I slipped out the door and broke into the cold November air. I saw him, sitting in the Rav4 across the street. He sat perfectly still, smoking a cigarette and staring into the intersecting street ahead. For a moment I watched him, then forced myself to take the three short steps down and to walk across the street. As I walked around the front of the truck, I looked down at the ground, avoiding his eyes for fear of breaking down before I could even get the words out.

I slid into the truck and closed the passenger door behind me.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. “Is it Biz Noni?”

“No,” I said.

“Popi?”

I nodded, and the tears started sliding down my cheeks. I barely felt them. I thought I had exhausted my tear ducts but it appeared there was an unlimited supply.

“What is it?” He asked. Then: “Cancer?”

I nodded and lost it. I curled up in the seat and repeated what I had been told just hours earlier: “Liver. Lung. Third stage. Maybe bone.” Between sobs, I told him that the CAT-SCAN had shown a spot on his liver and a shadow on his lung. The doctors at the VA hospital were hoping that the shadow on his lung was just scar tissue from when he had pneumonia years ago, but had told my grandmother that it’s most likely cancer.

Noni and Popi found out Friday. Mom told Lauren and I Saturday night.

An MRI yesterday showed that the cancer is also in most of his spine, but not in the spinal cord. Noni said the PET-SCAN they did today will show everything and that they should get the results tomorrow.

I went to visit him earlier tonight with Mom and Dad. He looked good, and he was cracking jokes as usual, so there’s that. They were giving him morphine for the pain in his hip and legs, and are going to do physical therapy on his leg so that he can get around better when he comes home.

He’s probably not coming home until next week.

I can’t imagine Thanksgiving without him.

I can’t really wrap my head around the whole thing at all.