But I don’t know if that’s true. That’s the whole point. Anything could happen. She could have a reaction to the anesthesia. She could bleed out on the table. They could fail to remove all the tumors. She could make it through surgery, only to have the cancer grow back. Surgery could go perfectly, and she could be hit by a bus tomorrow. Or have a heart attack tonight.
There are no guarantees. I could have hours with her, or days, or that hasty goodbye we said in the hall could be the last time I ever see her.
My sobs turn into quick gasps, coming faster and faster. My chest is too tight, throat scratchy and dry. I shiver, freezing, but sweaty. The room spins. My muscles shake. I’m leaning so hard into Aunt Joan she stumbles. My thoughts are too quiet and too loud. Everything is moving too fast and too slow. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. Something is wrong. Really wrong. I’m being pulled apart, and there’s nothing at the center of me. I can’t breathe.
My toes are numb. My fingers curl in, like claws, and I can’t straighten them out. Why can’t I straighten them out? Am I having a heart attack?
Aunt Joan guides me to the chair she was sittingin and tells me to put my head between my knees. I obey, insides buzzing, screaming. But it all feels far away.
I don’t realize Aunt Joan has left until she comes back with a paper bag and tells me to breathe into it. Each breath takes focus, concentration. So much energy, just to breathe. In and out. In and out. It hurts.
“Count with me,” Aunt Joan says in a soft voice. “Inhale, one, two, three, four. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five, six.”
Slowly, my hands uncurl. My chest expands more with each inhale.
I have no sense of how long we repeat the cycle, how long she rubs my back. Eventually, I don’t feel like I’m dying anymore. Exhaustion covers me like a weighted blanket. I curl into a tight ball, and with my head on the armrest, close my eyes.
When I wake, Aunt Joan is crunching away on potato chips in the seat next to me. I pull myself up, push the mess of hair falling over my face to the side, and say the first thing that pops into my head. “I told you not to come.”
“Ptsch!” She brushes away my protest. “We’re long past listening to each other, kiddo.” She digs through the grocery bag until she finds a packaged brownie from my favorite bakery. She tears open the plastic, puts it on a floral napkin from another grocery bag, and sets it on my lap. A romance novel soon appears next to it.
“She’s gonna be fine.” She says it with all the forceof a boulder. Then, she takes her phone and walks out of the room, presumably to call back whoever she was talking to earlier.
I look at the brownie and romance novel, thinking about how Aunt Joan didn’t ask me questions about Mom or how I’m feeling. She just showed up with things I like (even if I haven’t admitted aloud to liking the romance novels), and then she left, giving me space. Maybe Mom isn’t the only one who knows and cares about me.
My throat tightens with more tears, but I don’t give in to the desire to break down. Not again. If I do, I might fall and fall and fall, never stop crying. I swallow, take a sip from the water bottle the nurse gave me before I left Mom, then dig into the brownie and romance novel.
I’m not sure how much time passes before Aunt Joan comes back into the room, quietly takes a seat next to me, and opens her own book. I’m surprised to realize it’s not a romance novel, but Anna Karenina.
“How can you read that? Russian Lit is… insufferable.” Even for me.
Joan stuffs another potato chip in her mouth and shrugs one shoulder. “I contain multitudes.”
I try not to smile. We go back to reading and eating our snacks, but it’s harder to focus. I look at the large screen hanging from the ceiling and find the number the nurse gave me. In Progress, that’s all it says. In progress. So vague. It means nothing. Have they already made the first cut?
Television portrayals of surgeries pop into mymind. Beeping machines. Shining tools laid out on trays. Gloves and masks and science jargon I don’t understand. Mom is in there. My stomach sways, and I wish I hadn’t eaten the brownie.
I try to distract myself with more reading. Aunt Joan chomps on her chips. The clock crawls forward. Doctors come in and talk quietly with a family on the opposite side of the room. They leave a few minutes later.
I check my phone and find two texts from Kiara checking in on me, a text from Sullivan doing the same, and twelve messages from Jeremy. I don’t have the energy to respond to any of them. A phone rings, and the woman behind the desk at the front answers.
“Hazel Berton,” she says loudly, holding the phone out to the room.
I stand on shaking legs and take the phone from her. “H-hello.” My voice quivers so much I don’t sound like myself.
They told me someone would call and give me an update during the surgery, but I didn’t expect it to feel like this. Like all the air is sucked out of the room as I wait to hear what they have to say.
“Is this Hazel Berton?” The woman’s voice is itchy, like the sweater Jeremy sent me last year for Christmas.
“Hmmmhmmm,” I respond, not sure I trust myself to speak a proper word, much less a full sentence.
“This is the head surgical nurse.” Her tone is clipped and precise.
My stomach drops through the floor. Something’s happened.
Aunt Joan watches me with wary eyes. A woman near the desk silently rocks a baby on her lap as she stares out the window. The clock ticks forward, second after second.
This is it. The nurse is going to tell me something went wrong. The surgery failed. Mom’s not going to make it.
