for him, and he insisted that his onboarding trainers started off every new hire session with this quote.

His partner and friend, John Rawls, didn’t think this was a good idea at first, but it grew on him. Dan had a way of explaining things to people that helped them believe in themselves. He knew, instinctively it seemed, how to get people on the same page and how to get past whatever challenge people were having that stopped them from believing they could be successful.

Layoffs were part of the game, though, and Dan had gotten used to using his “I have something to tell you and it’s not good” smile.

Jan was often the one who helped him work through the feelings of frustration that would go home with him on these days. The tough days. She would help him believe that he could carry on and be successful, even when it felt like he was failing.

Dressed in her exercise clothes, Jan must have just gotten home from a walk in the neighborhood when Dan walked through the door off the carport. She was in the long, rectangular kitchen drinking water from her favorite glass. It was a 70s style glass with different colored rings going up and down the glass. She loved it and he loved that she loved it.

The Lewis family lived in an older, somewhat affluent section of Phoenix near a historic hotel called The Biltmore. It was a comfortable house, old, but they had done some updates over the years to make it fit their family better, although space was not an issue. For the five Lewis’s, it was plenty of room.

The house itself was kind of a maze. You could walk a hallway that basically a square if you included the screened in patio on the north side of the house. There were five bedrooms, a dining room, a living room, a large den, and an office. The front of the house faced a quiet cul-de-sac with neighbors on the right and left, but no one’s front door was particularly close to theirs.

The backyard was large. In typical Phoenix fashion there was a swimming pool, but there was also room enough next to the pool for a good game of whiffle ball or badminton. Along the back of the fence, there were lots of mature trees. A couple of pine trees flanked several eucalyptuses and the obligatory citrus.

The trees were what made Dan fall in love with the house when he and Jan were looking to buy in the early 1990s. There was something so peaceful about them and it made you forget there was no neighbor directly behind the house, the canal that split their neighborhood from the one just to the north.

The fence line was set about ten feet into the edge of the property, so there were trees on either side of the block wall. The previous owners had valued their privacy, so this area of the yard was thick with foliage and trees creating a layer of seclusion to the Lewis family would learn to appreciate over the years. There was a gate, but most of the bikers, dog walkers, neighbors, and joggers probably never noticed it.

Hidden among the creeping fig, wisteria, and honeysuckle that lined the block wall was a gate. It was blocked to the northwest and to the east by trees, so unless it was opened as someone was passing by at the perfect angle, you would never know it was there. The latch was on the inside and there was a thin chain that laid under the creeping fig to get back in if you needed to do so.

Sometimes Dan and Jan (the rhyme was not lost on them, ever) would slip out the gate that was almost hidden in their fence and walk the canal together after work or on the weekends. This was time for them to unwind and talk about their days. Sometimes it was a just a quiet walk and people watching, but lately, Dan had begged off when Jan invited him.

Dan knew that their sons, Cole, who was 17, and J.R. (Short for John Randall), who was 22, would slip out that back gate to meet girls, smoke weed, drink, etc., but he never let on. The neighborhood was safe, and everyone watched out for everyone else’s kids. He hoped Annie hadn’t figured this out yet, but she was the smartest of the kids, so she probably had.

Today, though, as Dan measured the look on Jan’s face as he walked in the door, all he wanted to do was hold her hand and slip through the back gate one more time without anyone noticing. They needed to talk.

*****

It wasn’t as bad as he thought.

As he and Jan walked along the canal, Dan laid out what Dr. Rasmussen had shared with him. Jan was quiet for a long time. A single tear was perched outside her tear duct, ready to fall at any time, but it held on for the quarter mile it took Dan to get through what he had to say.

They stopped when they got to 32nd Street and looked at each other like they had done many times before. Usually this is where they would decide whether to cross the busy Phoenix street and head into the land of the rich and famous or turn back and make the loop between 32nd and 40th Street.

Today was different.

Today they couldn’t hear the cars rushing by or the footsteps of the joggers passing them. Jan looked into his eyes and the tear fell. Seeing this made Dan’s own tear ducts kick into overdrive as well. They stood there, crying, looking into each other’s eyes, saying the first of many goodbyes.

