The Mother's Promise

by Sally Hepworth

  “No. But Jimmy farted and blamed it on a squeaky chair leg.”

  Zoe felt like she should smile but she couldn’t muster it. They fell into silence.

  “Listen, I figured you’d be feeling pretty bad after today,” he said. “I wanted to come and make you feel better.”

  “That’s sweet, but I don’t like your chances.”

  “Steel yourself then,” he said, and Zoe did. If there was one thing she was good at, it was steeling herself. “I have Crohn’s disease.”

  Zoe blinked. That wasn’t what she was expecting.

  “What’s—”

  “—Crohn’s disease? It’s a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract.” He said it like he was reciting it from a dictionary, then added, “I know. Sexy right?”

  Zoe was stunned silent.

  “It’s why I’m not playing football any more. It’s why I often have to step out of class. And it’s why I was late to the debate today. I never know when it’s going to flare up.”

  Zoe wasn’t sure at what point she started looking Harry in the eye. “Will it … will it kill you?”

  “Unlikely. But there’s no cure. It’s a lifelong illness that has to be managed. This summer the doctors removed a foot of my small intestine. They thought it would give me some reprieve from symptoms for a while, but less than two months on, I’m having flare-ups again.”

  “So you can’t play football with Crohn’s?”

  “Technically you can. But let’s just say you don’t want to be in the middle of a game or a practice when you have a flare-up. Anyway I’ve lost a lot of weight since I was diagnosed last year, and I get epic joint pain now, which makes it hard to play.”

  Zoe had no idea what to say.

  “It isn’t the most glamorous of illnesses. The guys knew I was having surgery this summer, so I said it was for my knee. My dad just had knee surgery—it gave me the idea.” Now Harry looked shy, which was a first. “Anyway, like I said, I understand embarrassment. Believe me.”

  “I have social anxiety disorder,” Zoe blurted out. After Harry’s admission she felt an unstoppable urge to be free of her own burden. “With panic attacks. Usually a panic attack makes me feel like my heart is going to explode and I can’t breathe and stuff. But today it made me … pee. I also never know when it’s going to happen, but I knew today would be a risk. I just didn’t know how bad it would be.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yep.”

  “I definitely have it worse though,” Harry said after a moment.

  Zoe scoffed. “Please. No you don’t.”

  “Sure I do. You only pee yourself. I shit myself. Fairly regularly.”

  Zoe stared at him. “You…?”

  “Uh-huh. I have to carry spare underwear at all times.”

  Zoe took a moment to digest that. Suddenly she understood where Harry disappeared to during class. What his appointments were for. Why it was easier for him to study at home. Why the fake knee injury.

  “Well … at least no one knows what’s wrong with you,” she said. “I can’t even have a normal conversation with anyone without blushing.”

  “I. Shit. Myself,” Harry repeated, deadpan. “I think it’s best if we just stop this conversation and agree that I have it worse.”

  Zoe started to giggle. It was the most unusual conversation. But for once, unbelievably, she didn’t feel awkward.

  “Well, my mom has cancer,” she said. “So I think I still win.”

  She was saying it in a jokey way, but mid-delivery she realized it wasn’t really very funny. The smile disappeared from Harry’s eyes.

  “Your mom has cancer?” He sat forward and rested his hand lightly on her knee. Despite the context, Zoe felt her heart race a little.

  “Yep. She’s acting like it isn’t so bad, but I don’t believe her. I think … I think she might be going to die.”

  Her voice broke on die, and Harry slid off the couch onto the floor beside her. “Wow, that’s…,” he started, then sighed. “Fine. You have it worse.”

  Zoe surprised herself by laughing. Harry laughed too, but respectfully. Zoe looked at him. His eyes, so full of concern. How had she not realized how perfect his face was before?

  He watched her contemplatively for a moment, and Zoe felt her breath quicken. “So, now that I’ve told you that I shit myself, would it gross you out if I kissed you?” He stroked the side of her face with his thumb.

  Zoe smiled. “Surprisingly, it wouldn’t.”

