The first person I called was my boss. I was suddenly, urgently concerned about being late for work. At the time, I thought the feeling had something to do with being responsible, but I recognize it now for what it was: a way to delay telling the people closest to me. The next person I called was my therapist, Dr. Barbara Gol. She’s a psychologist and psychotherapist, and I’d been seeing her for five years. She occupied that sweet spot that a therapist occupies in your life: She knew me well, but from a certain distance, and had the training and experience to handle a situation like this. I trusted her. I called her, and she agreed to see me right away.

Standing on the downtown 6-train platform, images of surgeries and chemotherapy started flooding my thoughts. I wasn’t suicidal, but it occurred to me that New York, with its skyscrapers, bridges, and subways, offers the terminal cancer patient any number of helpful methods for checking out. An unsung virtue of the greatest city in the world.

TELLING DIDI
Didi and I met in San Francisco in 1994. She’s an editor, too, and we briefly worked together at the same magazine. Didi’s mother was born and raised in Buenos Aires, her father in Berlin. From the start, I thought of Didi as a mix of European and Latin American cultures—smart, sophisticated, stylish, and passionate.

When Didi is happy, she’s happy. When she’s sad, she’s sad. When she’s angry, she’s angry. All that unchecked emoting is one of her most lovable qualities, but in this case, it made me afraid that she might flip out.

Dr. Gol and I talked for some time—she got me settled down. Then she asked me if I’d like to tell Didi right there, now, in her office. It seemed like a good idea. I called Didi, and asked her to come meet me.

When she arrived, about a half-hour later, Didi had that look on her face that people have when they know their life is about to change. As best as I can recall, this is what I said: “I have some bad news. I got the results of my MRI this morning, and there’s a tumor on my hip. They’re not sure what it is yet, but the thing they want me to do is have more tests as soon as possible so they can figure that out. I asked them if it’s possible it’s nothing, and they are pretty certain it’s not nothing.”

Didi didn’t flip. She barely said anything. She just took my hand and held it.

I didn’t know it at the time—in our six years of marriage to that point, Didi and I had never faced anything together this upsetting—but that’s how Didi reacts when something awful happens.

Didi’s father died when she was in high school. He had a heart attack in the middle of the night.

Didi was 14. She wasn’t old enough to cope with something that big, so she basically repressed it. Now that’s what she does when something upsetting happens. On that day, repression proved useful.

THE LIFE FORCE
That night, I gave Abby her bath, read her a story, and put her to bed. I stood by her crib for a moment. What I remember thinking is, Yes, the universe contains a death force, and that force is closer to me than it’s ever been. But there is also a life force.

SUPERSTITION
I have no family history of cancer, other than a grandfather who had prostate cancer when he was in his nineties. I’ve smoked socially but never seriously. I exercise and eat reasonably well, and drink moderately. Recreational drugs only. So what made me sick?

My main theory was 9/11. I lived and worked downtown on 9/11 and for years afterward. The air, as everyone now knows, was far from safe. Of course, I also learned that most cancer experts don’t believe such cancers would show up this fast.

I used to carry my cell phone in my front pocket, next to my left hip. My family used to tease me about eating nothing but orange food—Cheetos, Doritos, Gatorade. Maybe I should have been nicer to people.

I’m not religious, but I found myself praying. For some reason, it was important to me to pray alone and secretly. It was also essential that I take off my glasses and, when I was done, kiss the bottom knuckles of my thumbs three times. It was a kind of obsessive-compulsive ritual—a distraction. At first, I prayed to God to save my life. Then I started proposing more-limited offers. Let me see Abby’s high-school graduation. How about college? Her wedding?

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