What We Lose(13)

I never told my mother that, until then, I had thought of cancer as a disease of privilege. I hated how it had been elevated above and beyond all other diseases. I hated the ribbons, the bracelets, the ubiquitous awareness campaigns, the constant sponsorships.

Another thing I wouldn’t tell her: Since starting college, I hadn’t admitted to anyone that my mother had cancer. I didn’t want anyone’s pity. My classmates and I theorized enthusiastically in class about the AIDS movement, and how disease had taken the place of dictators in postcolonial Africa. I could not admit to my friends that my family was benefiting so heavily from First World wealth. They thought that in Africa we lived in huts and played with elephants. I did nothing to disabuse them of that notion. Dirty and inconvenient, AIDS was a disease of the people, I thought. Cancer, to me, was the opposite. Its cause was endorsed and healthily sponsored.

But I never admitted to my mother what I thought of her disease, that thing she lived with day and night, that was more present to her than us, than even God. Unlike family or faith, her disease was something she had never chosen. When I came close to telling her, I remembered that, and it rendered me silent.

What I felt was extremely uncomfortable, and she would have resented me for it; as much as she suffered, many other people were suffering worse. Her disease only reinforced how the world saw us: not black or white, not American or African, not poor or rich. We were confined to the middle, and would always be. As hard as she tried to separate herself from the binds of apartheid, we were still within its grip. It had become the indelible truth of our lives, and nothing—not sickness, not suffering, not death—could change that.



While she was in bed drifting in and out of sleep, I sat alone in the kitchen. The kitchen in their apartment was modern and open, with an eat-in island in the center of the room, the seats facing the oven and fridge. All of the appliances were new stainless steel, the countertops a rare pink granite. Every day I sat there, in the company only of those appliances and the sounds that they made. A bathroom was just off the kitchen, so I didn’t need to leave the space at all during the day except to shower. For most of those four weeks, that was what I did.

Every morning, I set my laptop on the island and did not leave except to bring my mother her meals. I rarely worked or wrote e-mails. I avoided anything that would connect me with the outside world, which felt too out of control. Instead, I retreated into the apartment and watched the world go by like a parade. The kitchen was my world. I ate gluttonously and gained ten pounds.

I passively read my e-mails. Most were from college, asking me to choose my classes, to sign up for health insurance. I let the deadlines pass and later received red-lettered alerts from deans and other administrators. I began to enjoy taking those multiple-choice surveys on the Internet. What movie star’s hair do you have? What movie is your love life?

My mother refused to go outside except for doctors’ appointments. Her pills didn’t seem to help the pain. The only things I could give her were her meals.

The refrigerator was the center of my kitchen world. It sat right across from me, about as tall as a regular human, and when the radio was off, its hum was the only sound in the room.

When I first arrived back home, I cleaned it out furiously, tossing all the old takeout boxes and the stagnant leftovers of curries and meats. I threw away anything with a large amount of oil or fat and duplicates of condiments—extra bottles of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise. I scrubbed every shelf and surface until the inside gleamed.

I restocked the fridge with healthy foods: fruits, vegetables, yogurts, soy milk, probiotic this and that. When it was done, and the fridge was filled with vibrant colors and smelled of Lysol, I felt lifted, hopeful. I understood then, awash in unfiltered refrigerator light, that this was how I was going to cure my mom, with whole grains and elbow grease.

But one by one, the old food reinvaded the fridge. Every visitor who came by (and there were many) brought us a different dish. Curries, stews, fried rice. The things that were meant to stick to the bones, to comfort. The foods my mother loved best. Friends gave them to us in their own pots with no mention of when the pots should be returned.

During my second week back home, my mom’s best friend stopped by. She brought us a pork roast, mashed potatoes, and beans, all wrapped in tinfoil. She gave them to me to pack in the fridge. I had to take my vegetables out of the crisper and set them in the fruit bowl in the middle of the island, defenseless. I took the huge tinfoil packages, the grease beginning to leak through, and shoved them in the spotless drawer. I slammed the door shut and ran straight to the spare bedroom. I locked myself inside, buried my face in the bed pillows, and cried.

A week before I was supposed to begin college again, I called the dean’s office and told the administration I wouldn’t be coming for next semester.

“You’ll be returning after that,” my father commanded.

“Yes,” I said, but the truth was that I didn’t know anything for sure anymore.



A story came up on the local news about a murder not far from our house in a much rougher neighborhood where this type of thing was ordinary, almost expected. The news was filled with stories from those blocks, faces of its children alternately lost, made criminal, locked away. They showed a man’s picture—he was dark-skinned, with a white beard and white eyebrows, a friendly smile. He looked around my mother’s age. He was a mail carrier for a neighborhood in the south. He went out in the morning to work, and on his way to the subway, he was jumped by two thieves. He refused to give up his wallet and cell phone and they shot him. He died on the sidewalk.