“It’s your mom’s doctor,” he said.
Even though he hated her, Adrien ran.
The doctor talked him through it in a gentle tone: the chemotherapy wasn’t working and the cancer had advanced far enough that it was now not only in both lungs, but was spreading to her brain, as well.There was always the possibility of continuing treatment, but it would be lengthy, painful, and expensive.
He, Jessica, and his mother attended an appointment with the hospital’s grief counselor and chaplain.His mother—suddenly a devout Catholic in her last several years of life—clutched her rosary to her chest.
“If Jesus has decided that it is my time, then it is my time,” she said with more grace and eloquence than she had ever allotted her children.Adrien remembered when she’d shoved David into a wall for getting a B in Spanish class in eighth grade.Where had this God-given acceptance and patience been then?
It didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t fair.
His life was empty.It was work, worrying over bills, trying to coax David out of his room, and the scant minutes he could get to himself working in the art studio or painting the side of a building.At least being out and about offered him the chance to work on his art.
That particular October morning saw him on the internal bridge of the Japan Center, putting the finishing touches on his newest mixed media installation.
“The kids at the art shop were asking for you,” an art student, Ruby, was telling him as she crossed the bridge to hand him some fresh polish and a rag.“They want you to come back to teach them to draw more Pokémon.”
“Do they now?”Adrien smiled, accepting the materials.“I’ll try and see what I can work out with my schedule.”
“I think they’d appreciate that.”Ruby smiled, hanging back on the other side of the hallway to observe Adrien’s work.“You know, you really ought to publish a book of your stuff.”
“You think?”Adrien asked, glancing at her over his shoulder.
“I’d buy it.”Ruby shrugged, propping herself up on the wall beside him.“I take BART to Oakland all the time to see your work there.It would be nice to have it in one place.”
“Maybe you could put it up on that Internet of yours,” Adrien teased, taking off his glasses and rubbing them clean on his tee-shirt.
“Har har.”Ruby rolled her eyes.“But for real though, why don’t you?”
“You kidding?”Adrien snorted.“My mom would kill me if she found out I was still doing this stuff.Why do you think I work under a pseudonym?”
Ruby wrinkled her nose.“Aren’t you, like, twenty-five?Who cares what your mom thinks?”
“Twenty-four,” Adrien corrected her with a sigh.“She’s… she’s been in a bad way the past few years.Cancer.I try not to do anything that would upset her too much.”
“Oh!”Ruby gasped, covering her mouth with her palm.“Oh, I’m so sorry!I had no idea.”
“It’s okay.”Adrien shrugged.He’d long since gone numb to it.The sympathy.The apologies.
Leaning over the form of the octopus, he used the rag to buff away the residue left from the casting and pulled back to admire his work.“Okay, does this look about finished?”
“Looks awesome to me!”Ruby flashed a thumbs-up, though her posture still betrayed a hint of discomfort.
“Sorry I had you run and get more polish just for that,” Adrien apologized, shoulders sagging.Ruby shrugged in response.
“No worries, I—”
“Yo, Adrien!”someone shouted from farther down the sky bridge.It was one of the waiters from the nearby restaurant, leaning out of the doorway.“I got a call from your sister—she said you gotta get home pronto, something about your mom?”
“Shit,” Adrien swore, fumbling his rag.Ruby looked at him, expression earnest.
“I’ll handle the clean-up here,” she told him, snatching the rag up from where he’d dropped it.“You get going home, okay?”
“Thanks!”Adrien said, making his way towards the garage where his Ducati Super Short was parked—despite his mother’s begging, he’d never been able to bring himself to sell it.It was one of the last things he had from Marcos’ family.
As he sped home, Adrien couldn’t help but experience a sick excitement bubbling up in his chest.What if his mother had finally died?When she’d stopped treatment, the grief counselor had spoken to him about feelings of liberation surrounding the death of a family member—how it was perfectly normal to feel relieved and even joyful when someone they loved was finally free of suffering.
