The Mother's Promise

by Sally Hepworth

  This morning, as Judy drove her to school, she’d tried to tell herself that everything was fine, everything was over. But who was she kidding? Her mom had had surgery yesterday! Suddenly a horrible thought occurred to her. What if there were complications? She’d been thinking that it was the beginning of the end, but what if this was the end of the end? What if she was called out of class to be told her mother had passed away following a postsurgery complication? What if she wasn’t even able to say good-bye?

  “Okay, class, we are starting a new unit,” Mrs. Patterson said. “Public speaking. So I’ve decided we’re going to have a debate!”

  There was a collective groan.

  “Oh, why so glum? I happen to know a lot of you are very good at arguing. Anyway, you’ll have a couple of weeks to prepare. I’m going to divide the class into two groups.” She stretched her arms out in front of her. “This side is ‘for’”—she gestured to Zoe’s side of the room—“and this side is ‘against.’ Every person will have a speaking role, but some are bigger than others. If you have a large speaking role, you’ll have less prep to do and vice versa. There will be the six speakers—three on each side. There’ll be an adjudicator, who will help me decide the winners and then explain why they have won. There’ll be a person to announce the debate. And each speaker will have a partner who will introduce them, and who will help prepare the speech and write rebuttals during the debate. Anyone who is left can stand up afterward and talk about who was their favorite speaker and why. Any questions?”

  Zoe felt an overwhelming urge to vomit.

  “So, who’d like to volunteer for the adjudicator role?”

  A few hands shot up. Mrs. Patterson selected one of them.

  “Good,” she said, writing the name in a notebook. “Now, how about first speaker for the affirmative?”

  Zoe wasn’t sure what happened then. A moment of insanity? Whatever it was, it came to her all at once—like the desire to scream in an empty room or dive-bomb into the unbroken water of a pool. When she was a kid, she’d had similar compulsions. She’d be playing happily when all of a sudden she’d feel compelled to reach out and touch the wall or the edge of the fringed carpet. She’d tell herself that if she didn’t touch the wall or carpet, the world would end right that second.

  But this time, it was more than just a compulsion. It was about her mother. She had cancer. Not only that, she’d lied to Zoe about having cancer. Suddenly Zoe understood why. She’d lied because she didn’t think Zoe could handle it. Which meant Zoe needed to become the kind of person that didn’t need to be lied to. A strong person. The kind of person who could … participate in a debate.

  She put her hand up.

  “Zoe?” Mrs. Patterson said. “You’d like to be a speaker?”

  Mrs. Patterson couldn’t contain her surprise. Zoe felt her cheeks bloom red. She could feel people’s eyes, but she focused forward.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s great. Good for you.”

  Mrs. Patterson was being kind, but Zoe wanted her to move on to the next person. Stop smiling. Next.

  Mrs. Patterson scribbled Zoe’s name on her notepad. “And who’d like to be Zoe’s partner? Hands up.”

  The absence of hands was practically a presence. A few chair legs squeaked. Cameron whispered something to Danielle, who giggled. Emily, two rows ahead, had already pushed her table up next to Lucy Barker’s—clearly they were partners. Jessie Lee and Billy Dyer had their heads down, as Zoe would have if not for her momentary aberration.

  “Come on, class. Who wants to be partners with Zoe?”

  Zoe was certain that eventually the humiliation would form a knife and stick her through the heart. And still, the silence stretched on.

  Finally, there was a sigh. “I will.”

  The voice was distinct.

  “Harry,” Mrs. Patterson said. “Good. You are partners with Zoe.”

  Mrs. Patterson wrote it in her notebook and moved on to the next role.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Zoe kept her head forward, too afraid of making eye contact with anyone, especially Harry. She didn’t know what to be more afraid of—the fact that she’d just volunteered to be in a debate, or the fact that Harry had volunteered to be her partner. Why would Harry—Harry—volunteer to be her partner?

