The Names They Gave Us(3)

Her smile is an attempt to encourage me, I think, but she only looks sad. “Give your mom our love, okay? We’re all thinking about her.”

Because I don’t know what else to say, I reply, “Will do.”

She heads inside, flagging down a nearby hotel employee with a question I can’t make out.

Give my mom their love? They’re thinking about her? These are the sounds of freshman year, after everyone heard she had breast cancer. And everyone heard; when you’re a school nurse and a pastor’s wife, half the community knows you.

But she’s fine now—has been for a long time. If she weren’t, my parents would obviously have told me.

My dress itches at the neckline, and the straps bite into my shoulders. Moments ago, the ceiling outside the ballroom seemed lofty. Now, I feel trapped inside a too-small box with not enough air.

Maybe my parents have been a little preoccupied the past few days, but my dad is just struggling with this week’s sermon. I can always tell by the sound of his pencil on the legal pad, the sharp scratch as he crosses out ideas. And I did notice my mom twisting the ends of her hair, as she does when she’s worried. But the flu is getting passed around school, so work has been busy for her.

Still, a shudder slips down my spine, something deeply off in the world. My hands tremble as I pull my cell phone from my purse. I scroll to my dad’s number, since he’s the world’s clumsiest liar. Even his reactions to unflattering haircuts are badly acted.

“Luce? What’s wrong?” my dad demands. Of course he’s alarmed—his only daughter is calling home on prom night.

“Nothing! I hope.” Now I feel dramatic. Principal Cortez probably misheard some teachers’ lounge gossip. “Is everything . . . I mean, Mom’s okay, right?”

The silence. That’s what gives him away. It stretches out, a chasm carved into the conversation, and blood rushes to the center of my body. Flashes of heat in my arms and thighs. The feeling that comes after you slam your brakes, hard, to avoid an accident. No. No. It can’t be bad health news; she had a lumpectomy. Please, Lord, I will do anything if it’s not that.

Finally, my dad manages to say, “You know what, honey? Everything’s gonna be fine. The three of us will talk when you get home.”

“Dad.” The hotel is a too-fast carousel, blurs of color and light around me. Please, God. Let me be wrong.

“Luce?” Lukas’s voice is somewhere nearby, but the word floats over me, drifting past. I don’t know where it came from or where it lands.

“I’ll leave now,” I tell my dad. “I’m leaving now. Just please tell me. I can’t . . . I can’t drive home wondering, okay?”

Wait, I didn’t drive. Lukas did. He appears behind me, hand on my lower back and guiding me to the exit.

My mom’s soft alto enters the background, calm as she confers with my dad.

“It’s back, isn’t it?” I whisper.

More silence. Space enough for a gulp or a pained sigh or a pang to ache through your chest. “That’s what the doctors are saying. Yes.”

I don’t cry. But water springs to my eyes, the reaction to a slap.

I whisper, “I’m on my way,” as my phone slips from my hand, dropping to the floor.

This is what I’ll remember later: Lukas gathering up the pieces—of my cracked cell phone case, of me. Ushering me to the passenger seat. Getting my inhaler out of my purse and pressing it into my hand. It will occur to me later how unhesitating he was.

The first time, the diagnosis shook my world like an earthquake. I clutched the door frames; I fell to my knees. And when it was over, we straightened the photos on the walls. We swept broken vases into the dustbin. I let myself feel relieved, even if I never forgot the fear.

“This isn’t possible,” I whisper, somewhere between downtown and my house.

I can hear everything: the low blast of the air-conditioning, the hum of the engine. The cringing silence from Lukas.

“She had a lumpectomy.” I say this as if it refutes a new diagnosis. I say this as if he hasn’t been there with me through everything. “They said it worked. She didn’t even need a mastectomy or chemo.”

Lukas scratches the back of his neck. “We just don’t have all the information yet. It could be really, really minor. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

The first time, we repeated that refrain over and over. It was our credo, our hymn. I prayed while scrubbing dishes after dinner. I prayed with every stroke, back and forth, back and forth, down my swim lane. I prayed while walking between classes.

I didn’t even beg God—I said I trusted that His will would be done.

I should have begged.

“But . . . you’re not sure,” I realize out loud, turning to Lukas. “No one can be sure.”

“Well, it doesn’t help to think like that. We have to trust God on this one.”

He turns onto my street—how did we get here so quickly and so slowly? We’ve lived in the parsonage for ten years, and it’s felt cozy and worn in since the first day. It’s ancient—silver-sheened radiators, narrow hallways, and floral wallpaper in the bathroom that we never bothered to take down. Instead, my mom decided to embrace antiquity. She hung lace curtains, bought a beautiful brass bed for my room, and put out her collection of old quilts. Why am I thinking about this? My present reality has detached, and it is floating away like a child’s lost balloon.