When they got home, they decided to call Cole and Annie into the den to talk about the news. With J.R. down in Tucson at University of Arizona, they decided to drive down over the weekend and let him know in person. There was little chance of him reaching out to anyone before that as he was busy with work and school.

Dan sat in his favorite place. The brown corduroy lazy boy had seen better days, but it was still comfortable, and everybody knew it was “Dad’s chair.” It was adjacent to the L shaped couch so that everyone could watch a movie together, play Scrabble or Monopoly, or have one of the many family meetings the Lewis family tended to have.

As Jan went to collect the kids, Dan thought about how to start the conversation. While they were walking, he just blurted it out.

“Rasmussen says I have a large mass in my pancreas and my options are very limited.”

From that point, he had just talked and talked and gotten everything he had been thinking about for the previous hour or so off his chest. This was not the way to go with the kids. He knew he would have to be gentle, but not give any false hope. He knew that was a bridge they would have to cross on their own all too well.

He fumbled in his pocket for his iPhone and pulled up his browser to look up how to tell you kids you were dying.

He saw a ton of results and started scanning the first few things that popped up. It was overwhelming and Dan instantly wished he would not have looked at this. There was no way he would remember all the things on these lists. One article from an Irish website caught his eye, though, and he scanned it quickly.

It said to give out the information gradually and do this in a comfortable place. Dan was glad he had gotten one thing right. They were definitely in a comfortable place. There had been many celebrations in this room.

Some of the celebrations were immortalized and on the walls around him. Jan was something of a photographer and their home was a showcase for her pictures. Most of these were of family and shots from various vacations. Dan often lamented that Jan was not in many of the photographs because she was the one behind the camera, and it really sunk in today.

He wanted to see her face, as much as possible, and preferably with the kids there and smiling, too.

Dan looked at one of the pictures on the mantle above their fireplace. It was of himself and the kids at their cabin in Strawberry. Next to it was a picture of he and Jan that J.R. had taken when he was about 14. She was laughing at him because he had just said something really dumb.

J.R. always told his friends that he took the picture. He would say something like, “This is my parents in their natural environment. He’s an idiot but she’s entertained.”

Jan did often say that she was entertained by him, but now she was gathering their kids to tell them the worst news they could share.

Dan had tried to go the gentle route the Irish writer had shared. He started off by saying that he had just come from an appointment with Dr. Rasmussen and that the news was “not very good.”

Both Jan and Dan had expected Cole to say something sarcastic like, “When’s the funeral?” but he didn’t. It would have been just like Cole, though. Sarcasm was his sword and shield lately. He was a senior in high school and the only one of the kids remotely interested in what his dad did for a living.

Cole talked about taking a gap year and working on the phones to learn the business all the time, but that was not what his parents wanted. He was a natural and would be great, Dan thought, but he also wanted Cole to have the college experience he never got to have. Watching J.R. bloom from a distance was one of Dan’s favorite things.

Cole was silent now, though, and it was Annie who broke the ice.

She asked what was wrong. Dan said that he had pancreatic cancer and he would probably not have as much time with them as he would have liked. Dan was always as precise as he could be with his language, so hearing the word “probably” from their Dad’s mouth did not sit well with the kids.

There were tears. Lots of tears. Anger, too. Cole continued to be quiet. He got up abruptly and left the living room. When Dan got up to follow him, Jan touched his arm and quietly asked him to sit back down. Jan always knew when to give the kids some space.

Annie sobbed and shook her head from side to side as if to say, “No, that can’t be true.”

Dan stood up and moved over to the couch and sat between his wife and daughter and put his arms around them both. All their stories on the walls around him. All the stories he got to be in before…

*****

Sleep did not come easy for Dan that night. He was restless. When he did eventually talk to Cole later that evening, the two of them spent more time sitting in silence than actually speaking. Dan assured Cole that he was going to fight and get as much out of life as he could. He also let Cole know that his reaction earlier had not hurt his feelings at all.

Cole was the most like Dan in a lot of ways. He was business-like and direct when he was uncomfortable, but also had a way of seeing things that showed real empathy for others. He just wasn’t always sure how to share it and, like his dad, he often kept things to himself.

When Cole apologized for walking out of the room earlier, Dan told him he understood. He shared with Cole that he had felt the same way when he was younger and found out his grandfather, Ron, had died.

