They bought a house in the suburbs—a beautiful white colonial with black shutters, professional landscaping, and a three-car garage. It looked like the houses I used to walk past with young Deacon, pointing and saying “Maybe someday, if you work hard.”
After the wedding, Deacon visited me twice a year. Christmas and my birthday. Like clockwork. Like a task on a calendar. Our phone calls grew shorter, less frequent, more transactional. When I asked about his life, he gave me surface details—work is busy, Sloan is fine, the house needs this or that repair.
I told myself it was normal. Adult children get busy. They build their own lives. I’d done my job. I’d gotten him out, gotten him educated, gotten him launched. This was what success looked like.
Then the cough started.
The Diagnosis
At first it was barely noticeable—just a small tickle in my throat that I tried to clear. Then it became persistent, a deep rattling cough that shook my whole chest and left me breathless. Then it turned wet and painful, bringing up things that made me scared to look too closely at what my body was expelling.
