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I was just about to make another excuse to get out of it, but the pleading lilt to her voice didn’t allow me. So tonight I have decided to cook her dinner. Perhaps if the stars align, I’ll tell her about my son.
I have just put a pot of water on the stove when my door bell rings.
When I answer it, Paige rushes forward and pulls me into a hug. My arms go around her back and squeeze her to me. God, I have missed feeling her body against mine.
I inhale deeply and my lungs fill with that sweet and heady sent that is uniquely Paige.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she says.
I kiss her on the top of the head. “I’ve missed you too.” I pull out of the hug and take her by the hand. “Come, I’m cooking us dinner tonight.”
“You’re cooking dinner? Can you even cook?”
I feign offense with a gasp. “Can I cook?Can I cook?!”I turn around and look at her.
“Well, can you?”
I chuckle. “Well, how hard can it be? I bought a cook book and the instructions seem easy enough.”
She throws her head back in laughter. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing that I’m here to supervise, but you should know that it’s not as easy as it seems.”
“Well, I’m ready to prove you wrong.”
“Fine. Go ahead”
I then goabout making the meaty pasta dish I have in mind. It takes me ages to cut up thevegetables. As I do, Paige and I discuss the events of our week. When I’m done chopping, I get Paige’s stamp of approval.
“By the way, I have been meaning to ask, how is your mother doing?” I say.
“She’s fine…” All of a sudden she looks as though she’s been transported far away from here, staring off into the distance.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that I owe my family an apology, but whenever I’m with them, the words just don’t come out. As it would turn out, I’m not so great at the whole apology thing.” She offers a humorless laugh.
“An apology for what?”
“Well, when Mom was diagnosed with cancer, her oncologist suggested she get a double mastectomy, but she refused. She said she was going to take her chances with chemo and radiation. Basically, the gist of the whole thing is that a double mastectomy would’ve made her feel less of a woman. So she didn’t want to do it. I thought it was silly and I was very vocal about it. She and the rest of my family disagreed and she went forward with the chemo and radiation.”
“So you had a difference of opinion. That happens.”
“Yeah, but now with her complication, it’s very likely it wouldn’t have happened if she had just gotten the double mastectomy. So whenever I’m around my family, I kind of have this feeling that they’re waiting for me to tell them, ‘I told you so’ and I hate that. I hate that I have made them feel like that.”
I shrug as I stir my sauce on the stove. “Well, you can be quite judgmental.”
“Excuse me?”
I turn around at her tone. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then what did you mean?” She folds her arms and raises an eyebrow.
“Just that you’re very opinionated and most people don’t like that.”
“And are you part ofmost people?” She puts the last two words of that sentence in air quotes.
“Of course not. We wouldn’t be together if I were.”
“Then why did you say it like that?”
