Hope and Other Punch Lines(41)

“Am I going through a typical adolescence?” I ask, motioning for her to wipe her mouth.

“Sweetie, there’s never been anything typical about you.” My mom says it like it’s a compliment. And maybe it is for the Zachs or the Cats of the world. Purple hair, don’t care. One of the hardest parts of being Baby Hope is that I’ve never been able to blend, even when I want to, especially when I want to. “Mel’s particularly worried about the drinking.”

“I didn’t want to say anything, but Cat was wasted the other night.”

“Nice job not using the word party, by the way. Don’t think I didn’t notice.” When my mom reaches over and tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear, I lean into her hand. She might drive me bananas with her relentless cheerfulness, with her reflexive optimism, but I can’t imagine living in a household where I couldn’t say the word party out loud. “Should she be worried about Cat? Is there more to this than I think?”

“I honestly have no idea. Maybe?”

I take a breath. Seeing Mel has made me rethink everything. I should tell my mom the truth. If I have newfound courage, this is what it should be used for. She has the right to know about what’s going on with me. We’re running out of time.

I can tell her without using the words 9/11 syndrome. I can speak in euphemisms, like she does.

Not a good cough.

I can tell her in a way that doesn’t burden either one of us, that allows me to still have this summer. I can tell her slowly, an easing toward action, the most casual of baton tosses. I can suggest she take me to a summer appointment with Dr. Cohn, the pulmonologist I’ve been going to for years for my asthma, instead of waiting till the usual September check-in. She can handle that. So can I. No need for either of us to go straight to the endgame. I can make us both believe that everything will be okay.

I feel a stab of pain in my chest.

“Mom?”

That’s when the cough starts again, low and tight, and I reflexively stuff it down. Make a face like I swallowed my water down the wrong pipe.

When I catch my breath, I’ll confess to her. I will. No more lies.

My mother’s cell phone rings. Her face brightens when she looks at the screen. Her haziness dissipates like fog under sun.

“It’s Dad!” she says, and springs to her feet. She looks down at her clothes, then glances out the window, as if she thinks he can see her from out there.

I’m still coughing. I grab a napkin, cup my hand around it to shield it from my mother’s view. She looks happy. No need for me to ruin her good mood.

I’ll tell her later. This can wait one more day, surely.

“You okay?” she asks me. I nod, give her a thumbs-up, and point to the water glass. She takes one more quick look at me, then accepts the call.

“Hey.” She answers low and flirty, but I don’t hear the rest because she leaves the room.

Just in time for her to miss the first bloom of blood.

It’s getting worse.





Raj Singh answers on the first ring, ready and eager to chat. I am in my bedroom with the door closed. I don’t want my mom to overhear this conversation. She’d want to shut the whole thing down.

“Your email took me by surprise. It’s been years since anyone has asked me about that picture,” he says.

In the photo, Raj is wearing a suit and has a messenger bag slung across his chest and a maroon turban on his head that has stayed straight despite the mayhem behind him. Raj’s arms are outstretched and reaching, hands clawlike, as if they are desperate to grab something solid.

He looks young. Early twenties at most.

“I’m sorry Abbi—Baby Hope—isn’t here with me, but she said to say hi.”

“Tell her hi back,” Raj says good-naturedly.

“I realize this can’t be easy to talk about,” I say to ease our way into my pad full of questions. I’m less nervous today. Raj is a disembodied voice, not a real person with a house and a possibly broken life. There’s nothing to look away from.

“Nah, it’s been fifteen years. I can talk about it.” He speaks with a heavy New York accent. Tawk instead of talk. I try to imagine what he looks like now. I assume he has wrinkles. That he has traded in his messenger bag for a briefcase and an aluminum commuter mug. “It’s weird. It feels like a whole lifetime ago, and also like last week.”

“Tell me about that day.”

“My girlfriend broke up with me that morning. Out of nowhere. She was suddenly like, This is not what I want. I was heartbroken. You know what I was thinking about while I was running? If I make it out of here alive, I’m going to ask her to marry me. I’ll buy the biggest rock I can afford. I’ll get down on one knee in Central Park. So interesting where your mind takes you when you think you are going to die. I made big plans.”

“Did you propose?”

“What can I say? I was young and stupid. I bought the ring. Got her to Central Park. And on the trees were all those flyers. You were too young, so you don’t know. But all over the city, everywhere you looked, there were these flyers of the missing. Families who couldn’t find their loved ones—”

“My mom made one for my dad,” I say. I don’t mention that she used a photo of him holding me as a baby when I was in the ICU, that I imagine she thought my nasal tube would garner extra sympathy, if not a second look at his face. That there’s still a pile in a box in our basement and that I keep a copy folded in my desk drawer. My mother talks so rarely about my father, you’d think I was the product of an immaculate conception or a sperm bank. I like the tangible reminder that I once had a dad.