by Karin Aharon
“Dad, pass me the plate,” Michael said when everyone stood up and started cleaning up the table.
It reminded me I still hadn’t told my dad about mom being sick. I had to have this conversation one way or another, and it also seemed like a wonderful excuse for being locked up in a room rather than cleaning up the table. I whispered to Michael that I have to make a call, and excused myself from the table. Adam’s look followed me to the hallway, and then I disappeared.
My dad and I were never close. Gabi was always the dad I had called when anything happened, good or bad. Gabi was the one who would come to Parents’ Day and school activities. Even when I had to go to my dad for the weekend as part of his visitation rights, I had a hard time and just wanted to go back to mom’s as soon as possible. I missed her, and being away from her was unbearable. The nice part about visiting him was spending time with my cousins, who I hardly saw.
However, with time I visited him less and less, and we became even more distant. During my pregnancy with Adam I saw him only a couple of times, and there were long periods of time when I didn’t even know where he lived. It always bothered me and I always hoped it would change. Although Gabi successfully filled his shoes, there was a small part of me that hoped he would want to know me and be a part of my life. But it never really happened.
Despite it all, I knew that he had always loved mom and she was very important to him. And there was no way around it; I had to let him know what was going on. I went into the small room that used to be Michael’s and closed the door. I dialed his number and just before I had given up, he answered.
“Hey, dad. Shabbat Shalom.”
“Shabbat Shalom,” he replied quietly. I could hear the TV newscasters in the background.
“I need to tell you something about mom.” I paced in circles around the room and tried starting the conversation somehow.
“How is she?”
“Do you remember mom came over to visit? So, she wasn’t feeling well. She was hospitalized to have some tests done and they found out she has cancer. Ovarian cancer.” He fell silent. I waited a bit longer, but he kept quiet. “She’s staying here for her treatment and also needs to go through surgery.”
“She’ll recover,” he said, which was exactly what I was telling myself.
“I really hope so. She has to recover.”
“I told her she should get checked. I kept telling her.” The conversation made me sweat so, I stopped pacing around and stood next to the window. I needed some air.
“She was tested before they left for Australia. They didn’t find it.”
“She shouldn’t have moved to Australia. The doctors aren’t any good there.” Talking to him was always challenging, because I had a feeling he wasn’t really listening to me. This time I didn’t have any patience for his nonsense. It was clear he was trying to blame it on her moving to Australia.
“Ok, it doesn’t matter right now. She’s staying here.”
“What hospital is she in?”
“They discharged her. She’s at Julie’s place until she finds an apartment.”
“If they discharged her, it’s probably not that bad.” I had to take a deep breath in order to continue the conversation.
“Dad, it’s cancer. A brutal one. She goes back to the hospital for her chemotherapy but she doesn’t need to be hospitalized. It doesn’t mean that things are OK.” His way of ignoring the facts was impressive, but at that moment, it didn’t work for me. “I have to go because I’m at Michael’s parents, having dinner. We’ll talk next week. Bye dad.”
I didn’t wait for an answer and ended the conversation. I sat on the chair that Michael had probably sat on when studying for his SATs. I cried uncontrollably. Every time I told someone it became more and more real, also making it harder for me to repress. My mom had a deadly cancer and we were fighting for her life. I tried thinking of what would happen if we lost. Rachel, Michael’s mom, who couldn’t stand me, would be my children’s only grandma. I would stay with my two fathers who could barely be in the same room together, and that wasn’t going to change. Adam might not even remember her.
I gently caressed my tummy and tried promising myself and the baby girl inside, that she would get to know her grandma. There are six months until I’m due, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Grandma will be with us in the delivery room, I promised her, and the tears kept pouring down my eyes and on my belly.
I stayed in the room until Michael called me and told me we were going home. Since we had Adam we could leave earlier. Who said there weren’t any advantages to having a kid with a short attention span?
Chapter 7
“How are you? Where’s Tom?” Michael asked when he walked into the bedroom after having yet another long day.
“He went to a scouts’ gathering and still hasn’t come back. He’s out at night again.” I turned down the TV.
“Isn’t it late?” Michael sat on the bed and took off his shoes.
I looked at the clock, it was quarter to eleven. “I asked him to come back home earlier, but that brat said he wasn’t a baby and he could come back whenever he wanted.”
Michael smiled.
“That’s how teenage boys are. What did you expect? He’s actually not so bad, doesn’t give us much trouble. I was way worse. I kept fighting with my sisters.”
