Believe me.The words of a fucking liar.
“A suicide pact,” I echo, my voice hollow. “But they wouldn’t have left me all alone.”
“That’s a very natural reaction to have,” Officer Jones does his best to soothe me. “Of course, your mom didn’t have a choice…”
My skin prickles at his words. What does he mean,didn’t have a choice?
He must sense my confusion, because he stammers in clarification, “With her cancer, of course.”
I feel a sudden, enormous lump rise in my throat, and try as I might I just can’t seem to swallow it down.
Cancer.
The tin sound of the word as it filters through the phone doesn’t seem to hold any meaning. It feels empty. No, not empty. Impossible.
It can’t be true. He’s lying.
If she’d had cancer, I would have been the first to know. She never breathed a word to me about it.
She was my mom.Ismy mom. Some random police officer wouldn’t have found out about a cancer diagnosis before me.
He’s lying. That’s it. Lying, because he’s just a fucking liar.
But my hand shakes as it squeezes the door handle, and my knees buckle. I feel like I’m about to collapse.
“She had only a few months to live,” drones on Jones. “Maybe your dad felt that life without her would be intolerable. Does that sound like him?”
Yes. Yes, I guess. Dad loved Mom so much. I can’t begin to imagine how he would have reacted if she’d died.
But cancer. She couldn’t have had cancer. What the fuck.
It takes whole minutes for the word to wrap itself around my brain.Cancer.
More minutes to allow myself to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the cruel liar isn’t the one currently on the phone with me.
Is Jones right? Could she really have had cancer? Did she hideit from me?
How come no one fucking told me?
Did Dad know? He must have. But he didn’t tell me. Mom didn’t tell me. No one said a fucking thing.
What the fuck?
Are the people who raised me nothing but liars?
Before I can prevent the words from spilling out of my mouth, I croak out, “How… how long?”
“How long?” echoes Officer Jones.
“For how long did she have cancer?”
There’s a pause as he seems to understand the meaning behind the question.I didn’t know.
“Well, Piper,” he says sadly, “her records say she’s been fighting that battle since she came to Astley.”
I sink to my knees.Since she came to Astley.
It doesn’t feel possible. Mom, struggling with cancer for more than half of my life, and I never even knew?
