I wanted to be stoic, like she, my dad and Danny were that evening, but her diagnosis pulled the rug right out from under me. To this day I’m still embarrassed by how selfishly I took her news. One of my first thoughts upon hearing she’d need chemotherapy and would likely lose her hair was to hope it would grow back in time for the wedding. I couldn’t cope, so instead focused on the small, unimportant things, like taking wedding pictures with a bald mother-of-the-bride.
Six months later Ryan and I were married—in a no-frills ceremony at city hall, Mom wearing a gorgeous wig—and I quit my job to take care of her a month after that when it became clear the cancer was winning. Dad had Danny to worry about, plus he had to keep working to pay the bills, and I needed to be useful. But there was only so much a daughter’s love and devotion could do, and much too soon for all of us, Dad and I were picking out a granite headstone, Danny standing beside us with silent tears rolling down his peach-fuzz covered face, me understanding I would now have to live with a hole inside me, forever.
It was around that time the debilitating nausea started. I was distracted by my grief and so, not worried, but Ryan—suffering “second year syndrome,” medical student hypochondria—dragged me to a specialist after I threw up in the sink one night after dinner. The doctor agreed it might be an ulcer, certainly the stress of the last year could have done it, she said, and they took enough blood I actually felt woozy when we left the clinic. Of all the possible things it could have been, I was not expecting the result: I was pregnant.
With the baby on the way and my heart still shattered from Mom’s death, I nested in our cramped apartment full of secondhand furniture and cheap but cheerful decor and tried to prepare for motherhood. Meanwhile, Ryan finished second year, and Dad started dating, which I thought was absolutely too soon, but I never said so because I’d promised Mom I wouldn’t let Dad wither away.
“I love your father, Margaret, but he is a man born without the ability to read a recipe or keep his whites and darks separate in the laundry machine. Bless him, my Hugh.” I’d laughed softly when she said this, but I knew the domestic tasks excuse was a cover. Dad did better as a team. Plus, Danny, only a week away from celebrating his fourteenth birthday when Mom died, also needed someone. He was too young, she said, to be left without a mother.
“But he has a mother,” I’d said, biting my lip to keep the tears at bay so she would see how strong I was. How capable she raised me to be. “I’ll take care of Dad. And Danny.”
She’d taken my hand then and pressed my palm to the paper-thin skin of her cancer-hollowed cheek. “You have your own life to worry about,” she’d said. “I won’t steal the joy of that away from you, along with everything else I’m taking.” I’d nodded, leaned into her body so bony and frail and smelling like antiseptic—the scent of sickness and death—but still warm with life and love.
I never did announce my engagement that evening. It wouldn’t be until the next day, when I sat with Mom and Dad at her oncology appointment, that my secret would be revealed.
“What is this?” she’d exclaimed, grabbing my hand and holding it up to the light. Delight had brightened her face as she stared at the ring. She’d still looked like herself—wavy brown hair to her shoulders, enough weight on her body to prove she loved good food—and despite where we were and why we were there, it’s one of my favorite memories of my mother.
“Hugh, the grandbabies are coming!” she’d trilled loudly. Her enthusiasm and happiness had made me laugh, but I also felt bolstered—she wouldn’t leave before meeting her first grandchild.
* * *
By the time I drag myself out of bed and splash cold water on my face it’s just before seven, and I still feel horrible—brittle with fever, consumed by shock and worry for Jack, and humming from the vestiges of my nightmare about Paige and the bittersweet memories of Mom. I text Audrey and am making a cup of tea when I hear the front door open.
“Meg?”
Tears come to my eyes, and I hastily wipe them away. “In here,” I call out. I turn and lean against the counter, the ceramic mug hot in my hands. Ryan comes into the kitchen and I smile, all the bad feelings I was holding on to about this morning’s argument gone the moment I see him, wanting nothing more than to be inside the safety of his arms.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I reply, taking a sip of my drink and glancing at the clock. 7:06 p.m. “You came home early.”
He smiles. “I came home early.” He walks to me and, careful not to spill my drink, puts his hands on my shoulders and kisses my forehead. “I left the meeting right after you called and went to Children’s. Audrey was still there.” His eyes—at times blue, at times gray, but today a flecked mix—are concerned. He holds a gentle hand to my forehead, in the spot he just kissed. “You’re hot.”
“Thank you,” I say, batting my eyelashes. Then I cough hard, and my tea spills, scalding and sticky on to my hands. “Ouch!”
Ryan rips off a few sheets from the paper towel roll. He gently wipes my hands, then the edge of my mug and the small circle of wet on the floor near my feet.
“How was everyone doing?” I ask, as he tosses the soiled paper towel into the trash.
“As well as can be expected. Audrey filled me in on what happened.” He watches my face, waiting to see if I want to talk about it. I just nod. “She wanted to stay with Sam until Jack is out of surgery, which might be a while,” he adds. The corners of his mouth turn down, and I wonder what else he knows. “Go, sit,” he says, gesturing to the living room couch. “I’ll join you in a minute, okay?”
I kiss his cheek before heading to the living room, where, with a contented sigh, I sink into the plush cushions. A few minutes later Ryan sits beside me, pulling my slippered feet onto his lap and wrapping my legs in a blanket. Once he’s cocooned me, he grabs the beer he brought with him from the kitchen and twists the cap.
“What did you find out? About Jack?” I hold my breath, my heart racing. Ryan doesn’t answer immediately, and suddenly I’m terrified.
“Is he going to live?” I whisper.
He pauses. With his telling silence I wilt deeper into the cushions, tears springing to my eyes.
“Oh, my god, Ryan—”
“He’s fighting hard,” Ryan says. “But he has a tough road ahead.”
I sit up a bit straighter and steel myself for what a “tough road” means.
“He has a skull fracture and some bleeding in his brain.” Ryan puts a hand on my knee, rubs firmly. “Meg, Praskesh is his surgeon, and he’s the best. He’ll get it under control.”
“I don’t know if Audrey should be there, Ryan. It’s too much. For them. For her.” I take a deep breath, my heart hammering in my chest. I recognize the feeling as panic—I desperately want Audrey home with me, where I can know for sure that she’s okay.
“Someone she loves is suffering a whole lot right now,” he says. “Sam needs her there. And she’s okay. I just saw her. She’s fine, Meg, all things considered.”
I nod and try to control my quivering lips. “What about Jack’s leg? And his back? Andrew said it was broken?”
“They’re trying to save his leg,” Ryan says. Then he sighs, runs a hand over his face, and I try to focus. I think about how when Jack woke up this morning, he had no idea it would be his last as a carefree teenager. That the moment he stepped off the curb, his life would never be the same again. “As for his spine, jury’s still out. It depends on the break. And if his spinal cord was completely severed or not.”
Bile moves up in my throat, and I swallow reflexively a few times. “And if it is completely severed? What will that mean?”
“He’ll be paralyzed.”