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Chapter 4
The Summerville Cancer Care Center was fairly busy on a Friday morning. Nurses passed by me as I made my way through the hallways towards my mom's room at the very end. I knocked before entering, holding up a small bouquet of pink and yellow carnations with a smile as Mom grinned at me over a foodtray.
"Are those for me?" she asked as I moved to her bedside table and retrieved the old ones I suspected one of the guys had left the last time they came to check on her for me. I dumped the decayed flowers into a nearby trashcan and propped the new ones up just asquickly.
“Nah,” I said teasingly. “I thought I’d pick something up for myself thismorning.”
“Brat,” she accused with a smallsmile.
I winked. “You knowit.”
“So, they are for methen?”
I laughed as I assured her. "All for you,” Isaid.
"They'relovely."
"Just like you," I replied as I arrangedthem.
"You seem happy today," she commented as I took a seat at herside.
I smiled, heat rising to my cheeks so quickly that I knew they were pink when the door opened and a nurse came in. "Oh, hi there, Harlow, good to see youagain."
Nurse Linda moved across the bed from me and reached over my mom to remove the empty food tray. "Let me know if you need anything," she said with a smile, nodding to me as she left the room just as quickly as she hadcome.
When the door closed behind her again, Mom reached over and patted my hand. "Alright," she said, "out withit."
"Out with what?" I blinked at her,confused.
She gave me a look. "You know what, young lady. You're smiling like your face is pinned that way. Something must have happened to make you this happy. Or..." Mom grinned wickedly, "someonehappened."
My blush intensified. "Mom!" I hissed, eyes darting towards the door. I sighed in relief when I realized the nurse had shut it behind her. "It's nothing,” Isaid.
But it wasn't nothing. It was beautiful. It was amazing. I still felt like I was floating on cloud nine. Nothing could bring me down. My good mood had remained even when I had woken up—late and alone—to find that Grayson had left a note behind telling me that he and Marv were going on a job together. They'd been going off together so much lately that it was kind of hard to imagine that not a month ago they were at each other's throats. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouththough.
"Well, whatever has made you happy now, I'm glad for it," Mom finally relented. "You deserve a little happiness in your life." She coughed roughly, her whole body hunching over as she hacked into her palm. I stood up, my hand moving over her back, hovering, but nottouching.
"Mom?"
She sat back with a rough huff, waving her hand for me to sit down again. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she saidweakly.
"You don't seem fine." My eyes glanced to the end of her bed, but there was no clipboard there today. Sometimes, when there was, I would sneak a peek. Though half the time I couldn't make out what it said through all the charts, graphs, and bad handwriting, it made me feelbetter.
"It's just the chemo." Mom started to hack oncemore.
I felt so useless as I reached for her and began to gently rub her back until the coughing had subsided. Only then did I reach for the clear glass of water on the nightstand and handed it to her. She swallowed several gulps before shakily handing it back tome.
"Maybe we should talk to the doctor about lowering how much physical therapy you're going through," I suggested quietly. “Or how much chemo they’ve got youdoing.”
There was a brief pause from her before, just barely above a whisper, she replied, "The doctor already moved me down to the lowest schedule,Honey."
My whole body froze at the news. That either meant something very bad or something very good. And as much as I wished my mom was getting better—looking at her, I knew the truth. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. I was wrong when I thought nothing could bring me down from my impossibly good mood. It seemed that no matter what good came to my life, there was always something infinitely worse hanging around thecorner.
"Let's not talk about it right now," Mom said. "Tell me what made you so happy before you camehere."
I hesitated, but seeing the excited and expectant expression on her face, I knew I couldn't refuse. I loved having my mom back. I loved seeing the woman she really was—not the angry, confused woman from before. I launched into telling her about the date Grayson had taken me on. About how sweet he had been. I didn't leave anything out—not even thedancing.
Well...I might have left a few details out. Details that I would certainly not have left out had it been Lizzie—who would have pestered me for thelongand intimate moments of the evening. My mom didn't need to know allthat.
