Shark Lover (31 page)

            “She
left this area once she saw the seal attacked I believe. She scattered to a few
miles north. We can still get to her. It should only take a few minutes.” He
spoke as rain started pouring down brutally. 

            “Chris!”
Cathy cried. “It’s pouring down rain, I can barely see anything. How will we
get back?”

            “I
sure didn’t see this coming. We should probably head back. It doesn’t look like
it’s going to clear up anytime soon. There’s a raincoat underneath the fish
cabinet over there.” He pointed to the cabinet as he started driving the boat
away as fast as he could. “Hopefully we can make it back. I can barely see
where we are.”

            Cathy’s
teeth chattered as she shivered in her cold clothes. She was completely
drenched in water and felt as if she had been dumped in a bucket of cold ice.
After grabbing the raincoat, she ran over and stood next to Chris at the wheel.
He was powering up the boat at a speed that felt like they were racing. She
would have preferred to have gone slower in conditions like this, but she knew
that they had to get back to base quickly. The waves were thrashing the sides
of the boat angrily. She grabbed ahold of Chris’s arm in order to stay in place
and to keep from flying all around the boat.

            “Don’t
worry, we’re almost back. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He
whispered comfortingly.

            Cathy
just nodded her head. She didn’t like storms. They had always scared her. When
she was little, she had hid underneath her bed for hours just to avoid the
sound of thunder and the big bolts of lightning. Her mother had always told her
that she dealt with the storms worse than the dog did. Cathy just couldn’t help
it, storms reminded her of a dark time. A time that she didn’t want to
remember.

            “Cathy,
sit down I need to tell you something very important,” Her father said to her
as he made a motion for her to sit down at the kitchen table with him. “Now I
am only telling you right now. Your sister isn’t ready to hear about this yet.
I’m telling you because I think you will be mature enough to handle this.”

            “What
is it Daddy?” She asked in fear. She wondered if he was finally going to tell
her what was going on. For weeks she had questioned why he had always been
leaving mysteriously. She wanted to know where he went and why he kept leaving
them. She didn’t understand why her parents kept fighting. They had always
seemed happy throughout her entire life. She originally had blamed it on her
and Carly getting older. It was never easy to deal with teenagers. She blamed
herself for being difficult when her parents needed her.

            “Sit
down first Cat and then I will tell you. It’s nothing to be worried about. Now
just sit down and relax.” He still pointed at the chair where he wanted to sit
down.

            “Is
everything okay? Does it have to do with you and Mommy? Are you splitting up?
Oh, this is so terrible! I never thought we would have divorced parents! You
both seemed so happy together all of the time.” She cried not wanting to sit
down. She began pacing back and forth throughout the kitchen floor. She
couldn’t believe that this was happening.

            “We’re
not getting divorced Cat. It doesn’t have anything to do with that. It has to
do with me.” He gave up on getting her to sit down. He knew his eldest daughter
too well. He knew her free spirit and her unwillingness to follow the rules. It
had been hard for others to understand her the way that he did. Teachers and
authoritive figures had always said she caused trouble, but what they didn’t
understand was that she was trying to follow her own path.

            “Are
you splitting up then? Is that what this is about? Then you are just blaming
yourself for it?” She couldn’t stop pacing. Her fears were beginning to get the
best of her.

            “No,
Cat we aren’t splitting up. Your mother and I have been fighting a lot because
of my condition.” He explained calmly.

            “What
do you mean your condition? What’s going on Daddy?” She finally sat down in the
chair after exhausting herself by her hardcore pacing habit.

            “This
isn’t easy to say to you and I haven’t told anyone but your mother. Cat, I have
cancer and I only have six months to live.” He looked deep in her eyes pleading
for empathy and held her hand as he saw her eyes grow with worry.

            “What?
Are you sure Daddy? The doctor could be wrong. Maybe he got your condition
wrong.” She said as tears started to come to her eyes. She didn’t want to think
about her father dying. He wasn’t supposed to die this early in his life. She
and Carly were so young. Her father wouldn’t live to see them finish school,
get married or hold his first grandchild. Tears started streaming down her face
and she started thinking of all the things that he would miss.

            “Yes
Cat, I wouldn’t be telling you if the doctor said it wasn’t true. I have been
going to chemotherapy more often now and that’s why my hair is now gone. I
didn’t just decide to go bald, it’s the chemo that is taking it away. I’m
really sorry Cat, I didn’t want to tell you but your mother thinks it’s best
that you know so that we can enjoy these last six months together. I want us to
live our time out to the fullest. I want to spend every day I have left with
you girls and your mother. I’m not going to leave this world full of regret.”
He said looking away from her and out the window. He could see that they sky
was clouding up and it was about to start raining. The rain started hitting the
window pane like the soft tears falling from Cathy’s eyes.

            “Daddy,
why didn’t you tell me sooner? I could have helped you. I would have,” She said
in-between sobs. “I didn’t want you to live in pain. If I would have known
earlier we wouldn’t have had to do all of this stuff that hurt you.”

            “No,
Cat I don’t want to live my life in fear. I don’t know exactly how much longer
I will live, but I don’t want to miss out on your life. If I just sit back and
let myself die, I’m going to miss out on all of your lives. The three of you
mean the world to me and I don’t want to miss out on a second of it.”

            “When
did you find out Daddy?” She asked wiping the tears from her face.

            “I’ve
known for a long time Cat. Since you were a little girl. At that time, you were
just too little to understand. I didn’t want to upset you. It wouldn’t have
been fair to you to know that the whole time you had been alive, your father
was dying,” He said with pain in his voice. “I didn’t want you to go on living
your life that way. At least this way we had years of fun and you didn’t have
to think about a timeline.”

