One
December 29—New York City
She looked so frail.
Damon always had to stop and catch his breath at first sight of his mom. Once it had been because of her beauty and the smile that could make everything come right. Now, it was because nothing would ever come right again. He’d never get used to the change in her. He just didn’t want her to ever see horror in his expression.
Every week since April, he’d left F5F at five sharp. The story was that he had a date with Natasha. That much was true.
But Natasha wasn’t a romantic interest. She was his mom.
And she needed him more than ever.
Since her diagnosis, Damon had gone home every Friday night, to the house in Queens where he’d grown up. He’d helped his mom, small tasks at first, then more complicated ones. He couldn’t remember when he’d started cooking in batches for her, stocking the freezer with the foods she loved. It seemed he’d always done it, because she didn’t like to cook for herself, but since the previous winter, he’d done it more. Then he’d moved home in July, giving up his studio apartment downtown, so that she wouldn’t be alone at night while she went through her first round of chemotherapy. He’d commuted to and from the club.
By August, he’d had to hire someone to be with her each day. That had been over his mom’s objections, after she’d fallen and broken her wrist while he was at work. The doctor agreed that she shouldn’t be alone at all after that, and Damon had been relieved. Friday nights had become their time together, the companion’s night off. It had nearly killed him to go to Harte’s Harbor for Ty’s wedding in September but his mom had insisted and the companion had stayed that weekend. Damon’s mom made it through the chemo and the radiation without the leukemia going into remission. The oncologist had recommended another more aggressive round of treatment.
Then in November, just after Thanksgiving, she’d fallen again. That time, she’d broken her hip and had been checked into the hospital.
Damon watched her sleep and reviewed his earlier meeting with the oncologist. The bottom line was that the cancer wasn’t responding to the treatment. It had spread into her nervous system and, even though the oncologist wasn’t giving up, Damon understood the prospects. There were alternative choices, and he had donated more blood for stem cell transplant, but he had to face the truth.
The treatment wasn’t working.
His mom wasn’t ever going home again and he couldn’t bear to tell her.
He knew she’d prefer to be in a familiar setting, but it was much simpler for her to get the care she needed while she remained in the hospital. The team was pulling for her, but Damon feared it wouldn’t be enough.
There were no good choices, except coming to see her as often as possible. He liked to come at night, when the hospital was comparatively quiet. He’d arranged for her to have a private room and the best care, but nothing was going to stop the changes in her body.
Damon knew how the story would end. He didn’t want it to end, but he wasn’t sure how long he could bear for it to continue, either. He’d spent time alone at the house on this night, making dinner for himself, packing some for his mom in case she wanted to eat, choosing some photographs to bring with him. They might prompt her memory of better times.
When he arrived at the hospital, having trudged through a cold December night, his mom was sleeping. Her back was to the door, her shoulder thin even beneath the blanket. She’d always been slender, a dancer, but now she was little more than bones. Her breathing was more shallow, as if even sleep was less restorative than once it had been. She was on a heart monitor and he watched the display of her pulse for a moment.
Her heart was still working too hard. He’d talked to the doctor about that and the risks of the surgery to repair her hip. They’d talked about her suitability for any surgery, given the cancer in her marrow and her prognosis.
There were no good answers and Damon hated that.
His mom had always been filled with such fierce determination, a woman who seemingly could accomplish anything by force of will. Damon had always thought that came from her ballet training, maybe her upbringing in Soviet Russia. Now, she was diminished, as if that fighting spirit had abandoned her. He wondered why she’d given up.
He wished he knew how to make her care enough to fight.
He stood watching her for long moments, aching for his pending loss. His father had died when he was young, and Damon had no siblings. Everything he’d done had been for his mom, to make her proud of him, to not let her down. There was so much he’d never told her.
He wasn’t sure how he was going to continue without her.
Damon didn’t even want to think about that.
He had his friends and partners at F5F, of course, but they knew very little about his private life. He’d always been solitary. He’d always kept his secrets. He’d always felt like the outsider on the team, that they’d wake up one day and realize he didn’t have enough in common with them. He’d thought that privacy was a good thing, or at least a matter of survival, until he realized he was soon going to be completely alone.
It was true what they said: love did make you weak, because there was something you could lose.
Damon put his messenger bag down on the chair and shed his jacket. He bent over his mom and kissed her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered, looking as thin as paper, and for a second, his worst fear came true as she looked at him without recognition.
Then she smiled and his heart started to beat again. “Damon,” she whispered, her voice faint.
“Hi,” he replied, easing his weight down onto the side of the bed. “How are all those aches and pains today?”
“Everything hurts, but complaining won’t change it.”
“Hungry? I brought you some...”
“No, thank you.” She smiled and turned away from him, letting him untie the back of her gown. “I know you can help with the pain, though. You can do anything.”
“That’s what you always said,” he reminded her. “We can do anything.”
Her smile turned sad. “Not quite anything.”
Damon saw that she understood more of her situation than he’d realized. His throat was tight with the truth of it, but he couldn’t talk to her about it. He wasn’t good with confidences and intimacy. Instead, he forced a smile. “Let’s get started then and work out some of those kinks.”
It was dark outside the hospital windows and the sounds were muted by the heavy glass. He could see the skyline of Manhattan but the city could have been a thousand miles away—or just a backdrop painted on a curtain. Even the business of the hospital was background noise, very few footsteps or voices, and no alarms. He felt as if they were in a little private space of their own.
He turned his mom to her stomach with care, ensuring that no tubes or wires were pinched and that there was no weight on any joints. They said her wrist was healing slowly, the bone knitting together due to her rest, but the cancer wasn’t helping.
He’d learned everything he could about massage, just to give her some relief from her old dancing injuries. He remembered his dad giving his mom massages. Damon had never imagined she’d need so much more. He moved slowly, listening to her breathing, making sure that nothing hurt.