This story was originally written for my Honors Creative Writing project at CCAC. The goal of this project was to write one story from multiple perspectives while maintaining continuity and meaning.

The Death of Vincent Mercer

The Death of Vincent Mercer

Prelude – Vincent’s Evening

I have never liked the way people look at you when they know you’re dying. I’ve seen it enough times to know. The head tilt. The careful, hushed voice. The way they choose their words like they’re afraid the wrong one might finish you off. I’ve been sick most of my life in one way or another, and that look is the thing I’ve dreaded more than any of it. More than the treatments, more than the waiting rooms, more than the results. The pity. The way you stop being a person and start being a situation.

I was eight years old the first time I was told I was probably going to die. Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the doctors said, which meant nothing to me at the time except that I would be missing school and my mother would be crying in the hallway outside my room. I was sick for a while, then I beat it. I went back to school. I grew up.

But I got sick again, then again. Different forms, different places, different waiting rooms with the same bad lighting and the same hushed, delicate voices. I have spent more of my life than I care to count in treatment of one kind or another. I am not complaining. I am just explaining.

There are only two parts to life: the living, and the dying. What I learned, somewhere in the middle of it all, is that you can let the dying define you or you can let the living define you.

I chose the living.

I chose it deliberately and passionately. I married the most remarkable woman I have ever known. I built a strong career, built a beautiful home, and I’ve filled that home with people I love as often as I could. I threw parties. I offered good wine, good food. I’ve stayed at the table until the candles burned down more times than I can count—because I knew better than most people that there was no guarantee of another table.

I know. You can’t take money to the grave. That was never the plan, anyway. I’ve ensured that my wife has plenty more than she could ever need—even though she assures me she could support herself—and I’m grateful that I’m able to distribute much of my wealth amongst friends, family, and charities. A final gift.

The tumor they found this time is in my brain. I have known about it for a year and a half. I stopped treatment in the spring because the treatment had stopped working, and because I have done this enough times to know when the fight is over. I am at peace with that in a way that would probably surprise people if I told them.

So I’m not telling anyone.

I have lived half a life, maybe. But I’ve lived it like two.

I don’t like funerals either. What I’m doing instead is throwing one last dinner party. I want my yard full of people I love, eating good food, talking too loud, and I want to sit in the middle of all of it and just look around. No pity. No hushed voices. Tonight, for a few hours, nobody has to know anything except that there is good wine and the yard looks beautiful and they are glad they came.

Evelyn understands. She always does. We’ve been doing this together for a long time—the parties, the planning, the yard full of people and food and music—and this one is just the last one. She knows that. I know that.

There are three people I’ve been thinking about more than everyone else.

Danny I’m not worried about. Danny has always known how to just be there, and tonight will be no different. He’ll come early, he’ll help with the chairs, and at the end of the night when everyone else has gone home I’m going to tell him the truth. He deserves that. Thirty years is a long time to be someone’s best friend and I won’t leave without saying it to his face.

Curtis is harder. We were just kids when we met. He lived across the street from me. We were like brothers. Then we lost fifteen years to something that I still don’t quite understand. Evelyn tracked him down for me. For a long time, I just knew he was gone, and I didn’t know why, and after a while you stop asking why and just carry it. I’m glad he’s coming. He doesn’t know how badly I need him here.

And then there’s Laura. My new neighbor, and my final new friend. I barely know her and her husband Omar, which is its own kind of ache. Evelyn loves her. Six months of being neighbors and a handful of simple conversations and something about her just feels like we were meant to be friends. She worked hard for her life. I can see it in the way she looks at things—like she still can’t quite believe she’s here. I want her to stay. She makes me feel sorry that I can’t.

The yard looks beautiful. It looks the way it always looks when Evelyn has been working since morning. I found my spot near the patio a little while ago and I’ve just been sitting here watching her finish. She knows I’m watching. She hasn’t looked over.

I think I hear the gate.