  “Okay then,” Mrs. Patterson said when everyone had been assigned a role. “I suggest the speakers get together with your partners sooner rather than later. The topic is … wait for it … whether students should call their teachers by their first names. I want to hear strong arguments! One partner will present the argument and the other will remain at the table, passing notes for rebuttals. Both participants will write the initial arguments as well as a full report about what you contributed to the assignment. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Patterson,” the class droned.

  “Good. Well you can be dismissed a little early today so you can exchange numbers with your partners and make arrangements. I want well-written, well-rehearsed speeches, understood? Get practicing.”

  * * *

  After class, by her locker, Zoe felt a presence behind her.

  “So I guess we’re partners.”

  All of Zoe’s senses went on high alert, but she continued to shuffle books in her locker. “I guess we are.”

  Harry was quiet for a moment. She felt his eyes boring into the back of her head. After a few seconds she heard a sigh. “Listen, I’m sorry about what I said the other day,” he said. “You know … ‘Why else would I look at you’?”

  Zoe died all over again. “It’s no big deal,” she muttered.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Zoe kept her nose in her locker.

  “Oh-kay,” he said skeptically. “But if it’s no big deal, why won’t you look at me?”

  Zoe’s cheeks bloomed red, which made turning around all the more mortifying. So she didn’t.

  “Suit yourself,” he said finally. “So … how are we gonna do this? The debate, I mean.”

  It was the question Zoe had been asking herself since she put up her hand. She still didn’t have a good answer.

  “Well … I … I guess we’ll come up with the main arguments in class tomorrow,” she said. “And then we’ll divide them between the three speakers. Then we write the speech.”

  Harry moved around to her right side, appearing in her peripheral vision. “Are you really not going to look at me? You know you volunteered to be a speaker, right? You have to stand up in front of the class? Facing the class?”

  Zoe continued shuffling books in her locker, dying. “There are only two types of speakers,” she said quietly. “The nervous and the liars.”

  It was her favorite quote. She’d always wanted an excuse to say it to someone. But at the same time, she’d laid herself bare—giving away any notion that she was keeping her back to him to torture him or pay him back for what he said about her.

  “Mark Twain, right?” Harry said after a moment.

  “Yeah.” In her surprise Zoe forgot herself and looked at Harry.

  “Okay, point taken,” he said. “Don’t look at me. But we’re going to have to write the damn thing sometime. How about tomorrow? I have an appointment right after school, but I’ll be home by four P.M. Come to my place. I live in West Atherton. I have a closet that you can keep your head in the entire time if you like.”

  For a millisecond Zoe nearly laughed. Then she remembered that she couldn’t go to Harry’s. She’d probably have a panic attack right there on his doorstep! The whole thing was ridiculous. She was going to make a fool of herself.

  But, because she just needed the conversation to be over, she shrugged and said, “Fine. Tomorrow after school at your place.”

  She’d figure out a way to get out of it later.

  * * *

  Zoe was on her way to math when she heard her name in the corridor. She assumed she’d misheard, that someone had called “Chloe” or “Joey,” but when she spun
around, Mrs. Hunt, the school principal, was looking at her.

  “Can you come with me a minute, please?”

  Mrs. Hunt wore a strange smile that might have been concealing anger or even sadness. Zoe’s stomach plummeted. Her mom.

  “I … I have to get to class,” Zoe stammered, overcome by an urge to flee.

  “It’s all right,” Mrs. Hunt said. “I’ll give you a pass.”

  So Zoe had no choice but to go with her, into her office.

  “Have a seat,” Mrs. Hunt said when they got inside. Zoe did. Her hands were shaking and she found herself holding her breath. “Zoe, your mother called me and told me about her cancer. I’m so sorry.”

  Slowly she started to breathe again. Her mom must have been alive to make the call. And yet she was surprised her mother had thought to call the school to tell them this. Especially since she hadn’t done Zoe the same courtesy.

  “Thank you.”

