“Is it weird that I’ve only ever heard that from women who never made it into a sorority?” I ask.
“Not particularly,” she answers, and stops walking. Grace turns to look at me, and grabbing my hand, she tells me, “We’re almost there.”
I walk with her, or rather, I walk as she pulls me behind her, her grip surprisingly strong for how little strength she must have right now.
“There,” she says, pointing into the darkness.
It takes a minute for me to spot it, but there looming ahead of us is an old Ferris wheel, its dark metal blending in with the night sky.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asks.
The words I’m thinking at the moment are more along the lines of “unsafe” or “terrifying,” but Grace’s almost innocent look of awe and excitement is enough for me to bite my tongue.
“It really is,” I tell her. “How did you know this place was still here, anyway?”
“People never move a graveyard unless they absolutely have to, and this one’s still collecting bodies. Come on,” she says, and starts walking toward the Ferris wheel.
“Where are we going? I seriously doubt that thing’s still got power running to it.”
“Oh, there’s no way. That’s why we’re going to climb.”
Even if I weren’t a doctor, I’d still know this is a bad idea.
“I really don’t think we should,” I tell her.
“And why’s that?” she asks, continuing to walk toward the base of the old ride. “It’s there and we’re here. What’s the problem?”
“For one thing,” I start as I catch up with Grace, “that thing’s falling apart. For another thing, it’s dark. Even if the whole structure doesn’t come toppling down, we’re going to have a hell of a time getting onto any of the cars without falling. For another-”
“I’m sure you have a long list of reasons not to,” she interrupts, “but have you ever stopped to consider the reasons that you should?”
“Like what?” I ask, stepping between her and the rungs of the built-in ladder.
“It’s frightening,” she says. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
“Jumping out of an airplane without a parachute would be frightening,” I tell her, “but that doesn’t mean that you should do it.”
“That’s completely different. This is the one thing that I never did when I was tooling around here with the guys. If it can hold half a dozen football and lacrosse players spread throughout the top three or four cars, I know for a fact it can hold the two of us. Now come on, get out of my way.”
“Grace,” I say, putting my back against the metal rungs, “you’re not ready for this.”
“I’m fine,” she says. “I’m great at climbing shit.”
“I believe you,” I tell her, “but you’re not there right now. You can’t do this.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you needed my help getting over the fence,” I answer.
I feel like an asshole saying it, but it needed to be said. Idealism or not, people have physical boundaries, and a person on chemo, even the kind of dose and frequency Grace is on, tend to reach those boundaries a lot faster than the rest of us.
She’s not saying anything, and she’s not making a play to get around me. With that sentence, however honest, however necessary, I feel like I’ve done what the diagnosis and the treatment hadn’t been able to do: I’ve put a crack in her spirit.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” I tell her. “Let’s get you through this round of chemo, and when you’ve got some more of your strength back, I’ll come back here with you and we’ll climb up there together. What do you say?”
She’s still not saying anything, and it’s killing me.
I’ve had to tell patients a lot of difficult things in the short time I’ve been an oncologist, but I never would have expected that something so bizarre and clearly beyond her present capability would feel just as bad as any prognosis I’ve uttered.