“Whenever mom asks about him, I tell her everything is fine. But he keeps going out every night with his new friends and when he’s home he sits in front of a screen. He barely talks to me, just asks for money for his private tutors and that’s it.”
“As least he has friends; it’s not easy starting over again at a new place at his age.”
“Yes, but what do we even know about them? He doesn’t bring them home. It’s impossible knowing who he’s hanging out with.”
“He’s probably hanging out with the geeks from his high-school film major. What could they possibly do? Watch movies together?” Michael amused himself.
“I’ll ask Jonathan to talk to him. Maybe he can get to him.” They were both boys and they didn’t have much of an age difference, so I hoped Jonathan would understand Tommy better.
I got into bed and tried finding a comfortable position to fall asleep in. Even though a few hours had passed, the house still smelled of the cauliflower latkes Ida had made for Adam. I have always hated cauliflower and the smell made me nauseous again. Like that time when my parents went abroad and I stayed with grandma and grandpa, Gabi’s parents. I didn’t need a babysitter, but Tommy and Jonathan were still young.
I was having a busy school week and had four terrible exams. And that was the easy part of that week. The day before mom and Gabi returned, I came back from school and the house reeked of cauliflower. I found grandma Leah in the kitchen over a pot that could feed an entire village. She smiled proudly and said she had made my favorite soup especially for me.
I don’t remember how long it went on, but when I told her that I hated cauliflower, she was so mad at me she didn’t speak to me until mom and Gabi came back.
I drove with grandpa to pick them up from the airport. It gave me an opportunity to get away from grandma Leah’s disappointment. On the way back, I sat in the backseat with mom and she hugged me almost all the way home.
“Next time you leave, I’ll babysit Tommy and Jonathan, ok?”
“OK, sweetie, I’m sorry it was hard for you. She’ll calm down and forgive you, don’t worry.”
We kept hugging each other until the car stopped and we had to get out. Although it had been more than a day, I could still smell the cauliflower.
When my parents went away again, I was actually left in charge, it was better this way.
That moment, when I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep, I felt as if my parents were gone again and I was babysitting Tom.
After visiting the bathroom twenty times, I fi
nally fell asleep. I woke up when I heard the door open and Tommy came in. I was praying that Adam wouldn’t wake up, but I heard him whining and Michael went to him. You could say my motivation for finding mom an apartment, grew every time Tommy woke Adam up during the night. I would find myself at 2 A.M. saying goodnight again to teddy and dolly, so that Adam would go back to sleep. I would sometimes struggle going back to sleep myself, having so many thoughts going through my mind. By now, they had nothing to do with my work cases.
Michael came back from Adam’s room and brought in with him scents from the kitchen. I was nauseous again. Didn’t I already mention how much I hated cauliflower?
Chapter 8
Every afternoon, I would sneak out of the office (taking the long route, of course), and try completing others tasks, all while looking for an apartment for mom. I would drag Adam along, from one apartment to the next, until I found a place that was just a five-minute-walk from mine.
I knew mom’s surgery was approaching. The moment I got the date, I tried planning on how to ask Nathan for a day off. I knew he wouldn’t be too happy about it, but I assumed he would understand the importance of the matter at hand. It is, after all, my mom.
The next day, I walked into his large office with a big polite smile.
“Hey, I finished Samuel’s deposition. Would you like to go over it?”
“Leave it here, I’ll go over it later,” he didn’t even look at me; the smile I tried so hard to keep was unnecessary.
“I wanted to ask you something,” I waited for a reaction, but when it failed to come, I went on, “My mom is having surgery on Sunday and I would like to take the day off.” I took a deep breath and hoped the hard part was behind me. Nathan logged into his itinerary and I waited patiently.
“Samuel is coming in to sign the deposition on Sunday. I’m not familiar with the details, so you have to be there. You can leave once the meeting is over.”
“But it’s a really hard and complicated surgery,” I couldn’t believe he didn’t authorize it.
“You’re not the one operating on her, right?” he lifted his eyes to me, as if he was waiting for an answer. “The doctors will do just fine without you, don’t worry,” he said and looked back at his screen.
“But it’s important that I be there. It’s my mom,” I held the tears and tried not to whine, but struggled.
“But it’s important to me that you’ll be here. You’re barely at the office as it is, and it’s unacceptable.” He turned to face me and leaned forward with a sense of formality.
“You know we’ve been going through some rough times. Her disease, and the fact that they don’t have a home and my brother living at my place.”
