"Okay, I'll stop taking them, but we’ll call Dr. Sumner tomorrow." Mom dried Gracie's tears with a tissue from the box on hernightstand. "I’m not giving up. I promise you both, I'm going to fight for as long as I can." Then she stood and stretched. "I think I'm actually hungry for a change. What should we have for lunch?"
"Enchiladas?" Grace suggested, needing the comfort food.
Gabe got to his feet. "No, if she's got sores in her mouth, it needs to be something mild."
Mom's lips turned up. "Mashed potatoes sound good."
"The cheesy, creamy kind?" Grace's own lips quirked.
"With garlic," Gabe added.
"Okay, now I'm really hungry, but I need a shower first." Mom made a shooing motion with her hands. "You guys get started on lunch, and I'll be out in a bit."
He and Grace made their way to the kitchen and set to work peeling potatoes, a somber mood hanging over them.
Grace spoke first. "Do you think there's another medicine that will be effective in slowing down the cancer but won't make her so sick?"
"I don't know." Gabe's voice was grim. "But I'm going to exhaust every avenue before I give up."
"Good." Graced nodded, then her eyes filled with tears again. "I can't bear to see her so sick, like she was last time, but I'm not ready to let her go yet."
"Me either, but at some point…" He cleared his throat. "We're going to have to accept that it’s time..."
The tears streamed down Grace's face as she nodded before turning away.
Gabe blinked back tears of his own. "Next time you go shopping, buy some of those nutrition-packed protein drinks. As the tumor in her stomach grows, she's going to find it harder and harder to eat."
It would only prolong the inevitable, but Gabe needed to believe they were doing everything they could for their mom.
Lunch was a quiet affair,and Gabe's mother was soon resting on the couch again. As the acceptance he'd tried to force upon himselfearlier cycled back around to anger and denial, he couldn't bear to sit still.
When Grace stepped out of the living room to take a phone call, he went to the backyard.
He grabbed a hoe from the shed and made short work of the few weeds in the garden and flower beds. Then he stood in the middle of the yard with his hands on his hips, searching for something to do.
His gaze landed on the rickety trellis with the climbing roses. Mom loved those roses, but the trellis was an eyesore. He walked over and studied the way the roses had woven around each other and the trellis. If he cut the support wires, maybe he could untangle them and replace the trellis. Easier said than done, but a deep-seated need to do this act of service for his mom filled him.
An hour later, Grace came outside. "What on earth are you doing?"
"I'm replacing the trellis." He grunted as he tugged one vine loose from another. His grunt was followed by a hiss as more thorns tore at his skin.
Scrapes and abrasions covered his hands and arms. He cringed at the number of leaves and rose petals littering the ground, fearing he'd undertaken an impossible task.
"Mom said she didn't want you to replace it." Grace planted her hands on her hips in a defensive stance.
"I know, but this old thing is such an eyesore." He flicked a loose section to emphasize his point. It wobbled back and forth, shaking the whole trellis.
"You're going to ruin her roses." Her voice took on a desperate edge.
"If I don't replace the trellis, the whole thing is going to come down with the next stiff wind. Her roses will never survive that." He tore into the depths of the roses again trying to wiggle free the vine he'd been wrestling with for the last twenty minutes.
Another thorn tore into the flesh of his thumb. Swearing, he jerked his hand back and shoved the stinging digit to his lips. He sucked away the blood.
"Why are you torturing yourself?"
"Because I have to dosomething!"The volume of his voice made her flinch. Lowering it, he went on, "I can't just sit around, feeling like I've failed everyone." He threw his arms in the air like Paige often did.
Paige.