  “I want you to know the school will support you through this. My door is open for you any time, and so is Mrs. Logan’s.”

  Mrs. Logan, the guidance counselor. Zoe had seen her once during her first semester, a standard visit after her mother had explained about her social anxiety disorder. Mrs. Logan was the brand of therapist that just sat there and waited for you to talk. Perhaps not the best strategy for someone with a pathological fear of talking to people.

  “Thank you,” she said again. She should have felt relieved. Her mother wasn’t dead and she wasn’t in trouble for skipping school. Still, she felt wary.

  “Zoe, I also mentioned to your mother that we have a therapist working at the school at the moment who has extensive experience with teenagers. I wondered if you might like to talk to him.”

  “Oh, thanks but … I think I’m okay.”

  “You don’t have to talk to him about your mother’s diagnosis if you don’t want to. You could talk to him about anything. Issues with friendships. Problems at home. Anything at all. He’s right next door, you could see him right now—”

  “Thanks,” Zoe interrupted. “But I’m fine.”

  “All right,” Mrs. Hunt said, standing. “But if you change your mind, just say the word.”

  Zoe let herself out of Mrs. Hunt’s office. As she got a pass from the desk she stole a glance into the next office, where a man sat in a swivel chair, typing. He was pretty old, maybe sixty, with grayish black hair. Perhaps feeling her gaze, he glanced up as she walked past his door.

  Zoe felt a strange pulse of energy.

  “Here’s your hall pass, Zoe,” the secretary said.

  “Oh,” she said. “Thanks.”

  She shoved the pass into her pocket and let herself out of the office. But as she took off down the hallway she had the weirdest feeling that she was being watched.

  27

  Everyone was in a hurry that afternoon. Kids charged through the school gates, backpacks slung over one shoulder, walking briskly or running. Eager to get home. Zoe was just as eager. She was almost at the gate when Sonja appeared beside her.

  “Zoe?”

  Zoe’s breath vanished. “Uh … yeah?”

  “I’m here to take you to the hospital.”

  Zoe took a step away from Sonja, even as she reached for Zoe’s bag. “Can I help you with this?”

  “It’s okay,” Zoe said, moving farther away. She wanted to ask what had happened to Judy, but she couldn’t seem to find the words. Thankfully Sonja imparted this information voluntarily.

  “Your mom has made alternative arrangements for you,” she said, and Zoe felt a wave of gratitude. Her mom was going to take care of things. Everything was going to be all right.

  “My car is over here.”

  Sonja’s car was ridiculous. Zoe wasn’t exactly a gear-head, but you could tell, even from the smell, that it cost. Cream leather seats, shiny brown dash, and a perfume smell that gave Zoe an instant headache. On TV and in movies, social workers always seemed to drive beat-up cars and smoked and had purple hair and a long list of atrocities committed against them, which had driven them to the job in the first place. Sonja seemed to defy every one of the stereotypes.

  “Well,” Sonja said once they’d been on the road a minute and it was obvious Zoe wasn’t going to speak. “How was last night?”

  “Fine.”

  “And you liked Judy?”

  “Yes.”

  Sonja tapped the steering wheel with pale pink fingernails. Her little finger, Zoe noticed, was chipped, the nail torn to the nail bed. It was an unexpected chink in her perfect armor.

  “And how are you doing?” Sonja said. “You were quite upset yesterday.”

  Zoe turned to look at Sonja and met her eye. She quickly looked away again, but not before she saw something else in Sonja’s eyes. She actually cared.

  “I’m okay,” Zoe whispered.

  The small talk was painful. Zoe pretended to look out the window as if she were fascinated by the streets she walked along every day. If Emily were here she’d be babbling about anything—hair products, the assignment she got today, the leather seats of the car. The fact that Zoe couldn’t find a single word to say was just lame. She was lame.

