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“Sweetie, I’m not tired. I want to stay down here a little longer,” Mom says.
“Janice…” Dad says.
They have a silent conversation then Mom throws her hands up, “You’re no fun anymore.”
Dad chuckles than helps Mom up from her chair. We all bid them good night then Dad very slowly and carefully helps Mom out of her chair and up the stairs.
I sit with my siblings in silence for a moment, then I say, “Matt, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He scrunches his eyebrows together as he gets off the floor and sits in the chair Mom just vacated.
“For how hard I came down on you and Dad when Mom fell. It wasn’t your fault nor Dad’s. I know that. I was just scared.”
“It’s okay…” he says.
“No, it’s not okay. I was such an asshole. Neither one of you deserved that.”
“Yes you were, and no we didn’t, but we understoodwhere you were coming from. You haven’t exactly had the easiest time with all of this.”
“None of us have. That doesn’t give me the license to treat you guys the way I did.” Matt and Lilly exchange a look, and it doesn’t escape my notice. “What?”
Matt puts his hands up in surrender. “Lil, you take this one. She’s bound to blow up at whoever brings it up.”
Lily scoffs then turns to me. “We’ve all been having a hard time with this, but none of us have control issues as big as yours. You’re angry with Mom about how she has chosen to fight this cancer. Obviously, you can’t take it out on her. So you take it out on us.”
“First of all, I am not angry at Mom.” Even I can hear the annoyance in my voice, but I barrel ahead. “And I haven’t been taking anything out on you guys.” Lily and Matt exchange another look. “Would the two of you stop that? And I do not have control issues. I just happen to think it’s ridiculous that she wouldn’t go for the treatment option that that Dr. Hunter himself said would give her the best chance of recovery.”
“You are free to think it was a ridiculous decision for her to make, but it was her choice, and she chose what she wanted. You have to find a way to make peace with that,” Lily says.
“I don’t have to make peace with anything.” My voice is almost at a yell. “How are you guys not more freaked out about this? She could actually die. Like dead. Like, we would have to bury her kind of dead.”
“We aren’t happy about it,” Matt says. “But like Lily said, we don’t have the same issues with Mom’s decision that you do. We have all accepted it. That allows us spend time with Mom and appreciate being with her instead of wasting timebeing angry.”
“How will you feel if she dies because of this decision?”
“Your mother isn’t going to die,” Dad says as he re-enters the room.
Shit. I hadn’t wanted him to hear any of this.
I sigh. “Of course, she isn’t, I’m just concerned. I feel like she should be doing everything in her power to get better. I am a woman too. I understand femininity, but for her to refuse to have a double mastectomy because it would affect her image of herself, and instead subject herself to endless rounds of chemotherapy and radiation is crazy to me. I know you all feel the same way. So I’m confused as to why no one is telling her that.”
“Sweetheart…” Dad says as he walks across the room and plants himself between Lily and me. He brushes his greying brown hair off his face and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “None of us are saying anything to her because at the end of the day it’s her life. She gets to choose how she wants to live it. We do not always have to understand our loved ones’ decisions, but we have to love them enough to respect those decisions, accept them and be there for them. Your mother wants to live her life on her own terms and even if that means she dies, she wants to die on her own terms. I don’t think that’s crazy.”
Dad’s words do make sense, but I still can’t understand why Mom would even risk this.
I don’t think they’ll ever understand where I’m coming from. So I nod and remain silent.
Not long after that I head off to bed. I don’t have any trouble getting to sleep, but it is a fitful night’s rest. I have nightmares about tumors chasing me down halls and coffins being lowered into the earth.
The next day, on Christmas, I get a present I had been asking for, but was afraid wouldn’t come. My period makesan appearance. Although it sucks that I’m having to deal with mywomen’s problems, as Matt calls it, on Christmas morning, at least now I know for sure that I am not pregnant. This is a silver lining that I can be grateful for.
Despite our conversation the previous night, we have a pretty good Christmas day. It is filled with visits from our loved ones, which turns into a larger Christmas dinner than we had planned. It doesn’t bother us that we run out of food, because everyone who has shown up has done so to spend time with Mom. She’s kind of the matriarch of our extended family, and everyone loves her.
I’m almost brought to tears when I look around the dinner table and see all the smiling faces. A tear starts to escape when I look at Mom and she is actually laughing. She’s the happiest I’ve seen her in a while.
She catches me staring at her and says, “Paige, can you help me with something in my bedroom?”
Without hesitating I help her up from her seat and all the way to her and Dad’s room.