  He smiled back, taking her face in his hands.

  And then, they were kissing.

  * * *

  When Harry left, Zoe stood in the doorway of her mother’s bedroom. She waited for her to pop up and beg for information. Who was that boy? Why didn’t I know about him? Do you like him? But her breathing was slow, rhythmic. Asleep. She looked tiny in her big bed, just a little mound with a blanket pulled up to her chin. It was hard to believe that this woman, whom Zoe had seen drawn up to full height, arguing with any doctor or parent, anyone who dared to say anything about Zoe, was reduced to this tiny heap. Zoe lay on the bed and shuffled up until they were spooning. Still, her mom didn’t so much as rouse. She had a sweet, unfamiliar smell that she could only assume came from the chemo, and it made her sad. She longed for her mom’s usual scent.

  She fell asleep thinking about Harry. When she woke again, two hours had passed. The room was near black. Zoe’s arm was still across her mother, except now it was drenched in sweat.

  “Mom?” she whispered. “Mom? You’re soaked through.”

  Zoe brought a hand to her forehead. She was warm, but not roasting hot.

  “Mom?” she said again.

  She finally roused. “What?”

  “You’re wet.”

  Drowsily, her mom examined her shirt, which was stuck to her chest. She blinked hard, confused, then relaxed back into her pillows. “Oh, it’s just the hot flashes. I’m fine, honey.”

  “Your sheets are soaked.”

  “So they are.” She yawned and started to rise into a sitting position. “I’ll change them. You go back to sleep.”

  “I’ll do it, Mom.”

  “Don’t be silly, honey.”

  Her mom dropped her bare legs to the floor, but before she could stand, Zoe grabbed her arm. “Mom, stop. I’m doing this.”

  Perhaps out of exhaustion, she nodded. “All right.”

  Her mom sat on the armchair while Zoe stripped and remade the bed. Zoe put towels down on her mother’s side, over her pillows, and a stack of towels beside the bed. It felt good, she noticed, being the strong one.

  “Are you in pain?” she asked as she moved her mom back to the bed.

  “No,” she replied, obviously a lie.

  “Did the doctor give you any pills to take?”

  “There’s some in my purse.”

  Zoe fetched the pills and a glass of water and fed them to her mother before laying her down on top of the towels. She covered her in blankets and then, once again, lay down beside her. Her mom was cold now, and Zoe hugged her tight. Maybe she didn’t have her mother’s smell anymore, but she did, for the time being, have her mother. She wondered how long she would have her.

  Her mother—forever in tune with her, even like this—must have sensed her thoughts. “I’m not leaving you, Zoe,” she said quietly.

  “No,” Zoe said, brushing away a tear. “I’m not leaving you.”

  45

  Kate stood in the kitchen of her enormous, empty house. It had always felt too big, but now with no one else in it, it felt ridiculous. Five bedrooms, only three of which were used, two of them only part-time. When Kate moved in, the rooms had felt like a promise. She’d thought they’d be filled soon. Now they were just a reminder of what she’d never have.

  She’d gone to bed at nine the night before, half an hour before David left for the airport. After several hours of trying to sleep she’d finally given up and turned on the television, flicked through a few
books. At one point she even drew herself a bath. Around 5 A.M., she finally drifted off to sleep.

  She knew she’d messed up yesterday. Not because she’d planned to ambush David as he thought, but because she’d turned into something she didn’t want to be. A nag. A broken record. The problem was, she didn’t know what else to do. What did you do in a marriage when you didn’t agree? With an issue like a baby, there was no compromise—one person won, the other lost. So how did the loser go on without becoming bitter? Without blaming their partner for what they had missed out on? Until recently Kate had been so smug about her marriage, so smug about the lack of conflict, the wonderful communication. But sometimes all it took was one big obstacle to break down even the most harmonious of marriages.

  Around 10 A.M., when Kate went to check the mailbox, she found Zoe sitting on her doorstep. For some reason, Kate’s breath caught.

  “Hi,” Zoe said, stumbling to her feet. “Sorry … I … I didn’t know where to go.”