  When they reached the hospital they walked in silence through the lobby and into the elevator. The awkwardness was painful, but Zoe was buoyed by the fact that she would soon see her mom. The prospect of relief from the last twenty-four hours was making her woozy. Her mom was going to fix everything.

  “Which room is it?” Zoe said when they came out of the elevator.

  Sonja gestured and Zoe began to run. But when she rounded the corner to her mom’s room, she stopped dead. There was a nurse in there, changing a bandage around her mother’s middle. The bandage was caked in dried blood. A lot of blood.

  “Oh,” Zoe said.

  Her mom rolled her face toward the doorway. “Mouse!”

  She looked awful. Tired and puffy and not like herself. Her hair, usually bouncy blond and tousled, was limp and desperately needed a wash. Her skin was pale and entirely free of makeup. She looked like a different person.

  Somehow, Zoe managed to smile. “Hey.”

  “Come in,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Zoe heard herself say. She felt surprisingly awkward standing there, like she was talking to a stranger and not her mom. She stepped forward and gave her a brusque kiss.

  “I had no idea they were going to put you into foster care,” her mom said. “If I had known I—”

  “Why did you tell me it was gallstones?”

  Zoe hadn’t known she was going to blurt it out until the moment she did. But the betrayal stung. Her mom had always been the one person who told her the truth, no matter how difficult.

  “I’m so sorry, honey. I should have told you the truth.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I … I wanted to find out exactly what we were dealing with before I worried you with it.”

  Zoe heard what she wasn’t saying. I didn’t think you could handle it.

  Zoe was aware of the nurse in the room and Sonja was close behind her, and she knew she was dangerously close to crying. But she had to ask. “What are we dealing with?”

  “Ovarian cancer,” her mom said. “But the doctor has removed most of the tumors and we’re going to start chemo soon. He knows what he’s doing. We have the best team possible working on me. I’m going to survive, hon.”

  Zoe watched her mom, wondering if she was telling her the whole truth now.

  “So what was it like?” her mom asked eventually. “The foster home.”

  Zoe shrugged. “It was all right.”

  “Well, I’ve arranged something else, if it’s okay with you.”

  “What?” Zoe asked, suspicious.

  “There’s a nurse here, her name is Kate. She offered to have you stay with her tonight. And tomorrow, I’ll make them discharge me. It’s not ideal, but … it’s just for one night. You’ll like Kate. She’s young and pretty. She’s a lot like �
�� well, you.”

  Zoe fought to hold in the tears. Another night in a strange house. Her nerves had been stretched taut all day. She’d been just hanging on until she saw her mom and she took care of everything. But her mom wasn’t taking care of everything. Which meant she needed to keep it together.

  Her mom reached for her. “Honey, I know how hard this is for you. If there was anything else I could do—”

  “Will I … will I have my own room?” she managed.

  “You’ll definitely have your own room. Kate told me. She’s very nice.”

  Zoe didn’t care if she was nice. She wanted to go home with her mom. Her normal mom, not this strange, puffy, sick version. She wanted to go back to her apartment and for everything to go back to normal. She wanted to be alone so she could cry, really cry. Instead she managed to say, “Okay.”

  “Kate will be here soon so you can meet her. And honey, tomorrow, everything will be back to normal, okay? I promise.”

  Her mom looked at her, smiling, desperate to instill a sense of calm in Zoe. But all Zoe could see was her mom’s puffy face, her stomach wound, and the dried blood. And that look in her eyes that said she’d just lied to her. Again.

  28

  As they pulled through the wrought-iron double gates and into Kate’s driveway, Zoe’s eyes bulged. Kate’s house was gigantic. The driveway was wide and tree-lined and her whole apartment block would have fit on the front lawn. It was entirely different from Judy’s house it still terrified her. Would she have to eat dinner with Kate’s family? What if they wanted to ask her lots of questions about her life? What if they wanted to talk about her mom? They were being kind, having her to stay, and Zoe didn’t want to be rude—but sometimes, for Zoe, being rude was inevitable.