I swallow before holding Mom’s phone out to her and letting my thoughts shape themselves into a terrifying reality. “You have cancer.”
· MAY — ONE DAY BEFORE GRADUATION ·
The next day, Mom and I sit in Dr. Sanchez’s sterile office, waiting for her to come in. Mom holds out a cinnamon mint from a little tin in her purse. “Here, try one. It will rip your tastebuds to shreds, but they’re pretty good.”
I mumble something.
She retracts the offering. “No? Okay.” Mom pops it into her mouth before snapping the container shut. She’s acting like it’sjust another day when, in fact, I can see her fingers trembling as she puts the tin back in her purse.
I put my arm around the back of her chair, and she leans into me.
“Everything’s going to be okay, Mom.” I don’t know why I say it. Everything is not okay. Mom is sick, and since finding out yesterday, the weight of it has crushed me as I replay how I twisted her arm into coming to thatstupidassembly when she could have been at her doctor’s appointment, getting the help she desperately needed.
“Sorry for the wait.” Dr. Sanchez comes in with an awkwardly compressed smile, like someone took a normal grin and blended it with a pint of bad news. My weight shifts further into the seat as I brace for words I’m not ready to hear.
Dr. Sanchez sits on her rolling stool as she talks to us about Mom’s blood results before pulling up images from the CT and MRI scans. So many gray, white, and black shapes litter the screen that I can’t tell what is what, but Dr. Sanchez quickly points to the areas of concern, showing us the growth on Mom’s ovary.
Mom nods, seeming to take everything in stride, but my lungs feel like they are about to explode. I take in a deep breath, but it does nothing to relieve the pressure mounting in my chest.
Eyeing the patch of cancer on the screen, I pull Mom closer to me.
Too quickly, Dr. Sanchez clicks on another image. “This is your pelvis.” She looks at Mom and then points to one of the little masses on the screen. “This right here indicates that the cancer has spread from your ovaries to the uterus. When the cancer starts to grow into the surrounding pelvic region, that is considered stage two ovarian cancer. Based on clinical staging, your cancer is stage two, but we’ll know more about the cancer's growth when we’ve obtained biopsies from surgery.”
I grip Mom’s hand, and she wraps her cold, bony fingers around mine.
“What is the treatment?” I ask.
“With stage one, we can usually treat it through surgery, but since the cancer has started to spread, we’ll need to do surgery along with chemotherapy to stop the cancer's growth and minimize the chances of reoccurrence.”
Dr. Sanchez places her hands in her lap and looks directly at us. “I know this is a lot to take in. But I am here to help you get the best care, and if you ever have any questions, please ask.”
My brain is yelling at me, telling me not to ask the question that’s on the tip of my tongue. The question of a conscience draped in guilt. But because I have to know, I push the words out of my mouth. “How fast does this kind of cancer grow?”
Mom looks at me strangely, but Dr. Sanchez addresses my question without hesitation.
“With the kind of cancer your mom has, the cancer cells can quickly spread within weeks or months,” she says. “But with the treatment plan, we will….”
The rest of Dr. Sanchez’s words are fogged out by the dark cloud overtaking my brain.Mom’s cancer could have spread within weeks or months.
Because of me, her cancer has had three more months to grow. Three months when she could have been getting treatment, when maybe her cancer could have been contained within one location, when her treatment could have been surgery without chemotherapy.
Guilt wraps around my body, consuming me until I feel suffocated by all the what-ifs.
My mom’s fingers tremble in mine, and when I look down at her, for the first time I can remember, I watch as a tear escapes her eye.
Heartbreak and guilt knife into my ribs as I pull my mom into a hug. “We’re going to get through this together,” I tell her. “I won’t leave your side.”
Chapter 21
PAIGE
· PRESENT DAY ·
Ian tugs me out of his car with a blindfold tied over my eyes. I’ve been wearing it since we left Ian’s apartment, so I’m pretty much as confused about where we are as I am about the state of my emotions.
Despite present company, Jordan pops into my mind for the thousandth time today.We held hands.Three nights ago, Jordan Miller and Paige Devons held hands.What is happening?
Well, nothing.
