When it’s clear neither Cayce or Corey will inhale another bite, Mom sighs. From the corner of my eye, I spot Dad tensing. Instead of starting to eat her own plate, Mom leans forward, forearms on the table, fingertips pressed together in a fragile steeple. Her gaze drops, then lifts up again to look straight at me.
“Karan, Rachel,” she starts, the grave tone of her voice immediately sending my heart lurching in my chest. “We have something we’ve been meaning to tell you.”
Time stands still. I don’t dare breathe. A second passes, but to me, eternity and terror stretch this moment into an endless abyss.
Mom takes a deep breath and drops the bomb onto me. “I have ovarian cancer.”
My ears ring; whatever words come after those four, I don’t hear them. They loop on repeat in my head, jabbing me in painful pricks, and when Rachel grabs hold of my hand, I hardly feel it.
Not Mom. She’s so young still. It doesn’t make sense. She was fine. She was doingjustfine. How could she have cancer?
This doesn’t happen to us. Not to my family. Not to those I love.
But it just did.
I think of every unspoken word. Every dream she’s still holding on to. It seemed like she still had so many years—decades, even—in front of her. But now that those decades have been put in jeopardy…
Will my mother die before I can prove to her that I’m the son she always wanted me to be?
Have I made a huge mistake by chasing a career she and Dad never wanted for me?
Oh, God…
“Karan?” Dad’s voice echoes through the fog.
I stir out of the nightmare fuel that are my thoughts only to see him looking back at me with concern etched onto his features.
He, too, looks so fragile now.
“Beta, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
I repeat back the words he and Mom just spoke out, as if on autopilot, not really digesting them; words like prognosis and radio and chemo and other terms I never thought I’d be uttering at this table.
Not about my mother.
All the while, Rachel doesn’t let my hand go. I hone in on the sensation of her soft skin against mine to keep myself grounded.
“If you think about it, I’m quite lucky,” Mom says, though the tremble in her voice betrays her fear. “They caught it early. I’m otherwise in good health. I think, all things considered, we don’t have too much to worry about.”
She fiddles at her braid of silver hair.
Hair that she’s going to lose.
I can’t lose her. I’m not ready.
“When’s your next appointment?” I blurt out.
“Tomorrow,” Mom answers.
“I want to be there.”
Unlike Mom, my own voice stays steady.
“I want to be there, too,” Rachel echoes as she squeezes my hand. “And to help in any way either of you need.”
Rachel shoots my parents a reassuring smile, and a surge of love for my wife rips through me.
