Chương 15
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I hate you saying you know.”
“I know.”
She threw a napkin at me.
Her aim was terrible.
I laughed.
She did too, but only for a moment.
Treatment rearranged our lives in ways both dramatic and boring.
There were blood draws.
Pharmacy calls.
Insurance approvals that required other insurance approvals.
There were days Mom could walk around the block and days the shower exhausted her.
There were arguments about food.
There were arguments about fluids.
There was one spectacular argument about whether a half-eaten banana constituted breakfast.
Margaret went back to Ohio after two weeks, then returned every other weekend.
She and Mom spoke on the phone daily.
Sometimes they discussed cancer.
Mostly they discussed neighbors.
I reduced my work schedule temporarily.
The company did not collapse.
Nobody replaced me.
Nobody suggested I lacked commitment.
One afternoon my manager asked if I wanted to postpone a presentation.
I said yes.
The word came out so easily that I almost laughed.
Christopher and I started eating dinner together again, though dinner sometimes meant sandwiches over the sink while Rosa told us Hannah had attempted to lick a shoe.
The house became less orderly.
Laundry accumulated.
A cabinet hinge remained loose for three weeks.
Nobody died from it.
Mom noticed everything.
She also began doing something she had almost never done before.
She asked.
“Can you bring me water?”
“Can you drive me Thursday?”
“Can you stay in here until I fall asleep?”
The first few times, she sounded embarrassed.
Eventually she sounded merely irritated by needing things.
That was progress too.
After the fourth treatment, scans showed the cancer had not grown.
Dr. Ruiz called it stable disease.
Mom stared at her.
“Stable sounds like a word you use for furniture.”
“In oncology, we like stable.”
“Then I like stable.”
The fluid in her abdomen accumulated more slowly.
Her appetite improved slightly.
She gained three pounds.
Margaret celebrated by bringing a pie.
Mom ate half a slice and said it tasted wrong.
Margaret ate the rest over two days out of spite.
Months passed.
Hannah learned to stand.
Then she learned to fall theatrically whenever anyone said no.
Mom wore knit caps when her hair thinned, though she never lost all of it.
One afternoon she stood in front of the bathroom mirror tugging at a sparse patch near her temple.
“I look like a dandelion somebody made a wish on.”
“You look fine.”
“That is a lie.”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Better.”
There were bad days too.
One treatment had to be delayed because her blood counts were low.
Another time she developed a fever and spent a night in the hospital.
Every setback brought the same old fear rushing back into the room.
We got better at not pretending otherwise.
On the anniversary of my father’s death, Mom woke before sunrise.
I found her in the kitchen wearing slippers and holding one of his old coffee mugs.
I had not seen it in years.
She must have brought it from Ohio in one of her suitcases.
“He hated this mug,” I said.
“He said the handle was too small.”
“It is too small.”
“I know.”
She turned it in her hands.
“I kept it because he complained about it every morning.”
I sat across from her.
For a while we listened to the refrigerator hum.
Then she said, “I wish he could see Hannah.”
“Me too.”
“He would teach her bad habits.”
“Definitely.”
“He would give her sugar before breakfast.”
“Absolutely.”
Mom smiled.
Then her eyes filled.
“I thought if I got sick, I’d become him.”
The words came quietly.
I waited.
“Not him exactly.”
She shook her head.
“The bed.”
“The pills.”
“The way everybody watched his face for signs.”
She pressed both hands around the mug.
“I couldn’t stand the idea of you looking at me the way you looked at him.”
I swallowed.
“How did I look at him?”
“Like you were already losing him.”
I stared at the table.
She was right.
“I did that because I loved him.”
“I know.”
“Not because he failed.”
“I know that now.”
There was no dramatic reconciliation.
No final speech.
Just two women at a kitchen table before dawn, understanding something late.
By spring, Mom decided she wanted to spend part of each month in Ohio again.
Not alone.
Margaret had already converted her downstairs office into a bedroom before Mom could object.
“I hate that wallpaper,” Mom said when Margaret showed us over video.
“You chose it.”
“In 2009.”
“Your mistakes have consequences.”
Mom returned to Ohio for ten days at first.
Then two weeks.
She kept oncology care in Atlanta for continuity, traveling down for treatment and scans when needed.
It was inconvenient.
It was expensive.
It was also her choice.
We stopped confusing inconvenience with impossibility.
A year after the night I opened the security footage, Hannah turned two.
We had a small party in the backyard.
Rosa came with her husband.
Margaret drove down.
My coworkers sent balloons.
Christopher burned the first batch of hamburgers and insisted it was because the grill had “structural issues.”
Mom sat beneath the patio umbrella wearing a blue dress and a wide-brimmed hat.
She was thinner than before.
Still in treatment.
Still carrying cancer.
Still carrying an ostomy.
Still here.
Hannah ran across the grass toward her holding a cupcake in both hands.
“Gamma!”
Mom opened her arms.
I started to say careful.
Then stopped.
Hannah climbed into her lap.
Mom adjusted her gently, stronger now but not strong enough to forget limits.
Pink frosting smeared across Mom’s dress.
She looked down.
“Well.”
Hannah laughed.
Mom laughed with her.
Christopher came up beside me.
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“Watching.”
“I’m allowed to watch.”
“You’re calculating.”
“I am not.”
He looked at me.
“Fine.”
I crossed my arms.
“I’m calculating a little.”
He kissed my temple.
Across the yard, Mom caught me looking.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then she lifted her eyebrows as if to say I’m fine.
I almost believed her automatically.
Instead I walked over.
“Do you need anything?”
The old version of my mother would have said no.
The old version of me would have accepted it.
Mom looked down at Hannah, then at the empty glass beside her chair.
“Water.”
“Okay.”
“And maybe one of those hamburgers if Christopher hasn’t weaponized them.”
“I heard that,” he called.
“Good.”
I went inside.
At the kitchen sink, I filled a glass and looked through the window.
Mom was helping Hannah peel the paper from the cupcake.
Margaret was arguing with Christopher about charcoal.
Rosa was chasing a napkin across the grass.
Nobody looked graceful.
Nobody looked prepared.
Nobody looked protected from what might happen next.
For the first time, that did not seem like failure.
I carried the water outside.
Mom took it from me without apology.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
Then she shifted Hannah higher on her lap and handed me the cupcake before the frosting could reach the hat.
I took it.
May you like
She drank.
And neither of us pretended that love was the same thing as never needing help.