Ronald Everett Lewis, aka Grandpa Ron, was 61 years old when he died in 1972. Dan was eight years old at the time his father, Rob, had told him and refused to believe that his grandfather was dead. He had run from the room, looking for his grandmother, Laura, who was known only as “Gramma” to Dan. Gramma would tell him it wasn’t true, and everything would be okay.

Cole listened intently. There were so many things about his dad’s life he didn’t know. Cole had often wondered why Dan rarely talked about Grandpa Ron because his picture was on his desk at the office. When Cole would ask about him, Dan would just say something like, “He was a great guy” or “He would have loved you.”

Cole could see the pain on his dad’s face as he talked about his grandfather. He had been close to Grandpa Rob before he had died a few years earlier, but he had started to get sick well after Cole was the age Dan was and Cole had a stronger understanding of the situation. He also had J.R. there to explain what was going on, too, but Grandpa Rob had talked about Great Grampa Ron even less.  

Even a glimpse into what his dad was thinking, or feeling, for that matter, was always like a gift for Cole. It’s not that Dan wasn’t there for him or present in his life. Quite the contrary as Dan was a great father in many aspects, but he wasn’t always the best at sharing the quieter parts of himself.  

This seemed different, but as Cole and Dan did their dance of talking and sitting quietly together, it was becoming clear to Dan it was helping Cole to put things in perspective. He loved watching Cole’s brain work. You could almost see the different thoughts crossing his mind as the expression changed on his face. Dan hoped Cole knew how much he loved him.

Words couldn’t express it, Dan thought. The words never seemed to come out right, but he couldn’t help but be encouraged by the measured countenance on his son’s face.

Cole looked more like his mother than he did Dan, but they had the same chin. This was a topic of conversation, a lot because Dan had a good chin. It was strong and it fit nicely with the features he got from Jan’s side of the DNA tree.

Like many high school seniors, Cole was rapidly shedding the look of a boy and was turning into a young man before his parents’ eyes. Like his physical presence, Cole’s room had also transformed a lot of the last couple of years. If they had needed to have this conversation a few years before, Dan would have been hard pressed to find a place to sit, but not anymore.

Cole kept his room neat and tidy now. Dan had pulled the chair from Cole’s desk and had plenty of room to turn it around to face Cole’s bed when he came in to talk. Two years prior, he would have been kicking clothes and shoes and video game debris to either side to make even the shortest path.

Dan got lost in this thought. He wondered what Cole’s room would look after he was gone. What would his first apartment look like? Where would it be? Who would he marry? Would it be Jill?

Cole’s girlfriend, Jill, was often a fixture at the Lewis home. Jan and Dan made it a point to make sure all their kid’s friends were welcome and felt comfortable when they visited. Jan’s parents, Dottie and Bill Wallace, had started this trend and Jan was hell bent on keeping it going. It was “subtle parent trick #2” in Jan’s vernacular which meant, if the kids like being at home, they will be safe and we will know what is going on.

Dan wasn’t sure what was going on in Cole’s mind, but he knew when Cole figured out what he needed, he would let him know.  Dan thought Cole needed some time to think and work through it. The two of them had a strong and evolving bond and even more importantly, there was a mutual respect, too.

For the past year, Cole had been working Evolve Solutions after school and during the summer. Cole got to see a side of his father that the rest of the family was not privy to except at the company picnic or when they would visit the building. As part of the cleaning crew, Cole liked that he got to observe what was going on without anyone really noticing him.

Joining the cleaning crew had been Cole’s idea. He didn’t want any special favors, being the son of a partner, but he wanted to learn the business, and more importantly, he wanted to be part of it. Cole also liked Ferdie Ruiz a lot. Ferdie oversaw building maintenance and was Cole’s boss. He was also someone Dan respected entirely.

Both Cole and Dan were not sure what they would say at work the following day, but there was every chance that Tuesday, November 8, 2016, would be an interesting day.

*****

Jan woke up before Dan. Seeing him lay there, sleeping soundly, almost made it seem like the previous day had just been a bad dream. Then she noticed Annie sleeping on her reading lounge which was kitty corner to their bed, and it all came back.

