“We decided to wait to tell the kids until we had some more answers. A treatment plan. Something. But I guess the cancer had other plans. Wren is a little upset with us for not telling her sooner, but I…we just wanted to protect her.”
If anyone understands that, it’s me.
“I totally get that, sir. What can I do?”
He just shakes his head.
“Just be there for her. She’s intense, but she’s the best human I know,” he says, his voice cracking.
“As long as she will have me, sir, I’ll be there.”
He nods, the tears welling in his eyes. He’s a fairly small man. And while Wren favors her mother’s looks, she has his eyes.
Then he walks back around the corner and into the room.
A few hours pass, and I hear the room door creak open. My eyes shoot open, and I see her standing in front of us. Cole is passed out on my shoulder, and I must have dozed off myself.
“What time is it?” I whisper.
“It’s three in the morning,” she whispers back. “I need to get him home.”
I nod.
“‘Course,” I say. “I’ll text Eddie.”
We wake Cole up,get him in the car, and get him home. After a hot shower and a snack, he passes out on the couch between us. She looks up at me.
“I can’t leave him,” she whispers. “You really can go. I can take the train back whenever my parents get home.”
I put my hand on top of hers.
“Is it okay if I stay?” I ask.
Her eyebrows knit together, and her lip trembles. She doesn’t say anything. She just pulls a throw off the couch and hands it to me, covering herself with another.
“Brooks?” she says.
“Yeah, baby,” I whisper.
“Before you even try, I’m still going through with it. This doesn’t change anything.”
If it were another situation, I may have laughed. She really does know me.
“I know, baby. I know.”
WREN
Icould barely sleep.
Not sure if it was the twenty-year-old couch my parents have in their living room or the fact that my mom might be dying.
One of those probably had to do with it.
I’ve been up since the crack of dawn, making sure my parents’ house is spotless. I’ve made three freezer meals and have dug through their mail, trying to find anything from her oncologist that might give me more information.
My phone rings, and I see it’s my dad.
I’m still angry, but I don’t have the luxury of leaning into that right now.