  “Zoe. Does your mom—?”

  “I didn’t tell her.” Zoe couldn’t look at her. “I couldn’t. She was so sick, Kate.”

  They stood there for a moment, on the doorstep. Zoe looked so small, so lost. Kate didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t sure it was a good idea to let Zoe inside when Alice knew nothing about her daughter’s whereabouts—but what else could she do?

  “Okay, well … come in.”

  Zoe shot inside, which was probably a good thing as Kate was already wavering about her decision. What would Alice say when she found out? Kate was overstepping the boundaries and she knew it. At the same time, she was tired after a night of hardly any sleep. And, she had to admit, she was happy to see Zoe.

  “So,” Kate said when they found themselves, unsurprisingly, in the sunroom. “The first chemo treatment knocked your mom around a bit, did it?”

  “She woke up last night so drenched in sweat I had to change her sheets.”

  “Night sweats can be a side effect of chemo. Your mom is lucky she has you to look after her.”

  Zoe nodded. She looked so sad sitting there it just about broke Kate’s heart.

  “And how are you feeling?” Kate asked.

  Zoe pulled her legs up in front of her and rested her chin on her knees. “How do you think?”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  Kate thought for a minute. She’d always found that talking to patients—about anything—led to better outcomes. Sometimes it would take an hour of talking about the weather before they finally came out and asked the question they’d been wanting to ask: How long have I got? So she decided on a change of topic.

  “Would you mind if I ask you a question?”

  Zoe looked at her. Despite herself, she seemed a little intrigued. “Okay.”

  “The other day, you said, ‘Sometimes I say things because I don’t know what else to say … and it just comes out wrong.’”

  “Yeah.”

  The truth was, Kate had been thinking about it in the context of her father. Hadn’t he said something similar? That he didn’t know why he said things?

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Kate said, “and I wondered: How can anyone know what you mean? I mean, when even you can’t articulate it?”

  Zoe shrugged as though it were a silly question. “Because of my actions. If I like a class, I always turn up for it … even though I might accidentally insult the teacher when I hand in my homework. Or if I hate a class—aka gym—I’ll avoid it at all costs. If I want to be friends with someone, I might try to sit near them, even if I don’t have the guts to talk to them. If I know someone is sad, I might try talking to them—even though I’ll probably end up blurting something out that makes it worse.”

  “Actions,” Kate said, as if it were wildly complex instead of simple and obvious.

  Zoe smiled with a little shrug. “They speak loudly, I hear.”

  Kate thought of the things her dad had said over the years that had disappointed her. And then, of the things he did. Raising her, when he could easily have handed her off to a relative. Showing up to dinner whenever she invited him, awkward as it was. Calling her after her miscarriage to say he was sorry. Zoe was right. Actions spoke loudly.

  “I probably shouldn’t have come here without telling my mom,” Zoe said finally, proving Kate’s theory that keeping communication going was always a good idea.

  Kate looked at her. “Why didn’t you tell her? Do you think she’d make you go to school?”

  “No,” Zoe said.

  “So why not tell her?”

  “She doesn’t need to worry about me on top of everything else.”

  “That’s sweet of you,” Kate said. “But I’m not sure hiding things from her is the answer.”

  “What is the answer?”

  “Honestly,” Kate said, “I have no idea.”

  They smiled at each other. Kate felt a tiny bit better.

  “I really do love this room,” Zoe said after a few moments.

  Kate nodded, suddenly remembering what Zoe had said last time she was in there. “It’s a good place to be by yourself, right?”

  Zoe blushed and it occurred to Kate that this might be her cue to leave. Zoe probably needed some peace and quiet, some time to process everything. At the same time, Kate found herself reluctant to leave. For the first time in months, she felt comfortable right where she was.

  “I know I said that,” Zoe said slowly. “But what I meant was, it’s a good place to be by myself … with you.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “God, does that even make any sense?”

  Kate smiled. “Actually,” she said, “it makes perfect sense.”

