Duncan was in crisis. The oncologist ordered he be taken to the intensive care unit on another floor in the London Clinic. I followed the gurney down the hall
and into the elevator. When we arrived on the new floor, I was asked to wait behind a large white screen while he was lifted onto the bed. The doctor came
out from behind the screen.

“Is this the end?” I asked.

​Wearing a face full of brown whiskers tinged with gold, after three weeks away, my twenty-two-year-old son Don returned home. Thrilled to see him, I couldn’t help noting his eyes seemed tired, a heaviness in his steps, rather like a farmer coming in after a long harvest day. He enthusiastically recounted stories, some hair-raising, about working to build houses in a rural village near Coban, Guatemala, with Habitat for Humanity. “I had the most fun I’ve ever had!” he said.
Although he had just arrived the evening before, I urgently needed to tell him about something important. The past many months, we had been working to strengthen our relationship, and in that vein, I felt compelled not to hesitate, but to be honest and direct. If I held back, I might never have the nerve to tell him what had happened.

My eyes never cared for water. I learned to swim grinding my lids tighter than the pine-tarred seam of a skin boot with double sinew stitching. Fingers groping the cold as my arms flexed against currents. My first proper stroke ended with my forehead butting the rockface beneath the overfalls. My brothers pulled me out by my armpits, snorting at the crooked gash across my nose.