Chương 3
“What if she has cancer?”
He stopped tying one lace.
“We don’t know anything yet.”
“What if she’s known?”
“Then we deal with what we know when she tells us.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
He stood.
“Claire, I’m not having a hypothetical argument with you while your mother is behind that door in pain.”
I flinched.
He regretted the tone immediately.
I could see it in his face.
He reached for my shoulder, then seemed to think better of it.
“I’ll get Hannah dressed.”
“I’ll talk to Mom.”
The hallway seemed longer than it had twenty minutes earlier.
I knocked.
No answer.
This time I opened the door.
Mom was sitting on the edge of the bed in her nightgown.
One suitcase lay open beside her.
She had already folded two sweaters into it.
For a second I simply watched her place socks into a corner as neatly as if she were packing after an ordinary visit.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“No.”
She did not look up.
“I’ll call a cab in the morning.”
“Mom, stop.”
“I’ve caused enough trouble.”
The sentence hit me with such force that I had to grip the doorframe.
“You didn’t cause trouble.”
She gave a small, humorless laugh.
“No?”
“I saw the camera footage.”
Her hands stopped.
I had expected anger.
Instead she slowly pulled the edge of her robe over her lap.
“What footage?”
“The kitchen.”
Her eyes met mine.
“You were spying on me?”
“Yes.”
The honesty seemed to surprise both of us.
“I was looking for evidence that you were lying.”
“I was lying.”
“Not about what I thought.”
“No.”
Her fingers tightened around a pair of socks.
I stepped into the room.
“What is the bag?”
She looked down.
“Mom.”
“It’s an ostomy.”
I knew the word vaguely.
Enough to understand that it had something to do with the bowel.
Not enough to understand why my mother had one.
“When did you have surgery?”
“Before I came here.”
I stared at her.
“You came here after abdominal surgery?”
“It had been a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?”
“Six.”
“That’s not a lot.”
“It was enough.”
“For what?”
Her mouth flattened.
“For the surgeon to say I could travel if I took it easy.”
I nearly laughed.
The sound died before it came out.
“You came to Atlanta to take care of a newborn.”
“She weighed ten pounds.”
“She screamed every two hours.”
“She still weighs less than a bag of dog food.”
“That doesn’t make it safe.”
Mom placed the socks in the suitcase.
“I managed.”
“You collapsed on the kitchen floor.”
“Today.”
“How many other times?”
She said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“How many?”
“Claire.”
“How many times have you fallen?”
“I didn’t fall.”
“You were on the floor.”
“I sat down.”
“You couldn’t stand.”
“That’s different.”
“Not enough.”
Her face hardened.
There she was.
The mother I knew.
The woman who could make stubbornness sound like a constitutional right.
“Do not interrogate me in my own nightgown.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
“Then tell me what is happening.”
The hardness broke first around her eyes.
She looked toward the open suitcase.
“I had part of my colon removed.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Why?”
“They found a mass.”
I waited.
She did not continue.
“What kind of mass?”
“Cancer.”
My breath caught somewhere behind my ribs.
Mom reached for another sweater.
I took it from her.
“Stop packing.”
“Give me that.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“What cancer?”
“Colon cancer.”
“How bad?”
She rubbed her thumb against the seam of her robe.
“I don’t like that question.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“I need to know.”
She looked at me then, and something about the way she studied my face made me feel six years old.
“There were lymph nodes involved.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they wanted me to have chemotherapy.”
“Wanted?”
She looked away.
The answer arrived before she said it.
“You didn’t do it.”
“I postponed it.”
I dropped the sweater.
“You postponed chemotherapy?”
“It wasn’t forever.”
“How long?”
Her silence made heat rush into my face.
“How long, Mom?”
“Until your project finished.”
I walked backward and sat on the chair near the dresser because my knees no longer seemed reliable.
“You stopped cancer treatment because of my work?”
“I hadn’t started.”
“That is not better.”
“They gave me a window.”
“What window?”
She hesitated.
“Abigail.”
She frowned at me.
“You don’t call me Abigail.”
“I might start.”
That almost drew a smile from her.
Almost.
“The oncologist wanted treatment sooner,” she admitted.
“How much sooner?”
“Claire.”
“How much?”
“Months.”
My hands went cold.
“Does your doctor know you’re here?”
“Yes.”
“Does your doctor know you’re taking care of a baby full-time?”
Another silence.
I stood so quickly the chair legs scraped the floor.
“Oh my God.”
“Lower your voice.”
“No.”
“Hannah is asleep.”
“Hannah is the reason you’re dying in my guest room.”
Her whole body went still.
The words hung between us.
I wanted them back immediately.
Mom’s face changed with a tiredness deeper than anything I had seen on the camera footage.
“I’m not dying in your guest room.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t.”
That was the first thing she said that sounded frightened.
I sat again.
Neither of us spoke.
From upstairs came a muffled thump, then Christopher saying something soothing to Hannah.
Mom stared at the carpet.
“I wasn’t planning to stay this long.”
“Then why did you?”
“You kept needing another week.”
I pressed my lips together.
The rollout had slipped twice.
A vendor missed an integration deadline.
Then our client changed reporting requirements.
Each delay had felt catastrophic at work.
Each time Mom asked when I thought things would settle down.
Each time I said soon.
“I could have hired childcare.”
“You said you didn’t trust strangers.”
“I was hormonal and exhausted.”
“You were also right to be careful.”
“That doesn’t mean you sacrifice chemotherapy.”
“I didn’t sacrifice anything.”
“You postponed it.”
“Yes.”
May you like
“For me.”
“For my family.”
