Furiously, my mind recites the prognoses I’ve read a hundred times over online. She could have ten years, or she could have as few as three.
“How could I not have known?” It’s half rhetorical.
“I knew you would worry,” she says. “I didn’t want my health to influence your college decisions.”
It’s infuriating, how wrongheaded she is. Of course her health was going to influence my college decisions. It was only a matter of when and how. How much opportunity I would have—how much freedom she would mislead me into feeling—to fall in love with schools far from home. How horrible it would be when I discovered that freedom was founded on a lie.
I laugh harshly. “You sent me on a college tour knowing you were presenting symptoms.” She tries to cut in, but I continue, harder. “How could you? How could you show me these places knowing I might never have the chance to go to them?” I let the bitter truth fly. “I was happy going to SNHU before this.”
She sniffles over the line.
It tears me in two. The resentment splits off, and suddenly I’m left with only overwhelming remorse.
“I’m sorry,” she struggles to say through tears. “I’m sorry, Fitz. I should’ve told you. I just . . . I didn’t want it to be real. I guess I wanted to pretend I was still a normal mother who could send her son away to his dream college.” Her voice chokes. “I wanted more time.”
I understand everything she’s telling me. I understand the profound difficulty of her position, why she would put off revealing this the way she did. A few forms of grief unfold in me. Grief for her, for the unraveling she knows is coming. Grief for myself, for the watching and the waiting. Grief for the visions of the future I’ve entertained the past few days, which have vanished in an instant.
But there’s one more thing I understand with cutting clarity. This isn’t about me.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I say over the ragged breathing I know she’s trying to stifle. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. We’re going to figure it out.”
Juniper’s hand finds my knee, reminding me she’s here and she’s definitely heard enough to know what’s happened. I turn from her, from her worried frown, her caring eyes. From every way I’ve let her change me. I want to continue being the emboldened new person she thinks I’ve become. The person I know she’s expecting, even with her comforting hand on my knee.
I just don’t think I know how. Not anymore. Not when every fear I’ve quieted during the past few days has come raging back.
Fitz
WE SKIP THE rest of the day’s itinerary. While I explained the conversation with my mom to Juniper, she said nothing, which was the only thing she could’ve said. I didn’t need to ask her to set aside our plans of museums and monuments and return directly to the hotel instead.
On the way back, I text Lewis that I have something I need to tell him. He agrees to meet me in the room.
Juniper leaves me with one final reassuring squeeze of my hand in the hotel. When I reach our room, I start pacing the narrow stretch of floor spanning from the beds to the dresser. I’m really not looking forward to breaking the news to Lewis. He’s irritatingly cavalier when it comes to Mom, but I have a feeling, even for him, this will be a blow.
I walk the length of the room for five interminable minutes before there’s the clatter of a keycard in the lock and the door beeps. Lewis enters looking confused and disheveled, like he hurried here.
“Have you talked to Mom?” I ask. I don’t bother flattening the waver from my voice. I don’t care if Lewis thinks I’m overwrought or anxious. Because I was right.
“I talked to her yesterday. Why?” He unzips his parka and throws his hat on his bed.
My heart drops. I’d held out hope Mom had called him after she got off the phone with me. The fact she didn’t is its own painful punch. She was evidently too overcome by our conversation to handle having one with her older son. “Okay, there’s no easy way to say this,” I begin. “Mom is sicker than we knew.” Lewis frowns, his expression puzzled. I continue. “She’s been showing symptoms for . . . a while now.”
Lewis pauses. In the interim, my mind cycles through the hundred ways he could react. I wonder whether this time, he’ll finally be upset.
“I’m sorry, Fitz,” he says.
I don’t understand. “Why are you sorry for me? This affects both of us.”
“I know,” Lewis replies. “I’m just sorry you had to find out this way. During your trip.”
It takes me a moment to put his words together, to unwind the implications. When I do, I hardly have the presence of mind to put forth the never-ending questions exploding into my head. “How long have you known?” I struggle to ask.
“Since she made an appointment with her doctor.” Lewis swallows. “Three months ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” My voice is shocked and hurt and uncomprehending and pissed off and and and. I don’t understand how my mom could share this with Lewis and not me. What could Lewis possibly do to help? Why didn’t she trust me?
I feel fear and frustration, fury and hopelessness coursing through me. I’ve hidden the abandonment I’ve felt from my brother for years, and right now, I can’t. Not for a moment longer.
“You and Mom—what? Had a conversation and decided you’d keep this from me?” I clench my hand, feeling my fingernails bite into my palm. I don’t recognize this Fitz, whose anger writes in capital letters.
“It wasn’t my place to,” Lewis replies. I detect a defensive hint in his voice. “She didn’t want you to know yet.”
“You didn’t think that was fucked up?” I fire back. “You’ve been with me this entire trip. You’ve watched me . . . have fun, think about college, try things.” I don’t say the really important one. Very possibly fall in love.
“That’s exactly why we didn’t tell you,” Lewis argues. “Fitz, your whole world was just waiting for Mom to need you, and you could have more than that. I—we—wanted you to see how much more.”
“You know why I worry about Mom so much?” I drop my voice, my anger narrowing into raw honesty. “It’s because I’m all she has. You’re certainly not going to change your plans for her. You’re not going to skip a single fraternity event or job interview or date with whichever girl you’ve moved onto.”
“That’s not fair,” Lewis says.
“How? How is it not fair, Lewis?” We’re facing each other from opposite ends of the room, and the distance is like an endless expanse separating us. “Because from where I’m standing, you’ve already moved on from this family.”