            “But
Daddy, you lied to me!” She said standing up from the table. “I wish I would
have known earlier! It’s not fair, now we only have six months left. If I would
have known sooner, I would have spent more time with you. I wouldn’t have argued
with you. I wouldn’t have been such a brat!” She yelled as a big bolt of
lightning flashed through the window and she screamed. A big boom of thunder
followed and she leapt underneath the table in fear. Slowly crawling out, she
looked at her father’s face and instantly felt bad for what she was saying to
him. She knew it wasn’t his fault and he was just trying to do what was best
for them.

            “Cat,
it’s not like that. I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t want to tell you because
I knew it would ruin our time together. As a father, I have enjoyed seeing you
live your life. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I would have told you
earlier. You wouldn’t have acted like yourself and you would have treated me
differently. I didn’t want it to be like that,” He said explaining rationally.
“I didn’t know that I would end up dying from the cancer. I had just recently
found out that it would be taking my life. In the beginning, the doctors had
told me that it would be curable. I was going to chemotherapy about once a
month, trying to remove the cancer. They thought they would be able to get rid
of it, but that just didn’t happen. It ended up spreading to more places in my
body and now the chemotherapy won’t help to kill it off. I just want these last
few months to be special. I don’t want you to think of me as going away, I want
you to think of it as me just saying see you later.”

            She
looked at her father with sadness in her eyes. She hated that she had to see
him like this. The last thing that she ever wanted in her life was to watch her
father die. She never thought that it would happen like this. He was too young
to be dealing with all of this. Feeling his pain, she went over and hugged him.
Another bolt of lightning lit up the entire house and the thunder was even
louder this time, but she didn’t care. She didn’t have time to be fearful or
scared. She needed to be there for her father when he needed her most. And
right now he needed her more than ever.

            “Cathy?
Is everything okay?” Chris asked as he waved a hand in front of her face.

            “Chris?”
She asked back. “Where are we?” She looked around in confusion as she realized
the boat had been parked safety at the dock and the water was calm. The last
she had remembered was being stuck in the middle of the ocean in a huge storm.
Her clothes still felt wet from the rain. She tried getting up, but she
stumbled. Chris pulled her up from the boat and let her grab his arm as she
tried to steady herself.

            “Well,
I think you blacked out. Are you afraid of thunderstorms by chance? I’m just
assuming that your body went into fear and completely shut off. I was getting
pretty worried about you. I was about to give you CPR, but then I noticed that
you were still breathing.”

            “Yes,
I am afraid of storms. I always have been, but wow I am so sorry about that. I
should have been helping you in that storm, not blacking out from the world. We
might not have made it out alive.” She said still holding his arm to help
herself get off of the boat. For once in her life, she was tired of being near
the ocean. She wanted to be away from it. Just the smell of the salty water and
fish was making her completely sick.

            “Don’t
be so dramatic,” He said smiling at her. “Remember I used to be a sailor. It’s
not the first time that I have been caught in a storm like that. It was a mild
storm anyways. There’s nothing to be afraid about and we’re back on land now.
So that’s always a reassuring feeling isn’t it?”

            “Yes!
You have no idea how happy I am to be back on stable land. It feels great. I
feel great. That’s right, I forgot that you used to sail. That’s definitely a
helpful skill to have. I can see why you are one of the official captains for
Shark Savors now.” She said with happiness.

Spending
time with Chris helped eliminate her pain that she was feeling. She hated being
sad all of the time and moping. It reminded her of when her dad had first died.
For the first few months she hadn’t really wanted to do anything. She mostly
had spent all of her time alone and had missed out on a big chunk of her high
school life. The depression and sadness had overcome her life. She didn’t want
this time to be like that. Marc had been the love of her life, but she didn’t
want to be depressed and sad all of the time. While she was still having
trouble dealing with the loss, it was nice to spend time with a friend who
brought some joy into her life.

            “Would
you like some more tomatoes for your salad?” Chris asked Cathy as he sprinkled
some pepper onto his. “It looks a little dry for you over there.” He sneered at
her from across the table as he watched her twiddle her fork while picking up
the big, leafy greens.

            “Sure,
that would be great. It is a little dry. It’s hard to explain, but I don’t like
dressing on my salad. I like to eat all natural foods.” She said as she grabbed
the tomatoes from Chris.

He
had even chopped them up into bite-sized salad toppings. It was nice to be
around someone who understood what being a vegetarian was like. Sometimes it
was exhausting eating only vegetables and fruits. Chris always had new ideas on
vegetarian meals that Cathy really appreciated. He had even made her a nice
side of vegetarian lasagna. She didn’t have a clue that he kept all of this
delicious food in the lab.

“So
do I, it feels so much better on the body.” He took another bite of his salad
before looking up at her again. “Did you want to go back out on the boat later?
I had someone take over all of my classes for today. I figured it would be an
all-day thing. Actually you can probably hear the kids if you listen close
enough. Even though I had these walls built to be sound-proof, you can still
hear their loud laughter occasionally.” He glanced at the walls and put his ear
closer to one as Cathy giggled.

“You
look silly doing that,” She remarked as she laughed. She had to admit she was
having a good time with Chris. He was taking away the horrible thoughts that
she had been having all day. It was good to be around someone when she felt so
depressed inside. Once she stopped laughing she could hear the kids through the
walls. “They are pretty loud.” She couldn’t believe that they could still hear
them from inside of his office. “I would like to go out again. Once I got off
the boat, I couldn’t even imagine going back out again. But I feel like we
should keep trying. Do you see Mandy on the shark tracker still? Maybe we could
figure out if she’s still there. She was being such a pain before. I think
she’s on to our tricks. Sharks are a lot smarter than they let on.”