“Yes!” I screech.
Allison leans over the food and drinks to wrap her arms around me.
"I'm so relieved. This is going to be so good. Everything's going to be fine."
"Yeah, I think so, too," I say, choking up, trying to hold back tears.
I've already cried so much over the diagnosis, feeling nothing but hopelessness, and now that there's actually good news on the horizon, I find myself crying over the good news as well.
We have a couple of drinks, and we talk more about her work and my mom's treatment.
I tell her that I'll be traveling there with her, but most likely end up hanging out at the hospital, not doing much of anything, but just supporting her.
There's going to be a surgery and then a wait and see kind of situation.
"Listen, before you do all that, let's go to the masquerade party together,” Allison suggests.
Her question takes me by surprise.
"You mean at Redemption?" I ask.
She nods. "It's this Saturday, remember?"
"Yeah, but I don't know.”
"Well, you already went there by yourself, and you had a good time."
"Yeah, but when I went back, it wasn't that great."
"Okay, so the third time is the charm.” She smiles. "Let’s just go together. Girls’ night. Maybe we’ll find a couple of interesting guys and have a little fun.”
“Look, I'm not going to fool around with you if that's what you're getting at," I joke.
"No, not at all. Who even says that I'm interested in you of all people?" Allison is quick with a retort and we crack up laughing.
Neither of us are homophobic in the least, but we're also completely inexperienced when it comes to women.
I'm not particularly interested in that, and neither is she.
But something about going there with her as my wing woman so to speak, piques my interest.
"I don't know. I was really thinking of not going to Redemption again."
“Oh, c’mon,” she pleads. “It'll be a lot more fun than simply going to a bar and picking up some stranger. And if you don’t want to do anything, you don’t have to. We can just go to the lounge for a little bit, feel the room out."
I tap my fingers on the table thinking, popping another French fry into my mouth.
"Besides, you know you want to come. I mean, what if Dante shows up?" Allison says, raising an eyebrow.
My heart skips a beat.
I lick my lips.
As soon as our eyes meet again, she giggles and says, "Yeah, you'll be there."
When I sent back an email to Cassandra telling her that I’d be there, she replied "Yes" with a smiling emoji.
I'm tempted to ask if Dante will be there as well. I put my fingers on the keys to try to write her about it but I can’t bring myself to do it.
My nerves get the best of me as I sit with my laptop on the couch while my mom sleeps in the other room.
I know that this is going to be fun. I deserve this. There's going to be days and days of waiting in a hospital room, and then just holding my breath to see whether the treatment works, and I need something good in my life to excite me.
In the beginning, the first time that I went to Redemption, it was a way to put my brother's death behind me, but now it's something different.
It's a way to celebrate. But it’s also about possibly seeing him again. I feel like a fool, but I need to know whether our connection was real. Not in the sense that I'm expecting it to go any further, but in the sense that I didn't just dream Dante up. I didn't just imagine this guy that swept me off my feet and showed me what real chemistry in the bedroom feels like.
Afternoon rain rolls in and I grab a blanket from the cubby in the corner and wrap myself in it. I love times like this when you have nowhere to go and nothing to do. The problem is that I've allowed the rain and all the mourning of my brother to throw me off course.
What do I do now if my mom recovers? No, when she recovers?
Where do I go?
What do I do?
I have to make some decisions about my life and I don’t know where to start.
I pull out my Kindle, find one of my favorite authors, and start to read. I haven't been able to focus on anything, let alone fiction for a long time, but now the words sweep me away.
Two hours later when Mom wakes up and wobbles into the living room, I look up and finish reading the last page of the book that I started before Michael's death.
"I actually read this whole thing," I tell her. "I tried so many times since before ..."
My words trail off. I don't want to say his name. I don't want to mention his death or funeral out loud, but she gets the point.
"And now that was the first time I got really engrossed and just lost myself in the story."
"Good," Mom says, walking over and kissing me on the top of my head. "That's what you want. Time heals all things." And suddenly I want to cry. "No, it doesn't mean that you're going to forget him," Mom says, shaking her head. "None of us will, but you have to live your life and you can't just be perpetually stuck in this loop of mourning and sadness."
"Yeah, I know," I mumble, swallowing back the lump in my throat that is just about to pull the tears all the way to the surface. "I'm just so happy you got this approval for the treatment, and we're going there on Monday."
"Yeah, me, too. Tell me. I know I asked you this before, but did you get yourself in trouble doing something like this?"
I shake my head no quickly.
"You can tell me."
"No, not at all. I didn't do anything. I have no idea who even gave the money."
"I'm not going to be mad at you," Mom says. "The thing is that after all that time and all those years with your father, I'm used to the deception. I know that just like him, you did it for a greater good. So was it Blackjack? Poker? Something else?”
"No, it was none of that."
"Okay, fine. Keep your secrets to yourself, but if I do get sicker and I'm on my death bed, I expect you to tell me the truth."
She's joking. This is her idea of a dark sense of humor.
"Come on, don't talk like that. The treatment's going to work."
"Let's hope so," Mom says, squeezing my cheek a little too tightly between her index finger and thumb.
"Listen, I'm going to go out tonight with Allison to a club. I'm meeting her at ten."
"Okay. I don't know how you can stay out so late, but have a good time. You deserve it. Celebrate for both of us."
I nod. "I will."
Later that evening after regretfully eating some macaroni and cheese and getting little bit too bloated as a result, I consider canceling the whole endeavor altogether.
My dress doesn't fit well. I feel like I'm retaining water, and suddenly I look like I'm twenty pounds heavier than I used to be, and I wasn't particularly thin to start with.
"I can't go.” I shake my head when I call Allison at nine.
"What are you talking about, you can't go? Of course, you're going."
She turns on video chat and she rolls her eyes when she sees my face on the other end.