When Annie was younger, she looked for any excuse to crawl into bed with them. A storm, a barking dog, a scary movie … you name it. Most days, Annie just liked snuggling up to her dad, Jan always thought, but she would snuggle with her, too. Jan replayed Annie’s reaction to Dan’s news as she stared at her sleeping daughter.

Annie’s reaction was what Jan thought it would be.

“She’s the fighter in the family,” Jan told Dan while Annie was in the bathroom washing her face and doing her best to calm down.

“Annie will push you the hardest of all of us. You know that, right?”

Jan had searched Dan’s face to see how he was going to react to that. Did he have fight in him? Jan would have never let him know that she had her doubts, but she did. She was scared.

When it came to work or hell, even playing basketball with the boys in the driveway, Dan was a competitor. He was steady and would outlast anybody, but when it came to things at home, he often let Jan bear the heavy load. He was going to have to fight for his life because she couldn’t do it for him.

Annie, though. Jan was afraid Annie was going to try to take Dan’s fight on all by herself. While Cole was steady and stoic, like his dad, and J.R. was all heart and quick to jump in without thinking, Annie was a spitfire. She should have been a redhead, Jan often thought, but she had Dan’s dark brown hair and blue eyes.

In seventh grade she had taken on the campus bully at her school after going through a bullying prevention workshop put on by a local non-profit. Annie had taken on other bullies before, but now she had the right language and strategy behind her. It was no wonder when she was class President in 8th grade. Everybody loved Annie and she loved to lead.

Jan thought about keeping Annie home today from school. She was a freshman at Camelback High School. The first few months had been tough, going from being a big fish in a small pond to a guppy in an ocean, but she had emerged, as usual, on top.

Over the summer, Annie’s friend, Margot, had convinced Annie to go to a weeklong summer camp called Anytown Junior. It was all about celebrating diversity and understanding different perspectives. When Annie got home, she was invigorated to go out and fight for racial equality and social justice.

During the first few weeks of school, Annie often came home and complained about how little the other students listened to each other.

“How can you learn about anyone if you won’t even listen to them?” she would say, over and over.

Jan thought about one particular exchange between Annie and Dan about this a few months earlier as she looked from her sleeping daughter to her sleeping husband in their darkened room.

“Dad!”

“Daughter.”

“Dad! This is serious.”

“What, honey?”

“Promise me you will never hire someone because of the color their skin.”

“What? Why would I do that? I hire people based on the size of their breasts, honey.” Dan winked at Jan as he said this.

Dan loved teasing Annie about things like that. It was probably inappropriate, but it would get her so exasperated.

“You’re a jerk, Dad. You know what I mean. Promise me.”

“Okay, my love. I will never hire someone based on the color of their skin.”

“You didn’t promise.”

“I promise. I would never do that. I hire the best person for the job, no matter what. I don’t care what color a person is or how old they are or where they live. If they can do the job, come to work every day, and work hard for our clients, that’s what I am worried about.

I hired Nel to run HR because she was the best candidate, not because of anything to do with how she looked or what color she was. She knows what Uncle John and I are looking for and we trust her to always make the right decision for ES and our clients … “

“But …”

“But what? Did I do something you don’t agree with, Annie?”

Annie was exasperated at this point.

“You hired Cole!! He doesn’t neeeeed a job.”

Jan remembered that Dan just laughed and laughed for a minute. Annie pretended to storm out of the kitchen but came back quickly.

“When I turn 16, can I get a job, too?”

“Only if you’re the best candidate. No one cleans a bathroom like your brother.”

“Good answer, Dad. Can Cole clean my bathroom?”

Jan’s smile was barely noticeable in the dark. She shifted to the side of the bed and slipped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom as quietly as possible. Annie and Dan didn’t have to get up for over an hour. This would be a tough enough day for each of them without a lack of sleep getting in the way.

She knew Dan had a tough go of it after talking to Cole. She wondered how it would go with J.R. this weekend and thought she should probably call him in a few hours to set something up for them. It would be good to drive down to Tucson, but it was also a holiday weekend, and he might have plans.

Jan crept out of the bathroom and walked down the hall to her office. If she buried herself in work for the next hour, she would be able to face everyone for a quick breakfast, she hoped. Dan was so much better than she was in the mornings. Could he teach her how to wake up like he did before it was too late?

Another tear perched on her eyelid as she turned her computer on.

*****