She hadn’t wanted to leave the comfort of Sydney’s sphere, of how she made Reese feel: like anything was possible, like everything would be okay.
When she reached the table to find her mother sitting alone, she was still mulling over the distracting idea.
She plopped down unceremoniously into the seat next to her mom. “Hey.”
Sharon was sipping on a glass of iced tea, sunglasses taking up almost half her face. “Hi, honey. How was your match?”
“We won, but some of the pride is taken out knowing that I brought a ringer,” Reese said wryly as she clocked her mom’s sunglasses. “What’s with the new look? Going incognito today?”
Be in the moment, she promised herself, even if that meant pulling her thoughts—not an easy task—from Sydney and the last, lingering glance she’d given Reese as she’d walked away.
“Allergies,” her mom said, waving her off as she set her glass down on the round table.
Reese looked around to the patio that was half full with lunch patrons. “Where’d Margie go?”
“She’s hosting a fundraiser at the club next month, and the manager asked for her sign-off on the menu.”
It was then that Reese stopped the conversation and took a closer look at her mom. “That sounds like your dream day coming true. Why didn’t you join her?”
Her mom shrugged, her hands still grasping her glass of iced tea. “I’m a little distracted today. Didn’t think I’d be much help.”
“What’s got you distracted?” Reese asked, continuing to focus on what was right in front of her, on how her mom’s posture was a little off, and how, even under the sunglasses, she could see how her eyes darted around.
“It’s nothing, honey. We can talk about it some other time.”
Only, the way her mom said it, voice shaking with a lighttremble, made the hair on Reese’s neck stand up, made her stomach do a swift somersault.
Reese scooted her chair sideways so that she could touch her mom’s knee, and the anxious, whirring feeling inside of her picked up momentum. “Mom? Is everything okay? What’s going on?”
It was probably nothing; she just needed her mom to confirm that, in fact, itwasnothing.
So, why wasn’t her mom doing that?
The silence stretched out between them, causing Reese to hold her breath.
“I’m fine, honey,” Sharon finally said, breaking the tension but doing nothing to allay Reese’s fears. “I’m just waiting for some test results, and I guess I’m a little nervous.”
Reese sat up ramrod straight. “What test results?”
Why hadn’t she known? Granted, she and her mom didn’t talk often, but this wasn’t a casual check-in call or an invitation to one of her fundraisers. This wasserious.
And, for whatever reason, her mom hadn’t told her.
“I had to have a procedure about a month ago. It went well, but they needed to run tests yesterday afternoon to confirm that they got everything. I should have the results back early next week to give me the all-clear.” Sharon smiled weakly, poorly selling the confidence she was trying to project.
It was like time had stopped, and Reese really did have no option except to be excruciatingly present in the moment, trying to make sense of her mom’s words.
She rolled the words around in her mouth. They tasted bitter before she forced herself to say them out loud. “Mom, are you telling me you have cancer?”
“No, no,” Sharon said, placing her hand on Reese’s. “Ihadcancer. They caught it very early. Stage 1. They’re confident they got it all, but they want to make sure. I’m just, well, you never know…” Her mom trailed off, her fingers absently stroking Reese’s knuckles.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know,” Reese said before thoughts came tumbling into her mind that she couldn’t help voicing. “Did Dad go with you yesterday? Is this why you called me Thursday? Mom, why didn’t you tell me?”
Shame flooded through her like a dam had broken, more potent than the fear she’d felt moments ago.
“I didn’t want you to worry, honey. Until a week ago, I didn’t even know you’d be in town so soon. I was planning to let you know when the post-op check-up results came back.”
“But you had a surgery,” Reese argued.
