“I’m sorry,” I manage to say. “I’m so sorry.”
“How long?” Jules whispers.
“Months.” Edgar wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. “It could be a little longer if she got chemo and radiation, but it’s only like a stay of execution—it means she gets fifteen months of puking and baldness, and wishing she were dead, before she reallyis.When my dad died, it took years. It was a living hell. My mom doesn’t want to go through that. She doesn’t wantmeto go through that.” He buries his face in his hands. “I can’t lose her too,” he whispers. “I’ll be completely alone.”
What happens to you, if you don’t have parents? Are there even orphanages anymore? Oliver never mentioned any grandparents or uncles or cousins visiting. I think of Edgar rattling around in his house, all by himself, suddenly having to be the grown-up.
Edgar sinks into a chair. “I can’t stop thinking of all thosestupid video games I used to play. My mom would say, ‘Hey, let’s take a walk,’ or, ‘Want to run errands with me?’ I blew her off, every single time. And instead I’d pick up that stupid controller.” He looks up at me. “In a video game, when you die, you get a reboot. You start over. How come real life isn’t like that?”
I watch Jules fumble for something in her pocket. She takes out a small piece of coral, curved like aJ,and rubs her thumb over the edge. Then she looks at me.
When you’re best friends with someone, you don’t have to speak to know what she’s thinking. You don’t have to hear her cry to know that she’s breaking into a thousand pieces inside. Jules presses the coral into the palm of Edgar’s hand. “Lifecanbe like that,” she says. “Go to the place where you’re invincible.”
EDGAR
The conversation about her death was the worst conversation of my life.
Sit next to me,she said, patting the hospital bed beside her.I’m not going to break.
It started with a headache that wouldn’t go away. And then, one day, I couldn’t make sense of things. I thought I was hallucinating. I saw a boy who looked like my son . . . but who I just knewwasn’t.The doctors call it Capgras syndrome—when you believe that a close family member has been replaced by an imposter. I went to a psychiatrist first, but he referred me to a neurologist. Someone who could take a look at my brain.
The MRI found the brain tumor. It’s in the glial cells—they’re sort of the glue of the nervous system. They hold neurons in place, and they supply nutrients and oxygen to the brain. They insulate one neuron from another. And they destroy toxins. Finding out that you have a glioblastoma is kind of like finding out that you havetermites eating the structure of your house. They don’t eat the aluminum siding, your plumbing, or your appliances . . . but good luck living in that house.
As she spoke, I felt like I should have been kicking. I should have been screaming. Turning over tables. Yelling at the top of my lungs. But instead I just felt numb.
As she spoke, I felt like my mother should have been sobbing, shouting, cursing. Instead she was relating the details in an even voice, as if she had practiced.
It was like we were having a discussion about something horrific that was happening to two people who were not us.
The reason we moved from Wellfleet was because the best neurologist in New England happens to be here, at St. Brigid’s. When you were at school, I was at appointments. And I was trying very hard to get the courage to tell you what was happening to me.
I don’t get it. Why can’t you have surgery? I asked. What about chemo?
This type of tumor is so similar to normal brain cells that it’s impossible to treat without destroying a lot of healthy cells too. So any medicine or operation is only going to prolong the inevitable. I’m going to die, Edgar. The question is whether I want to spend fifteen months suffering through a treatment that isn’t going to cure me, or if I’d rather have four perfect months with you.
I swallowed hard.
Does it hurt? I asked.
Only when I think about what I’m missing,my mother said.Cheering for you on your graduation day. Dancing with you at your wedding. Holding my first grandchild. Watching you grow up into a magnificent man.
But I couldn’t imagine growing up without her there to witness it. I took a deep breath and tried and could only see a great, big blank. I felt like I was going to be sick.
What happens to me? What am I supposed to do without you?
Your birthday’s in a week. You’ll be eighteen—which means legally, you’re an adult. You have cousins in California you can live with. You can go to college—your father and I set enough money aside to make sure of it. You’ll go on, and you’ll live a spectacular life.
What I wanted, in the middle of that conversation, was a do-over. Like when I used to go to the town pool with my mom and practice my somersaults off the diving board and wound up doing belly flops instead.That one doesn’t count!I would yell from the edge of the pool, and she would nod, and I’d start again. I wanted this—this hospital room, this conversation, this reality—to not count. I wanted to go back in time, to before we were in this hospital. Before I went into her office at home. Before I found out her secret.
I tried to tell her this, but what came out instead wasI should have said I love you more.
I’m your mom,she said.Don’t you think I know?
I started to cry then. After my dad died, I thought I was safe—that the world could never get that bad again. I figured the worst had already happened and things could only get better from there. But I’d managed to win the suckiest lotterytwice: two parents with terminal illnesses. I thought of how I willingly left my mother to go into a stupid book, giving up months I could have spent with her. I thought of how she would tellme to clean my room or take my dirty dishes to the sink and I would tune out, when now I wanted her to keep speaking so I would never forget her voice.
It’s not fair, I whispered.
Oh, Edgar.She squeezed my hand.Life’snotfair.
