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What the fucking hell?
“What?” I asked out loud then shook my head with confusion and walked back to the uncomfortable leather green chair as ugly as the carpet and sat down. Why? I wondered to myself what I was doing here if she didn’t want me to go in with her.
A half hour later she entered the waiting area and I rose from my chair. She didn’t look upset, I thought to myself. Hopefully, that meant good news. She didn’t give me a clue as she paid her co-pay with a check covered in roses, her favorite flower. The same checks she had used as long as I could remember. My mother was set in her ways as well as being, demanding, controlling, overbearing, nitpicking, stop I told myself. You love her with all your heart.
Then she was making another appointment or arrangements or something for a month from now or so it sounded from what I could hear. It was like she was trying to hide this from me. Well that wasn’t so good was it?
When we were outside as I was unlocking the car for her I said to her, “Well?”
“Well what dear?” She asked watching me unlock her door. Watching me too closely.
I groaned inside my head and would have shaken her had she not been my mother.
“Yancy, what did Doctor Winkle say?” I asked annoyed.
“He said I need a lumpectomy. They will take lymph nodes too to t
est and to determine that it hasn’t spread. They may treat me with chemotherapy or radiation to ensure that they get it all. We’ll decide that after the surgery. That is what I was arranging that you were so engrossed in hearing.”
She had noticed. Yancy said this too calmly unable to say the word cancer.
“Yancy, I’m sorry,” I replied unsure of what else to say to her at this moment.
My shaking fingers grasped the key that was hanging from the lock of my SUV. I had not expected the results to be cancer. I had not expected this to happen to my mother.
“Unlock the door Gabrielle,” Yancy told me firmly.
Complying I waited until Yancy got into the car without saying another word. I shut the door for her and slowly walked around the car. My mother had cancer. I lived seven hundred miles away from her and she needed surgery. The thought that my sisters could take care of her never entered my mind.
Whenever anything was wrong they all turned to me. Shaking harder, I opened my own door and climbed inside the vehicle too numb to think about what to do next. We were silent in the car during the ride back to the house. In the driveway, I parked the car and turned the key in the ignition to off. For a moment neither of us moved.
“Yancy, when is the surgery?” I asked her.
“Doctor Winkle thinks I have nothing to do so he took the liberty of scheduling a surgeon for the week after Thanksgiving. I have pre-op tests on Monday.”
“He knew you would drag your feet,” I told her.
She glanced at me quickly. Then, she chuckled. Her face looked less troubled if only for a moment.
“You’re probably right dear. I’ll see you inside.”
“Yancy you have cancer,” I said the words out loud as she started to step out of my car.
Without stopping she replied, “Gabrielle, I am not an idiot. I do realize this.”
She’s not accepting this yet, I told myself as I watched my mother walk inside the old, familiar house exchanging greetings with Kat as she walked out to the car.
“How’s Nana?” She asked uncertainly.
“It’s cancer. Her operation is after Thanksgiving.”
Kat gasped out loud. No matter what insensitive things my mother said to my daughter Kat still loved her grandmother as much as her grandmother loved her. I got out of the car and walked with Kat to the front door with my arm around her shoulders.
“I need to call Kerry and then we can go to the hospital if you want,” I offered.
“Does Nana need us?” She asked uncertainly. “Maybe we should stay with her.”
Scared? Procrastinating or really concerned about her grandmother? Didn’t matter. Kat should see Esther as well as Kerry.
