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He nodded. “Dr. Sam only needed one needle today, Mama.” Only one needle was a good day for Elias whenever he had to come to the hospital.
“That’s wonderful.” I looked around. “Where’s Sam?”
“Waiting on results,” Elias said. “She wanted to tell us together.”
Sometimes, Sam would tell Elias his test results first so he had time to process before she went on to explain things to me. I appreciated her for that: she wanted Elias to have as much agency as he could, and that meant telling him things, even if they were sometimes hard to understand. Even when I didn’t think he could handle it.
The fact that she wanted us together made that pool of bad feelings from before widen into a lake, and I swallowed hard, trying to keep the panic off of my face. “It’ll be okay, Mama,” Elias said, reading me anyway.
“I hope so, sakharok,” I said.
He hummed. “How badly was she freaking out in the waiting room?” he asked Adrian.
“Don’t tell him,” I warned, and Adrian laughed.
Elias snorted. “So, pretty bad, right?”
I flicked his ear, not hard, just enough to make him jump and run for Adrian. “Behave,” I said, and then met Adrian’s smiling eyes. “Both of you.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Adrian said.
It only took a few more minutes for Sam to bustle into the tiny vestibule we were hovering in. She was holding papers and looked…shaken. That did very little to calm the storm raging inside of me. “Sam? What’s going on?” Sam’s eyes darted to the papers in her hands and back up to us. Tears welled in her eyes. Bile churned in my stomach. “Just say it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid.”
Sam nodded, and I watched a tear drip down her cheek. Adrian, Elias, and I stood, huddled, as she took a deep breath. “He’s in remission,” she said. Her voice came out in a squeak.
“What?” Adrian asked hoarsely. “Say that again?”
A smile cracked and spread across her face. “He’s in full remission,” she repeated. “The vaccine worked.”
I heard the words, but it was like my body and mind weren’t in agreement about what to do about it. I started crying immediately, and my lungs seized, knees weakened. If it hadn’t been for Adrian, I would have hit the ground, for sure.
“Mama?” Elias’s voice was small, and I somehow convinced neck muscles to look down at him. “Does being in remission mean that I’m cured?”
Despite the tears and the wobbly feeling in my gut, I smiled and nodded. “Yeah, sakharok,” I breathed out. “That’s…that’s what that means.”
I bent, and he leapt, and I had my boy in my arms. I covered his face with kisses, and his giggles rang out in my ears. He was going to live. Not just until a disease ravaged his body and it gave up. Not barely being strung along by medication. But well and truly, Elias would live. I had never cried and laughed so loudly and for so long before.
Adrian was hugging us too, I realized, and it warmed me to see the tears on his cheeks. He was just as happy as we were with the results. Gently, I transferred Elias into his arms and turned to pull Sam in for a hug. She was shaking; I couldn’t blame her. “You did it,” I whispered. “You really did it.”
“I did it.” She sounded shell-shocked.
I hugged her harder and let her go. “Owen’s in the cafeteria getting coffee,” I said. “If you want to go and tell him.”
She nodded, absently. “Thank you for allowing me to?—”
I shook my head. “Thank you for working so hard to make this possible. Thank you from all of the mothers who worry like I did.”
We hugged again, both of us sobbing, but eventually, she extracted herself so she could go to find Owen. She’d want to share her success with her person, just like I wanted to share this with mine.
Adrian drew me back into his arms, and we squeezed Elias between us. “Adrian,” he wheezed.
“Yeah, bud?”
“Now’s the time.”
I had no idea what they were saying. It was honestly hard to focus over my own jubilation. “Time for what, sakharok?”
But Adrian seemed to understand perfectly. He set Elias down and squatted down so they were on the same level. “You’re sure?” he asked.