  46

  Sonja stood in the doorway to the living room, watching George on the couch. She was worried. Since she’d denied his advances last night, something had changed between them. This morning he’d come downstairs fully dressed and declined her offer of breakfast, saying he’d grab something on his way out. Tonight, after a quiet dinner, he’d taken himself off to the couch to watch the news without a word. As unsettling as the sex was, being ignored was worse.

  “Do you want to go to bed?” she said now, touching his hair. With her eyes, she tried to make her intent clear. It wasn’t that she desired sex, as much as she couldn’t remain on tenterhooks forever.

  “You go ahead,” he said, keeping an eye on the screen. “I’ll be up in a bit.”

  As she climbed into her empty bed, Sonja felt a little baffled. She wanted to set the clock back to the night before and let George do what he wanted to her. Let him squeeze her breasts. It couldn’t hurt worse than being rejected. It couldn’t hurt worse than being alone.

  Sonja must have fallen asleep, because when she startled awake, the room was near black and the clock blinked 3:45 A.M. She could feel George beside her, perhaps just coming to bed.

  “George?” she said. “Is that you?”

  She rolled over and blinked up at him, smelling whiskey. In the dim light she saw him smile. Then he wrapped his hands around her throat.

  Sonja tried to rear back, but she was pressed against the mattress and there was nowhere to go. She could feel his thumbs pressing against her Adam’s apple. Panic set in. She began kicking her legs and arms. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

  She held eye contact, making her eyes round and serious, trying to communicate that it had gone too far. But, although he was looking at her, he was unseeing. He didn’t look like George at all. He looked like a monster.

  Finally, he let go.

  Sonja quickly rolled away from him, gasping and retching. Air wheezed in and out of her lungs, making a horrible rasping noise. She turned to look at George and noticed that the smile had slid from his face. This wasn’t about sexual gratification, she realized. Not anymore. It was about power. And George had to be the one to have it.

  47

  A week after her first chemo session, Alice was struggling. She wasn’t sick to her stomach, but sh
e felt woolly-headed, sweaty, like she had the flu, and she was bone-tired, as if she could sleep for days. For a week her evening routine had been the same. Each night she’d curl up with Zoe and a cup of tea, Alice watching the television, Zoe absorbed in her book.

  “Can I get you some pills?” Zoe asked each night, code for You don’t look so good.

  “Sure,” Alice would reply, code for I don’t feel so good.

  Now Zoe was at school, which meant Alice was on her own. She hadn’t worked since before chemo—she’d had to hire another two part-timers while she was out of action. Yesterday one of them had dropped off a stack of get-well wishes from the clients, as well as a bunch of flowers from Mrs. Featherstone. Alice was touched. She had, of course, sent cards to her clients when they’d been in and out of the hospital. But she hadn’t understood how humbling it felt to be on the receiving end.

  Alice pulled a blanket around her shoulders. Her brochure said she should call the hospital if something didn’t feel right, but according to the cancer-forum ladies, chills were a normal side effect of chemo. The cancer-forum ladies were people she interacted with online and who had screen names like Hope4me and LongLife and Survivor! (Alice’s screen name was CancerSucks.) The strangest thing about chemo, the forum ladies agreed, was the red pee. The nurses had explained to Alice that because the dye in the chemo was red, her pee would be red too, until it flushed out of her system. The good news, the forum ladies all said, was that you could tell when the chemo was through, because your pee returned to its normal color. Calling it “good news,” Alice thought, was a stretch, but she supposed they were all in short supply of good news.

  There was a knock at the door just as Alice got comfy on the couch.

  “Go away,” she whispered.

  But whoever it was just knocked again. Groaning, Alice hauled herself upright and toward the door. When she swung it open, Paul was standing there. He was wearing the same hoodie and jeans he’d worn the last time she saw him.

  “Hey,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

  Alice’s mind spun. It was one thing making the effort to show up once. People made the effort once all the time. Volunteering to serve the homeless on Christmas Day, for example—who didn’t love doing that? But how many people showed up to serve the homeless the day after Christmas as well? Not many, Alice guessed. Because once you’d paid your dues you could go back to living your life feeling that you’d done your bit.