“No! I don’t need to sit down; I need you to tell me how you didn’t catch this at her last appointment. Did you guys just not care? And now, because you fucked up, she’s out of time?!”
“She was never in remission, Zeke.”
His sentence is a knife in the heart.
“What?” I gulp.
“We didn’t send her home. She asked to leave.”
My eyebrows furrow as my chest feels tighter.
“What do you mean she asked to leave?”
“In early January, we discovered that the cancer spread to her bones, and in early February, we realized she was no longer responding to treatment. It had actually gotten worse. We told her she had six months if she was lucky. Your mom said she didn’t want to die in the hospital. She wanted to be home.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You’re lying. S-she wouldn’t keep that from me. She wouldn’t give up.”
“She didn’t give up, Zeke. If your mom wasn’t a fighter, she never would’ve made it this far.”
“How long does she have?” I don’t know if I even want to hear the answer, but it’s the only question I can think of right now.
“It’s hard to tell,” I swear I hear a small crack in his voice. Like telling me this information is just as hard for him to say as it is for me to hear.
“Can I see her?” My voice cracks, and I cover it with a sniffle. He squeezes my shoulder.
“Yeah.”
He pats my back before leading me down a long hallway. We pass another waiting room, which is located right outside the ICU. Unlike the other waiting room, this one’s empty.
My mom hasn’t been in the ICU in a while. She had a health scare a couple years ago where she ended up in the ICU for a few days,but most of her hospital stays have taken place in the same room. Most of her hospital stays have just been to receive treatment, not because she’s—
I guess, in some way, she’s been dying for the last five years. The cancer never leaves her body long enough for us to feel relieved. It waits until we’re hopeful it’s gone for good and then returns.
It’s like her cancer’s mocking us.
“If you need me, tell one of the nurses to page me, and I’ll be here as soon as I can.” He forces a smile as we stop outside of a hospital room. “Even if it’s just to talk, okay?”
I nod, and then I watch him leave.
But I don’t walk inside. I can’t. My body is numb. I can’t move. Because if I go in there and see my mom, if I see her hooked up to all the machines, it makes this real. If I leave right now or stay out here, I can pretend for just a little longer. I can pretend that everything is okay.
I can pretend that she’ll be here for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or my next birthday. When the truth is, she might not even make it to next week.
“Zeke.” Her voice is a whisper; I can barely hear her over everything happening in the ICU. When I turn toward her room, I notice the break between the curtain and the window, a small sliver that you would only see if you were paying attention.
A sliver that revealed my position to her.
“Hi,” I mumble, finally turning the corner and entering her room. I’m used to seeing her hooked up to machines, but this time it feels different.
“How long have you been standing out there?” I scratch the back of my neck.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice breaks as I wipe away the snot dripping from my nose.
“Oh baby,” she cries, reaching her arms out, allowing me to fall into them. “You’ve just been so happy recently; I didn’t want to ruin that.”
“Mom,” I pull away, sitting in a chair near her bedside, “this isn’t something you can hide from me. You’re dying, Mom. I don’t understand how you thought keeping this from me was better than telling me the truth.”
“I’m sorry.” She brushes a hand across my cheek. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”