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“Yeah, just tired.”
“Well, you’ve gotta eat before you—”
“Mom, I am aggressively unhungry.” I took a step toward the door but she cut me off.
“Hazel, you have to eat. Just some ch—”
“No. I’m going to bed.”
“No,” Mom said. “You’re not.” I glanced at my dad, who shrugged.
“It’s my life,” I said.
“You’re not going to starve yourself to death just because Augustus died. You’re going to eat dinner.”
I was really pissed off for some reason. “I can’t eat, Mom. I can’t. Okay?”
I tried to push past her but she grabbed both my shoulders and said, “Hazel, you’re eating dinner. You need to stay healthy.”
“NO!” I shouted. “I’m not eating dinner, and I can’t stay healthy, because I’m not healthy. I am dying, Mom. I am going to die and leave you here alone and you won’t have a me to hover around and you won’t be a mother anymore, and I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything about it, okay?!”
I regretted it as soon as I said it.
“You heard me.”
“What?”
“Did you hear me say that to your father?” Her eyes welled up. “Did you?” I nodded. “Oh, God, Hazel. I’m sorry. I was wrong, sweetie. That wasn’t true. I said that in a desperate moment. It’s not something I believe.” She sat down, and I sat down with her. I was thinking that I should have just puked up some pasta for her instead of getting pissed off.
“What do you believe, then?” I asked.
“As long as either of us is alive, I will be your mother,” she said. “Even if you die, I—”
“When,” I said.
She nodded. “Even when you die, I will still be your mom, Hazel. I won’t stop being your mom. Have you stopped loving Gus?” I shook my head. “Well, then how could I stop loving you?”
“Okay,” I said. My dad was crying now.
“I want you guys to have a life,” I said. “I worry that you won’t have a life, that you’ll sit around here all day with no me to look after and stare at the walls and want to off yourselves.”
After a minute, Mom said, “I’m taking some classes. Online, through IU. To get my master’s in social work. In fact, I wasn’t looking at antioxidant recipes; I was writing a paper.”
“Seriously?”
“I don’t want you to think I’m imagining a world without you. But if I get my MSW, I can counsel families in crisis or lead groups dealing with illness in their families or—”
“Wait, you’re going to become a Patrick?”
“Well, not exactly. There are all kinds of social work jobs.”
Dad said, “We’ve both been worried that you’ll feel abandoned. It’s important for you to know that we will always be here for you, Hazel. Your mom isn’t going anywhere.”
“No, this is great. This is fantastic!” I was really smiling. “Mom is going to become a Patrick. She’ll be a great Patrick! She’ll be so much better at it than Patrick is.”
“Thank you, Hazel. That means everything to me.”
I nodded. I was crying. I couldn’t get over how happy I was, crying genuine tears of actual happiness for the first time in maybe forever, imagining my mom as a Patrick. It made me think of Anna’s mom. She would’ve been a good social worker, too.
