“Stop that now, Caroline,” Gram says, reaching out to hold my hand with the arm that’s free from the IV. Her hand is the same one that makes me breakfast, but it feels alien. Cold. Frail. Even worse, her words are coming out funny—slurred somehow. She sounds like she’s drunk. “I’m going to be fine,” she says, but “fine” sounds like “fline.”
“Yes,” I say, knowing if I say more, I’ll start blubbering again. I’m still holding Gram’s hand when Mom walks in with my little sister, Judith.
“Where’s Teddy?” Mom asks when she sees me. Apparently, whether or not my brother is inconvenienced is what’s really important here. The funny thing is that Teddy won’t care—he’s the most laid-back one of all of us.
“She didn’t wait for him,” Natalie mutters to Mom in that annoyingly soft voice she uses when she’s only pretending to be discreet.
“Well, you’re here now,” Mom says, sighing at me.
“Coco!” Judith says, dropping Mom’s hand and rushing toward me. She hugs my leg, and I squeeze her as best I can without letting go of Gram. I run my palm over her baby blond hair and smile.
“Hi, Juju,” I say. “How are you?”
“Mama gived me juice,” she says proudly. At two and a half, she’s all belly and bum; she stands like an adorable troll doll, beaming at me. Then she looks at Gram. “We bringed you juice, too, Gamma!”
Judith runs over and grabs a juice box from Mom’s gigantic purse, then returns to the bedside and tosses it up onto Gram’s lap. Gram beams back at her. “How thoughtful of you,” she says. “Thank you, Judith.”
Julif.
I look away from Gram’s face when I realize that one side is sagging lower than the other. Thankfully, a nurse comes in right then and says he needs to check her vitals.
“Let’s all step out for a minute,” Mom says, giving me a look that tells me I’m coming with her, whether I like it or not. “We’ll go get a snack and be back in a few minutes, Mom.”
“All right, then,” Gram says, releasing my hand. It feels like I’ve just taken off my coat in a blizzard. I want to grab hold again, but the nurse has already moved in with his pushcart full of tools. “See you.”
Sheeu.
I swallow down the lump in my throat and follow Mom, Judith, and Natalie out of the room. Teddy is walking toward us from the elevator, and when he joins our group, he’s the only one on the face of the planet who manages not to give me crap about driving myself. Instead he nudges me with his elbow and whispers, “She’ll be fine, Coco.”
And that makes me cry all over again.
When Judith is preoccupied, hopping from tile to tile in the hallway, my mother talks in a detached voice. “I didn’t want to say this in front of her, but they did a scan.” Natalie’s eyes are round as saucers and Teddy crosses his arms over his chest, listening intently. I feel light-headed.
Mom sighs heavily. “The cancer has spread. It’s throughout her abdomen, her lungs. Her brain.”
“Oh my God.” It’s all I can manage. Natalie reaches for my mother immediately. I look at Teddy as he shakes his head slowly.
“She’s weak from the stroke, and the cancer is everywhere,” Mom continues, letting go of Natalie. “The oncologist says she’s too far gone—that there’s nothing they can do but make her comfortable.” My mother takes a deep breath and meets my eyes. “She doesn’t have long.”
I want to ask specifically how long that means. I want to ask why the chemo worked but then didn’t. I want to ask a million things, but everything stills—even my vocal cords. In that quiet, my thoughts are noisy: I’m losing my confidant. I’m losing my best friend.
“Coco?” Teddy asks, like he said something before but I didn’t hear him. It pulls me out. “Are you okay?” “I don’t know,” I say. My ears are ringing.
“Do you want to sit down?” he asks, nodding to the chairs near the wall.
Natalie huffs, wiping the tears under her glasses. “It’s always about you, isn’t it,” she murmurs.
The anger in my sister’s voice lights a fire in me. I’m so sick of her telling me what to do, acting like I’m some inconvenience to the family. She’s been like this ever since the divorce. I spin toward her, ready to strike back.
Teddy steps in before I tear into her. “Please,” he says to both of us. “I can’t referee right now.” His shoulders are hunched, and I realize that even my always-steady older brother is crumbling too. We fall silent and wait until the nurse leaves before crossing the hall. My mother pauses outside the doorway and turns to face us.
“Not a word about what I told you,” she whispers. She grabs Judith’s hand and walks back inside the room.
“Come out with me tonight,” Simone says at the beginning of math. It’s been three days since Gram was transferred from the hospital to the hospice facility—three excruciating days of me being forced to attend school when I should be there by Gram’s side.
“You know I can’t,” I say seriously.
“You’ve gone every night this week,” she protests. “You’ve become a slightly unwashed hermit.”
“I still shower.”
“Sure you do.” She smiles, but when I don’t laugh, she sighs. “Linus, I’m sure Gram will be feeling better soon.”
I turn to her. “People don’t get released from hospice,” I say. “They’re giving her drugs to make her comfortable. But she’s still dying.” Too many drugs, I think. So many that half the time, she’s out cold.
“I’m sorry,” she says softer, leaning in toward me because Mr. Pip looks like he’s about to start class. “I’m not trying to sound insensitive. I just don’t really know what to say anymore. No one close to me has ever been sick. You love your gram—hell, I love her too. But it’s like you’re fading away, Caroline. You’re living at your mom’s, sleeping in your weird old penguin bedroom—”
“Not by choice,” I interrupt. “My mom won’t let me stay at my real house. At Gram’s.”
“I know,” Simone says, nodding. “And it sucks. Everything sucks for you right now. That’s my point. Can’t you take one night off ? We’ll do something fun. I hear there’s a party at—”
“No,” I say quickly, but without conviction. Then Mr. Pip gives us a look and we’re forced to be quiet.
My eyes fall to my blank notebook. I feel heavy with guilt, like there’s lead in my veins. Truth be told, I’d give anything to go to a party, no matter where it is. I’d give anything to get away from it all. I’m craving a break from my life. From my grief. From my family.
From Gram.
Because when it comes down to it, waiting for someone to die is like being told a tornado is coming. You press pause on your life and brace yourself—but you don’t know when it will hit, how bad it’ll be. You can prepare all you want, but in the end, you just don’t know.
• • •
When I arrive at the hospice facility after school, Gram is asleep in the bed—but her face is slack, her chest rising and