Lag (The boys of RDA #2)(32)
“To live.” He pauses again as my thoughts skid to a stop. “They’re giving her a month to live.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I buckle my seatbelt before the flight attendant walks the aisle and my mind wanders back to my earlier conversation with my father. I can’t remember anything concrete after he said my mother, the woman who brought me into this world, had thirty days to live.
I brought a bag on the plane with me, but I’m clueless to what’s in it. Hopefully clean underwear or socks, maybe some pants. I move a hand to my temple and push on the space in frustration at myself. Isn’t it amazing that in a time of turmoil my damn brain is worried if I packed clean underwear? Is it my feeble attempt to try and keep it together?
I’ve done well so far. Maybe this is what people call shock. Thirty days to live. How can doctors calculate thirty days? Where does this number come from? Is there some demonic cancer calculator floating around the Internet? My other hand reaches up to rub the opposite temple as I lean both elbows on my knees. Who has the right to tell my mother she only has thirty days left on Earth? I want to talk to them because they’re wrong.
In parts of my memory, my dad used words like “silent killer” and “found too late” and “no treatment options,” but they mean little to me except my mom will die. My mom will die before Elena and I give her those grandchildren she wants so badly.
Images of the children I’ll never watch her bake cookies with, or open Christmas gifts with, any of those grandma activities that everyone should get the chance to take part in flood my vision with tears. I turn my head to the window thankful for the inside seat on this last minute flight.
I arrived at the airport ticketless with a dazed look and an overstuffed carry-on bag. The counter worker was helpful until she realized I wasn’t concerned with a return flight to San Francisco. I didn’t have the strength to explain to her without losing it, so I booked a flight back for thirty days exactly. Not sure if I was sealing my mother’s fate with the action.
If I’d booked my return ticket for sixty days out, could I have bought her more time? The idea causes fresh panic to well up inside and I reach for my seatbelt, ready to get off the plane and change my ticket time, but I’m stopped by the flight attendant as she walks through the aisle again.
It’s not until the overhead speaker warns us it’s time to turn off all electronic devices that I remember I never called Roger to explain my absence. The bull terrier will pissed, but even he will forgive this one indiscretion.
**
It’s dark when my plane sets down at the Buffalo airport. I didn’t check a bag, so getting off the plane is quick and easy with my small carry-on. A five-hour ride fraught with intermittent bouts of crying has my steps heavy, boulders of despair weighing down each shoe.
Elena waits for me to the side of the baggage claim carousel and we hug in the middle of the open space. Her body rocks against mine with each of her sobs. It’s not until she starts to pull away that I realize I’m crying right along with her.
“What are we going to do?” Elena looks to me for sisterly advice.
There’s none I can offer. “I don’t know.”
Together we walk out the double doors to the waiting darkness outside. Elena pulls to the left and stops at my parents’ hunter green Jeep parked at the curb. The passenger side door opens and my mom steps to the sidewalk. She’s lost weight from the last time I saw her in the Caribbean. The islands that will forever hold some of the last memories I’ll get to keep of my mother.
I drop my bag on the ground next to Elena and run to my mom. My tears increase before I wrap my arms around her. She allows me a few minutes in her embrace as my father gets out to stow my case in the trunk. As two sets of car doors close, she pulls away and grabs me by the shoulders.
“I’m so happy to see you, sweetheart,” she gives me another tight hug, “but now you need to get it together. You can do this. Be strong for Elena. No more tears. This is a happy time.”
My mouth falls open at her words and I step back. She gently pushes me into the backseat of the car and wears a determined smile on her face by the time she takes her place in the front seat.
“Now that both of my girls are home again, we’re going to have a great month together. Right, dear?” She pats my father's leg as he puts the car into gear and pulls away from the curb.
His grey streaked head turns to her for a moment before he smiles, pats her leg in a matching endearment they’ve been doing for years, and nods his agreement.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sheila Stevens, known to me as Mom, lived more than her projected thirty days. Her life stretched past forty. On day forty-seven, her dreams ended in a cold and sterile hospital room. The beeping noises drained to a constant buzz, a horrid sound still inundating my ears three days later. Standing over her defective body while my sister and I shared the hand on her right side, she took her last breath.
I didn’t cry. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. My body screamed at me to push my sister out of the way and wrap my arms around my mommy and never let go. My sister cried, my father cried, but my tears wouldn’t come. I stared off into space instead. I’d cried the last forty-six days, maybe I had no tears left. I didn’t cry that day or the next or even the next, but today the tears won’t stop.