“So what’s the game plan? I can see if Ling and Victor will come help with the kids so I can be here for your treatments. Have you told Katie yet? She’ll want to fly out and stay for a while too.”
“We’re using money from your dad’s 401k and going to Italy.”
My head jerked back. “Before the treatment? Don’t they want to get started right away?”
Dad gave my mom a quick glance and blew out a slow breath. “Your mom doesn’t want to go through the treatment. It will only help with some of the symptoms. At best, it may give her six extra months. But in exchange, she’ll be sick from the chemo. Even her doctors feel the best option is to enjoy what time she has left with family.”
Emotion burned my eyes.
My mom … she was dying. Yet, my heart broke for my dad. His strength amazed me. How could life be so cruel to allow cancer to take both the women he chose to love in this life?
“What about experimental treatment? I can talk to Graham and—”
“Evelyn.” Mom rolled her lips together and shook her head. “It’s time. And I’m … I’m okay with it. I’ve spent the past week coming to terms with it.”
“Wow … okay, well …” I looked up at the ceiling while tears blurred my vision. “What if I’m not okay with it? What if I can’t come to terms with you giving up? Do my feelings not matter? Katie’s feelings? She won’t be okay with this at all.”
“We told her last night.” Dad leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “We called her. And she accepted the fact that it’s your mom’s decision. It’s her body. It’s her life.”
I grunted a breath, biting the corner of my lower lip and shaking my head. “I …” My voice cracked. “I don’t know h-how I’m s-supposed to live without you.” I fell apart.
My parents made their way to me, doing what parents did best—offering comfort in the face of grief.
Maybe Katie was okay because she didn’t understand like I did. I was a mom. I knew how special that bond was between a mother and a child. I knew firsthand what it was like to have another human need you for their own survival … their own existence. And I also knew that feeling never really disappeared. We never stopped needing our moms.
After my mind made its way to something resembling acceptance, we took the kids to lunch and the zoo. I needed to get home, but I couldn’t leave her yet, so we stayed for dinner too.
“Oh look!” I held up my phone to show Franz. “It’s Daddy. He’s probably wondering where we are.” I pressed the answer button. “Hey.” I tried to force some enthusiasm into my voice.
“Hey. I see you haven’t left yet. I’m not sure I want you on the road now this late at night.”
“I agree. I think we’re going to crash here tonight and head home after breakfast in the morning.”
“So what was the urgency?”
I closed my eyes and made my way down to my old bedroom, leaving the kids in the living room with my parents. Anya was fed and half asleep in my mom’s arms. After closing the door, I sat on the bed. It creaked underneath me. I couldn’t remember a time it didn’t creak.
“My mom’s cancer is back,” I said it as quickly as I could, feigning bravery in my voice even though tears instantly sprang from my eyes, and my body shook with silent sobs. So much for coming to terms with it. Clearly, it was still very raw and painful. I wasn’t sure “coming to terms” with someone dying, especially your mother or a child, was a real thing. An actual power humans possessed.
“Evelyn … I’m so sorry.”
I nodded and fought past the lump in my throat. Had I tried to say actual words past it, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my sobs silent any longer. So I just sat there, falling apart without making a sound while Ronin waited for a response I couldn’t give him.
“Are you still there?”
I had no choice. He deserved some sort of verbal response.
“Yeah …” I choked out the word.
“Oh, baby … are you crying?”
I responded with sobs—strangled, painful sobs that I couldn’t contain any longer.
“Oh, Evie …” His voice and all the sympathy it carried just made more emotion pour out of me.
“Do you need me tonight? I can drive down tonight. Do you want me to do that?”
I shook my head. If only he could have seen my physical gestures, so I didn’t have to squeak out the answers. “No … I’m … f-fine.” I grabbed a pillow and put it over my face to silence my grief, not only from Ronin, but from my parents and Franz too.
“Are you okay to drive home in the morning?”
“Yep.” Another clipped word made it out, each one clawing past the lump in my throat that had taken on a pulse of its own.
“Okay. Hug our babies and tell them I love them. I wish I was there right now to hug their mommy.”
God!
He wasn’t helping my situation.
“Hug your mom for me too.”
“K. Bye.” I ended the call, hoping he knew it was survival for me and nothing against him.
I held no illusion that my life was somehow exempt from loss and grief. Still … the pain cut deeply. There was no way to guard my heart no matter how hard I tried to see it through my mom’s eyes. We wanted the people we loved to live in our lives forever.
“Mommy …” Franz knocked on the door.
I opened it, hoping in the dim light he wouldn’t question my swollen eyes as I gazed into his innocent blue eyes. He was me. A crazy irony in our family. Franz had blond hair and blue eyes. I think it shocked everyone to see my genes expressed in him. Then Anya came along, the female version of Ronin with the darkest eyes and jet-black hair.
“I tired.” Franz rubbed his eyes.
“Oh … of course you are. It’s been a big day. Let’s wash you up. I think Grandma might have a spare pair of jammies here for you.”
I moved through the motions on autopilot, clinging to bedtime routine as a needed distraction. Franz nestled under the covers where the bed met the wall and wedged pillows filled the space between the two. I laid Anya in the middle of the bed and slid under the sheets beside her.
The door creaked open. “Night, baby.” Mom kissed my head.
I closed my eyes to ward off the tears. “Night, Mom,” I whispered. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” she whispered back, emotion thick in her voice.
I reached over and stroked Franz’s back. He sighed, drifting off to sleep. Then I did the same to Anya.
My world.
Somehow, maybe just the product of sheer emotional fatigue, I managed to close my eyes and find sleep. A reprieve from the day’s events.
I woke up feeling hot and disoriented. It wasn’t anything new. My kids had a gift of navigating toward my body in the middle of the night. But when I cracked open my eyes, they were both still on the other side of the bed, Anya crowding Franz. I was the one who had moved toward the middle of the bed. At that point, I realized the heat was at my back. A body was at my back, and familiar arms wrapped around me.
“Roe …” I whispered, turning toward his chest.