Life, on the Line by Grant Achatz (leveled readers .TXT) 📗

didn’t laugh. She was helpless and panicking, and my attitude was not helping matters.

The IV fluids hit my bloodstream to hydrate me, and I knew it would be a battle to get home before the urge to vomit hit me. I hoped I could make it all the way home, and I drove hard on northbound Lake Shore Drive. We had made it to Navy Pier, about the midpoint of the trip, when I began to lose the fight. I looked toward the shoulder, and traffic prevented me from pulling over, so I grabbed one of the strategically placed large plastic cups I kept in the console, placed it under my mouth, eased off the accelerator, and vomited into the cup. I just kept driving. This was normal. My mom was horrified.

We arrived home at five to find that the burn masks I had ordered on the Internet had arrived. I was pretty excited to try these out, so I went upstairs and applied them to my face, hoping they would ease the pain. My mom took her spot on the couch. With my face wrapped in bandages I plunked down next to her and we sat in silence for what felt like hours.

It was a Thursday at 5:30 P.M., and I realized that the first guests were arriving at Alinea while I sat on my couch covered in bandages feeling like death and my mother periodically began to sob next to me. My mind raced between dark, amplified thoughts of my own death to worries about the mundane. Every thought was a disaster and was working over my emotions like a pro fighter hitting me with body shots, wearing me down.

I hope they remember to order roe from Stallard.

Will the regular tables be disappointed that I’m not there?

Do they need me tonight?

I love fall. I wonder if this will be my last fall.

Will Heather stay with me if they cut out my tongue? It’s not fair to her.

This treatment won’t work. It will come back. This is all for shit.

What will the boys do after I die? What will they become?

Nick will know what to do for the funeral.

I felt my mom’s hand come to rest on my forearm. I looked up and she was looking at me and tears were running down her cheeks. “Why is she crying?” I wondered. Then she reached up with her other hand and wiped the tears from my face with a tissue.

Guess I started it.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

I couldn’t respond. I just sat there shaking my head, my emotions hindering any chance of articulation. I tried, but my sobbing choked off the words. It’s a good thing I couldn’t tell her what I was thinking:

I look like a fucking Martian.

I can’t taste, talk, or swallow.

I am too young to die.

The restaurant was doing fine. Chef Pikus grew immensely as the responsibility for day-to-day operations shifted firmly to his shoulders. Grant’s hours slowly diminished as the radiation took its toll. I would walk in to see Pikus, head down, working at a frantic pace. “How’s it going, Chef?”

“It’s going,” he grunted at me with a weak smile. But I knew he was killing himself to make it happen, each and every day.

Suddenly, though, without really noticing at first, Grant wasn’t there. I knew he was at a low point, and while I would have wanted to be pampered, he wanted to be alone. Still, I didn’t get any e-mails from him, and he wasn’t online or logged into his e-mail account. I occasionally got a few words: “Feel like shit, can’t eat, puking, sweating.” If he wasn’t at the restaurant at all and wasn’t checking in, I knew it must be bad.

I e-mailed to ask what I could do to help, if there was anything I could bring him. I heard back two days later, “No, thanks.”

Finally I couldn’t take it any longer and drove by his apartment and rang the bell. After a few minutes he came to the door and I was horrified by his appearance. He waved a hand at me but said nothing, and did not offer to let me in.

“Hey. I came by to see if I could bring you some soup or help you wash up or something.” I was reaching for something to do, knowing that nothing was possible or desired. I really just wanted to see if he was alive. He shook his head at me.

I told him I would leave him alone and it was good to know he was surviving. “Another week,” was all I could muster, referring to his few remaining treatments. “Just another week.”

He shut the door and I got back in the car and drove to Alinea. Dave came over and asked if I’d seen Grant.

“Yeah, I saw him. He looks good,” I lied.

CHAPTER 26

I walked into the treatment room for the last time and sized up the linear accelerator, the official name for the machine that administered the radiation. I removed my shirt and turned to the counter where the techs kept my custom-fitted mouthpiece. It was designed to position my tongue for accurate radiation exposure, not for comfort. I forced my mouth open and slid it in. The smell of blood instantly reached my nose. I couldn’t taste it, but I knew it was there. The tech entered the room and greeted me for the second time that day. “All right, last time, eh?”

I shook my head in agreement as I laid down on the platform. They strapped my head in, stepped out of the room, and the machine hummed to a start. “Yep. Last fucking time,” I thought to myself.

I had made it.

After the machine ground to a halt and they freed me from the harness, I sat up and began to gather my things. “Do you want these?”

I turned and saw the attendant holding my head harness and mouth guard. I shook my head no and then garbled, “I won’t need those again.” She explained