“Hun, look.” My mom sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m not going to tell you what you have to do. You’re twenty-three and too old for that. But…I just want to see you stepping out of your safe space every now and then, that’s all.”
“Mom, I’m happy with my life. I work hard, but I’m helping people. I’m helping my students. I help you and Dad. Right now, I get to hang out with Jade.” I paused to grin at her, but she ignored me, still entranced with her book. “Why are people so obsessed with changing that? I like to be needed. I want to be needed.”
Before my mother could respond, the nurse called us back. And to my shock, the doctor was waiting for us when we got there.
“This is five-star service,” Mom said as I helped Jade get seated. The nurse immediately began taking my mother’s vitals. But I didn’t need to worry about that. Because nurses always did that, no matter which doctor you were at.
Right?
The doctor shrugged. “Well, the patient before you canceled, so I thought I’d try to get this done quickly so you can be on your way.”
“Were the tests all okay?” I asked, unable to contain myself. Was this it? The beginning of another roller coaster where my father and I watched my mother battle for her life? Should I run out of the room now to have just a few more minutes of blissful ignorance? My hands were slick with sweat, and the room seemed suddenly far too small for my taste.
He gave me a patient smile, his white, bushy mustache moving slightly against his dark skin as he grinned. “Nothing to be alarmed about. It’s just that there was a slight irregularity on one of the tests.”
“What kind of irregularity?” my mother asked. Her voice sounded far more stable than mine.
“I’m not sure. In fact, I’m confident that it’s nothing you need to worry about. I just want to make sure.”
The floor beneath me threatened to tilt, but before it got too off-kilter, Jade tugged on my sleeve. I looked down, wanting nothing more than to throw up. But I did my best to smile when I found her big eyes searching mine.
“I want to do this.”
I tried to focus on what she was pointing at while keeping an ear open to hear what the doctor was telling my mom.
“Dance?” I asked.
“No.” She frowned for a second before pointing to the stage. “This.”
Still trying to listen in on the doctor’s conversation, it was a moment before what she was saying clicked.
“You want to sing?” I paused. “On stage?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “The Candy Choir.”
“Oh.” I looked down at the page again, my heart falling. The Candy Choir was a private choir run by a few of the parents of students at our school for girls in the lower elementary grades. Jade was the perfect age, but there were requirements. First, you had to be willing to spend quite a bit of money for matching costumes and such, something I knew wouldn’t be a problem for the Allens. Unfortunately, however, the girls were also required to try out for the positions, and to do that, they had to be able to read the lyrics in their little song booklets. And while Jade’s memorization skills were actually above the levels of several of her peers, her reading was an area of constant struggle.
“Why don’t you ask your mom?” I asked lamely, hoping to shift the responsibility to someone else.
Jade shook her head and closed the book slowly. “Too busy.”
For just a moment, I forgot to listen to the doctor, and my heart cracked just a little. But no matter how I poked and prodded, she refused to say anything else about it.
My mom was done soon after that, and we left the doctor quietly. The whole drive, I mentally pleaded for my mom to talk. I needed to hear her voice so badly that it hurt. But she stared out the window for most of the drive, and her expression was unreadable. By the time we got home, I still hadn’t thought of anything to say. But when she got out, before she closed the door, she turned to face me.
“Jessie, I know this kind of thing is exactly why you do what you do.”
“Mom, you had surgery less than a year ago.”
“And,” she said with an irritating calm, “I was declared in remission. The surgery was a success.”
“But—”
“Hun, if you let my every doctor visit dictate the way you live the rest of your life, I’m going to live the rest of my life feeling like I’ve let you down.”
Her words haunted me as I drove us to the nearest smoothie shop. As we sat inside and Jade inhaled her strawberry vanilla smoothie through an oversized straw, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so lost.
This was my life. My decisions. So why couldn’t anyone else accept that? Everyone thought I was too rigid, too set in my ways. Well, everyone except Sam. I smiled slightly. That guy got me.
