“She asked me to speak to you,” he said kindly. “She’s still trying to wrap her head around this news herself.”
“What is it?” I didn’t realize I was sliding down the wall until my butt hit the floor. I put my head between my knees and took a deep breath.
“Your mother has invasive lobular carcinoma,” Dr. Hudson said. “It’s a rare form of breast cancer that begins in the breast's milk-producing glands.”
“Jesus.” I closed my eyes, resting my head against the wall, praying that I would wake up from this nightmare in seconds. “Is it aggressive?” I asked.
“It’s certainly invasive,” said Doctor Hudson. “Your mother is at stage three.”
“Stage three.” I swallowed the painful lump in my throat as bile clawed its way up my esophagus. “That’s bad.”
On the other end of the phone, Dr. Hudson sighed softly. “The cancer cells have broken out of the lobule where they began and have spread to some lymph nodes.”
Dizziness overcame me again, and I lowered my head once more to keep from fainting. “Has it spread to her organs?”
“No,” Dr. Hudson said. “And that’s a good sign. While this cancer is invasive, we can still start treatment immediately. If we can stop it before it affects her organs, we will have a chance.”
It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
“Okay,” I said. “I—I understand. We’ll start treatment immediately, of course.”
There was a short silence on the other end of the line, and his tone was lowered when Dr. Hudson spoke again. “Your mother has stepped into the bathroom, and I feel obligated to stick my nose in business it doesn’t belong.”
“Say what you need to, doc.”
“Do you intend to be here?” he asked, catching me slightly off guard. “Here, with your mother during her treatment?”
“I, um—”
“Because she will need you, Peyton, and I’ve worked in this town and at this hospital long enough to know that she has no one else. But you.”
“I understand, Dr. Hudson,” I said quietly. “But there are some things I need to get in order before making rash decisions. Do you believe treatment will be this devastating for her?” A silent tear rolled from my eye and dripped off my chin. And then another.
“Your mom is young,” he said. “She can beat this, but the process won’t be easy, and it won’t be easy on you or me or anybody else, but especially not on her.”
“I hear you.”
“Good.” Another silence, and then. “Susan, would you like to speak now to Peyton?” Another brief silence followed, and then my mother’s voice came on the phone.
“I’m sorry I was such a blubbering mess,” she said. I could still hear the pain in her voice and imagine the tears that stained her cheeks and the smeared tint of mascara under her eyes.
“Mom, why are you apologizing?” I clambered to my feet, knowing I didn’t have much time left to hide in the supply closet before someone came looking. “I’m here for you. I’m glad you called me. And Mom—I am so,sosorry. I don’t even know what to say.”
“I don’t even know what to think,” she said bravely. “I—I just knew something was wrong. I knew something has been wrong.”
“Mom, if you knew something was wrong, why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, willing away the frustrated tears that threatened to spill. “How long have you been feeling unwell?”
“It doesn’t matter,” my mother said, and if I thought she couldn’t possibly sound braver, she did. “I didn’t want to disrupt your life in the city, sweetheart. You have a wonderful job and good friends, a nice apartment. Why would I want to rattle that?”
I shook my head, wondering if there was anything in there I could punch. “Because I’m your daughter,” I said loudly, turning to rest my head against the cool, concrete wall. “And because you’re my mother. You should know that I would have been down there for you.”
“This was never going to be temporary,” my mother said softly. “And I knew that.”
“I’m an hour away, Mom. I can make it work. I can work here and take care of you there.”
“Peyton, please don’t rearrange your life to come back here,” she said, her voice tired now. Weak. “It’s been difficult enough for you to come and see me once a month—if I’m lucky. I don’t expect this of you, not just as your mother, but as a human being.”
I cringed when she said this, knowing that she wasn’t wrong, and I was an asshole for it. I left a lot of toxicity back home, and I avoided being back at every cost. Moving out of Eagle River after high school had been the breath of air I’d needed, the very escape into the city that I never knew before that I needed.
