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I don’t need to ask if it’s operable this time. Her gaunt features are answer enough.
My next words are hardly more than breath. I don’t dare give them any more weight. “How long?”
My mother’s eyes flutter closed. “Not long. The doctors say a week at most.”
A week?
A week!
No. This can’t be happening.
“We always knew it was a possibility, Lily. It’s why it’s a remission, not a cure.”
I swallow against the rock of emotions in the back of my throat and pinch away the welling tears. “I’ve got a lot to catch you up on.”
She smiles. “I’d like that very much.”
I give her the broad strokes of my life for the past few months, but my mom stops me when I explain the breakup situation.
“Oh, honey. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy. I thought Tad made you happy. I never meant to make you feel like he was your one and only.”
“I know. I guess I was probably projecting a little.”
She squeezes my hand. “If there’s one thing I want you to know, it’s this: you have permission to live your life exactly as you see fit. Do whatever it takes to find out what that means for you, Lily.”
As hard as I try, I can’t help the shattered sobs that come from somewhere deep in my soul. I lay my head on my mother’s hospital bed and cry until there is no air in my lungs or sound in my voice.
I don’t know when my dad arrived. Don’t know when he started rubbing my back, his soft sniffles and hard swallows the only clue to his grief. But after a while, Mom drifts off to sleep and Dad and I step out to talk without disturbing her.
I’m about to tell him how sorry I am for ignoring her calls and texts for so long, but he stops me.
“Don’t.” My dad’s normally jovial, round features show the signs of stress. The hollows beneath his eyes are puffy and red, and his mouth seems fixed in a frown.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t put any more grief on yourself than is already coming, Lily.”
I can’t help the fresh stream of tears his words unleash or that this entire time, I’ve had one hand pressed against my hash marks.
He pulls me close, but I push him away, knowing if I accept his embrace I’ll fall apart right in the middle of the hospital.
Our gazes meet, and he gives me a single nod of understanding. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep, kiddo? You can come back tomorrow and relieve me mid-morning.”
I wiped my nose across the hem of my sleeve. “Are you sure?” I ask with enough hesitation that he knows what I’m truly asking.
Does she have that much time?
“Go on. She’ll be happy to see you in the morning.”
I nod, give my dad a squeeze on the arm, and head out.
The fluorescent tube lighting flickers and hums in a way that lets me hyperfocus on it, and not…
Everything else.
Which I’m grateful for. If I think too hard about any of today’s events…
Once I make my way through the hospital and to the main entrance, I discover that not only is it pitch black outside, but I don’t have my purse or my phone or my damn car keys. All I have is a single credit card.
