“Damn. Like that?”
“Ummmhmmm,”
“Let me get a cloth to clean you off with. Say less. We can get round two popping.”
Giavanna walked to the door feeling like a zombie. For the past twenty-four hours, she’d been moving off muscle memory. She couldn’t remember anything. Fear gripped her like a vice. There were times, she didn’t even feel like she was inside of her own body. She opened the door for Brazil and swallowed down a lump.
“Thank you for coming by. This won’t take long.”
“Okay. What’s up?” Brazil instantly knew something was wrong.
Giavanna seemed distracted. Like she was there, but she wasn’t there. She sat down on the couch, and he could have sworn he saw her blinking away tears.
“I, um,” she cleared her throat. “I can get Unique back tomorrow but after you get her next time, you may have to keepher. Yesterday, I found out that I have leukemia. I go next week to get my port put in, and I start chemo the week after that.”
Brazil hated the C word. His favorite uncle, and one of his grandfathers died from cancer. It was one of the worst things that a person could endure. He and Giavanna didn’t converse much when he either picked his daughter up or dropped her off, but he knew enough to know she was good people. She was still young and didn’t have kids. The shit was fucked up.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He could tell she was trying to keep it together. “It’s not a problem for me to keep her. The season is almost over anyway. But are you good?” he was genuinely concerned. She looked after his daughter as if she were her own, and Brazil didn’t take that for granted.
“Good?” her light chuckle made him aware that was probably a stupid question. “I’m in shock. I’m scared. I’m hurt. I’m a lot of things but good isn’t one of them.”
“I’m sorry. That was a stupid question.” Brazil sat down beside her. “If you need anything, I got you. I promise. All you have to do is say the word. The way you take care of my daughter, you’re family.”
Giavanna gave him a small smile. “I appreciate that. I honestly don’t know what I need. I keep waiting to wake up from this nightmare. I just,” she shook her head. “This shit is crazy.”
“Do you have someone to go with you to all of your appointments?” his question caught her off guard.
“Um, I know my mom can go to some, but she works a lot. One of my sisters just had a baby, and another one of my sisters works at a hospital that’s short staffed. She’s literally at work more than she’s at home, but I’m sure I can find someone to go with me.”
“I know you don’t know me that well, but we are kind of co-parenting. There’s no way I can not respect and want the best for someone that treats my child like she birthed her. Unique is veryyoung, but I can tell she’s in a good environment. She’s a happy child, and you don’t know how much that means to me. If I say I got you I mean that. All you have to do is ask.”
Brazil meant every word. His daughter had a room at Giavanna’s house. The nursery was complete with a theme, and she had a closet full of clothes, toys, shoes, blankets, gadgets. The average person would have assumed that she was Unique’s biological mother. She had never asked Brazil for a dime, so he was sure that everything his daughter had at Giavanna’s house was purchased with her own money. Maybe some of their other family pitched in, but Giavanna did a lot, and it didn’t go unnoticed.
“Thank you. I appreciate that. I’d still love to have her some days but you know I just don’t know how the chemo is going to make me feel. I don’t want to spend all my days in bed while she just has to sit in her swing or lay with me.” Giavanna wasn’t able to stop the tears that time. She buried her face in her hands, and Brazil didn’t know what to do.
Maybe she needed a hug, but he didn’t want to violate her. Some people didn’t like to be touched, and he was kind of a stranger. He didn’t hug her, but he sat there with her until she got herself together.
Wiping her face, Giavanna smiled through her tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t call you over here for all this.”
Brazil was genuinely confused. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You’re going to get through this.” Brazil had never been the type to make promises he couldn’t keep or gas anyone up, but it felt like the right thing to say.
Unique would never know her biological mother. He would hate for her to lose the person that loved her like her mother would have. His baby girl would always be good with him, but her other side of the family was important too. Of course, she would want to know her mom’s family, and he wouldn’tever keep that from her. Giavanna had to pull through because Unique needed her.
“I hope so. I um,” she cleared her throat. “I’m going to put some things in place, so if I die, Unique will –“
Brazil cut her off. “We not talking like that. I don’t even want to hear it. All Unique needs from you is for you to beat this thing.”
Giavanna gave a curt nod. Brazil stood, and she did the same. She walked him to the door, and he turned to face her. “You seem like the type that wouldn’t call me even if you did need something, but I’m telling you from the bottom of my heart that if you need anything I got you.”
“I appreciate it,” Giavanna simpered.
When she gave her mother the news, of course, her mother cried. So did her sisters. At first, she wasn’t going to tell anyone, but it wasn’t something that she could hide. For one, she wouldn’t have been able to act normal if someone paid her to do so. Second, she would need someone to go with her when she had her port put in because she was going to be put to sleep. Not wanting to have to repeat the same terrible news over and over again, she sent one group text. The responses started flooding in, and the phone calls came back to back. Her loved ones were devastated, and she trusted that they would be there for her in her time of need.
Brazil’s offer made her feel good, but there wasn’t anything that she wanted except to truly beat this thing. Death was inevitable for everyone. Of course, she knew that, but she wasn’t even thirty. Was her life really going to be cut that short? She never got to have kids. She’d never been married. Thinking of all the things she never got a chance to do made tears spill over her eyelids and roll down her cheeks. Her hair. Her thick, pretty hair. She was going to lose it. And just like that, she broke down.Giavanna placed her face in her hands once again and cried her heart out.
It hadn’t been long ago that they laid Kera to rest. Now, she was going to have to write down her final wishes and let her mother know what she wanted in the event that she died. Giavanna didn’t want a funeral. She wanted to be cremated. Curling up on the couch, she placed her favorite blanket over her and stared at the television. Even after staring for more than ten minutes, she couldn’t tell anyone what was on if they asked. Her brain was a complete fog. It felt as if her nervous system had shut down. A part of her wanted to live. She wanted to live to be old and gray, but that might not happen. Whether she spent the next few months crying or the next few months living life as best she could, the end result would be the same. Whatever was written in the cards for her was what it would be.
Giavanna didn’t want to spend what could be her last months on earth in the bed crying and depressed, but what else was she supposed to do? Everything about cancer screamed death sentence. Once again, Giavanna erupted into tears.
