I shake my head. I don’t want to think about Jeremy right now, and I definitely don’t want to talk about it. My throat feels restricted, like I’ve swallowed something too large to get down. Tears gather in the corners of my eyes.
“She’s going to be okay,” he whispers. We both know there’s no way for him to know that. But his certainty is a lie I appreciate.
My throat feels tight with unshed tears. If we stay here much longer, I’m going to dissolve into sobs and melt down completely. I can’t fall apart. Cosmos still seems to think I’m attractive, and I’m not ready for him to realize his mistake.
I look away.
Like a rubber band being pulled tight and released, we snap back to the places we were before. My eyes are dry again, but there’s a burning pressure behind the bridge of my nose, and I know I could cry at any moment.
Cosmos blinks a few times, clearly trying to reorient himself in time and space.
“Did you need something, Dr. Romero?” Dr. Newberry asks.
“Um, yes, we’re all set in the OR.”
Dr. Newberry asks Mom again if she has any questions, then pats her hand and tells her he’ll see her soon before leaving with Cosmos. I wish Cosmos would look back, that I could have one more moment of safety, but I’m also relieved he doesn’t. My heart is too tender, and the tears are too close.
The anesthesiologist comes in soon after. He looks like a young Robin Williams and has the same sort of twinkle in his eyes. As soon as he enters, he starts making jokes that feel entirely inappropriate for the occasion. He’s trying to lighten the mood and put us at ease, but his casualness about something so serious grates on me.
“Alright, we’ve got to go over some paperwork. It’s likely to put you to sleep, but that’s what I’m here for, right?” He laughs. I don’t.
He goes over another set of risks, these directly related to anesthesia. Again, I try to focus and not throw up. Mom nods along, seemingly unaffected.
“Now, would you like me to knock you out with gas or a canoe paddle?” When we both look at him blankly, he adds, “It’s an ether/oar situation.”
My overworked and overstimulated brain doesn’t get the joke until at least three minutes later. I try to keep up, try to be nice. But I just want him to shut up and leave.
I push a polite smile, but I’m fairly certain it looks more like a grimace. Kane always said I had resting bitch face, and I hated that. I don’t want to come off as a bitch. But in situations like these, when I’m feeling more than I can handle, it’s too much work to monitor my facial expressions while also trying to figure out what everyone else expects me to feel and how they expect me to respond. It’s exhausting.
When the anesthesiologist finally leaves, a nurse comes in. She unplugs the cord that attaches the little strip of fabric around Mom’s finger that measures her blood oxygen levels. She unhooks the pressure cuff and moves the IV bag to a pole attached to the bed. With each movement, I know the clock is ticking and we’re closer to when they’ll take Mom back to the operating room. I bite my cheek to keep myself from crying. She shouldn’t have to deal with my emotions on top of everything else.
Mom chats casually with the nurse. Something about how long she’s been doing this. I can’t follow the conversation. All I can hear is the beep, beep, beep of the machine screaming about not being able to get a read on Mom’s vitals now that the nurse has unhooked her. I don’t understand why she hasn’t silenced it yet. It takes all of my self-control not to start randomly pushing buttons to get it to stop.
Finally, she turns it off. Mom’s gonna be fine. The nurse unlocks the brakes on one side of the bed.Click. Click.She’ll be okay. Then, the other side of the bed.Click. Click.She’ll be just fine. Maybe if I say it tomyself enough, I’ll believe it. Dr. Newberry knows what he’s doing. She will be okay. She has to be.
I hug my purse closer to my body as the nurse rolls the bed out of the room. She directs me to follow and says she’ll point out the door to the waiting room on the way.
I grab Mom’s hand and walk next to the bed. Mom looks up at me and smiles. “I love you, Hazelnut.”
I try to put on a brave face, but holding back the tears is taking all my energy. It’s hard to get the words out, but I force them past my lips. “I love you, too, Mom.”
The nurse waves a badge at a little black box on the wall, and the doors swing apart, one opening in and the other opening out. She pushes Mom into the hall, turns a corner, and opens another door. This time she doesn’t wheel Mom through. She points. “Waiting room is that door at the end.”
I’m still taking in this information when she turns Mom away. I rush forward and give Mom a hasty kiss on the cheek before they make it through the new doors.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” she says.
I stay frozen in the hall, watching until the doors close, cutting us off. It all happens too fast. One moment she’s right in front of me, joking about getting the good meds from the anesthesiologist. The next, she’s gone, and I’m staring at the brown wood grain of a closed door.
Chapter Nineteen
Aunt Joan has taken over an entire corner of the waiting room. There’s a grocery bag on the chair next to her, a massive purse on the ground, and a pile of romance novels filling two chairs on the other side. She’s crunching on barbecue potato chips and talking on her phone.
I cringe and look around the room at the people trying not to give her dirty looks. They’re failing miserably. Why did she have to come? I’d rather wait for Mom alone. I need to work on my novel anyway. There’s only three weeks until my thesis evaluation, and Aunt Joan is a distraction I can’t handle right now.
“She’s here. I’ll call you back.” Joan throws her phone onto her purse and hops to her feet. Crumbs fall to the floor all around her. She grabs me, pulling me into her with all the force of a suction cup. I don’texpect it, and before I can stop myself, the tears are breaking past my defenses.
She hugs like Mom, with her whole body and heart wrapped up around you. My shoulders shake, and she coos softly in my ear while she rubs my back. “It’ll be okay, kiddo. It’ll be okay. You’ll see. She’s gonna be fine.”
