Page 37 of Merciless | AllFreeNovel

I catch a ride with one of the kitchen assistants whose shift ends just after noon. Maria doesn’t ask why I’m leaving Vexley House in the middle of the day. She’s too busy telling me about her sister’s terrible boyfriend and the fact that the pastry chef has been in a mood since six in the morning because someone touched some of his imported chocolate.

My mom lives in a small rent-controlled apartment. She’s home now. Not at hospice. She’s still fighting. Still trying. Still pretending the doctors didn’t use the words last option when they talked about the experimental treatment.

Traditional treatments haven’t worked.

Not chemo. Not radiation. Not the clinical trial they thought might buy us time. Every time we got our hopes up, the cancer won again.

Now there’s this new experimental treatment.

Maria drops me at the corner with a wave. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing,” she says.

“Thanks.”

I don’t ask how she knew I needed luck.

I walk to the apartment, clutching my purse against my side. The five hundred dollars is inside, folded carefully in the inner pocket.

I walk to her door and use my key. The lock sticks the way it always has.

I step inside. “Mom?”

“I’m here, honey.”

I find her in the recliner by the window, wrapped in her blue blanket. The television is on mute. A mug of tea sits untouched on the side table.

She turns her head and smiles when I walk in.

God.

That smile.

It’s still hers.

Even with everything else the cancer has taken.

Her hair is gone now. So are her eyebrows and eyelashes. Without them, her face looks too open, too fragile, all bones and shadows. She’s lost so much weight that her wrists look like they might snap.

“Ellie,” she says.