Chapter 95

Like everything else, McKayla jumped into the new business feet first. We incorporated ourselves and started working. I knew nothing about financial advising, but I was a pretty good office manager. She handled the accounts, I made sure she knew where everything was.

Our first "clients" were some old friends, Allyson and her new husband J.B. She married into some money and they were very happy together. At our first "business meeting" (a cookout on the back deck), McKayla passed her one of our new custom-printed cards.

"How do you like our new letterhead?" she asked.

"It's nice," Allyson replied, taking a long pull from her margarita.

"It is, isn't it? My secretary made it up," McKayla said with a wink. She leaned in as if to let our friend in on a secret. "And just between you and me ... I'm sleeping with her."

They giggled and I rolled my eyes.

Business was good for another couple of years and the time seemed to fly on by. Maureen was an honour student in school. My lover only became more beautiful. We were making money, but that wasn't really important to us. After all, we had enough already, but we were together and doing something we both truly enjoyed.

I took lots of pictures and video of our time together. I think I wanted to make sure that if ... no, when ... McKayla started to forget, there would always be reminders of our love for each other and for our daughter.

She didn't want me to know about them, but I found out McKayla was recording messages for Maureen. She told our daughter how much she loved her and how proud she was of her. My heart broke when I accidentally came up on the DVD she had hidden in Maureen's baby book. I watched two of the files, then couldn't bring myself to see my wife face the fact that she knew she was going to be lost to us one month.

The day after Maureen turned seven, we got the kind of phone call no one should ever have to take.

It was McKayla's doctor. Her memory was fine and there were no traces of the "shakes" as we began calling them. Both of us knew that it was only a matter of time before the symptoms of McKayla's disease would manifest themselves.

There was an uncomfortable gravity in her doctor's voice as he told us he wanted her to come in and run some more tests after finding something "funny" in her blood work.

After a second batch of tests, McKayla came back with colon cancer. The doctor thought they had caught it early and after a round of chemotherapy, she had surgery, and then another round of chemotherapy.

She faced this new challenge just as she had faced every other one in her life: head-on, with a steely determination and me at her side. I think the cancer was harder on me than it was on her. At least that was the impression I got.

We didn't tell Maureen right away, but she figured it out anyway.

"It's okay, Mommy," she told me with the kind of certainty only seven year-olds have. "Jesus will look out for Mom."

So we prayed together. I put on a strong face, but there was no doubt in our daughter's mind that her mother was going to get through this. I guess faith was another thing Maureen got from McKayla, because—God knows—she didn't get it from me.

After the second round of chemo, the doctors declared her cancer-free. McKayla had lost a little bit of weight, but otherwise seemed healthy.

We continued on with our lives. After all, what choice did we have?

As we got older, I found myself in church a lot more. Maybe it was because McKayla and I both wanted our daughter to be raised in a Christian environment, but when we first were together, I went because McKayla did.

Now, when I was in church, I talked to God. Not out loud (only crazy people do that), but I prayed. Sometimes I was angry. Angry because God had given the most wonderful woman in the world a disease He did not provide a cure for. Angry because she had done nothing to deserve it. Angry because He was going to take her from me and our daughter.

Sometimes I was introspective. What was the purpose of faith? Why did He put us on earth?

And sometimes I was simply thankful. Despite all of the bitching I did, the fact of the matter was that I had found my soulmate, we didn't lack for anything and our daughter was healthy, smart and would one month have the world at her feet.

It's easy to fall into the trap of prayer. I think sometimes we convince ourselves that if we only prayed harder, God will answer them in the way we want. Of course, it doesn't work that way. He only answers prayers in the way He wants.

Many nights, I found myself praying to St. Peregrine, the patron saint of cancer victims, but McKayla only laughed teasingly at me.

"You don't pray to saints," she said one night. "You pray with saints. You ask them to intercede on your behalf with God."

"Do you pray with them?" I asked.

"I don't ask for intercession anymore," she told me.

"Why not?"

"Because God has already provided everything I need," McKayla said, taking me in her arms. "I have a wife and parents who love me. Doctors who know what they're doing. A wonderful daughter and enough money that I don't ever have to worry about providing for my family."