“I understand, but everybody has rough times and it can’t compromise the professionalism of this office. If you’re taking care of a client you need to be present at his meetings, especially when you’re the one who prepared the deposition. That’s the meaning of being a lawyer, and it’s very sad that I should have to explain it.” He raised his voice and Mayra, his personal assistant, stood up and closed the door.
“Can’t we move the meeting with Samuel to a different day?”
“The meeting can’t be moved because Samuel is flying to Spain the day after. You should have known that, seeing as you’re the lawyer attending to his cases.” Nathan yelled angrily, “If you want to work here, you need to adjust to the office requirements.”
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to curse him (and his mother) but I didn’t utter a word. I just stood there and kept myself from crying in front of him.
“I’ll call you after I go over what you’ve written. I hope there’s not much to correct, like the other deposition you gave me.”
I opened the door and left the room in shock.
Mayra approached me with a glass of water and took me to my room. “Are you OK?”
“Yes,” I replied, but still didn’t know if it was true. I was shaking and felt that I would faint any moment.
“I’m shocked he didn’t authorize it.” I sat on my chair and drank the water. At that moment, I wanted to throw all of Samuel’s dossiers out of the window, take my things and never come back. I didn’t know how I could ever look at Nathan again.
When I called mom, I cried on the phone and she tried calming me down. “In any case, it’s not good for you to spend so much time at the hospital. There are so many germs and diseases, it’s bad for your pregnancy.”
“But what he’s doing is awful. He’s taking advantage of the fact that I need this job and don’t have any other choice, no one’s going to hire a pregnant woman. If he could, he would have fired me, for sure.”
“It doesn’t matter right now, please, calm down. All this stress, it’s unhealthy for you.”
She was right, but I was still shaking with anger.
Chapter 9
On the day of mom’s surgery, I came into the office angry, more than usual. I walked into the conference room, slightly late, and sat next to Samuel. Nathan was already deep in conversation with him and didn’t even respond when I came in. Samuel, on the other hand, stood up and warmly shook my hand. I made an honest attempt at smiling, but was so mad that I just couldn’t.
“Is everything fine?” Samuel asked while I placed in front of him a copy of his deposition.
“Everything’s perfect, thanks,” I said nervously.
Samuel was browsing through his laptop, while Nathan played with his phone. I was starting to get annoyed by this useless waste of time, so I decided to speed things up.
“I understand that you’re leaving tomorrow, so how about we start working on the deposition?” I looked up only to realize that no one but me had bothered to open the document I handed out.
“Come, see how I renovated my yacht.” Samuel turned the computer screen to Nathan, who was kind enough to take his eyes off his phone.
“Wonderful!” Nathan said with excitement he had reserved only for his high paying customers. Then Samuel turned the screen to me.
“Congratulations, it really is beautiful,” I said and Samuel kept scrolling through the pictures, adjusting the screen so that Nathan could also see the new shower he installed. I checked my phone but there weren’t any new messages since the one Gabi sent me at 7 A.M., telling me mom was taken into the surgery room.
“And that’s from the trip we took across the east coast during the holidays. I took all my family on a whale watching cruise, it was crazy good.” Samuel kept scrolling through the pictures on his laptop and Nathan kept acting enthused. I was starting to get hot, so I took my jacket off. It felt like Nathan was taking his time on purpose. But why should he care, considering he charges by the minute? I checked my phone again, still nothing.
“That’s us at the White House,” Samuel continued, as he scrolled through more photos of his family standing in front of the White House. I was slowly losing my patience.
“What a beautiful family!” Nathan said, and all I wanted was to smash Samuel’s computer on his head. My leg tapped nervously, as if it had a life of its own, and I was sitting at the edge of my sit.
“Are you in a hurry?” Nathan asked with an innocent expression, while Samuel scrolled to a picture of him and his wife wearing thin rain coats at Niagara Falls.
“Actually, yes,” I said, and Samuel stopped and looked at me. “My mom is having surgery at the moment and I would love to finish going over the deposition, so Samuel would sign it and I can leave for the hospital.”
Nathan’s expression was extremely furious, but before he could say anything Samuel said, “no problem, I can sign the document you prepared.” Samuel took a pen and started flipping to the last page of the deposition.
“We can’t just do that. You need to read everything and make sure that it’s right,” I said when Nathan stood up and looked at me with anger.
“No need. Did you
put in what I told you?” he asked, and I nodded. “So, I trust you.” Samuel scribbled his signature on his copy and took Nathan’s too. “How many copies do you need?”
Nathan paced back and forth by the table, “Samuel, there’s no pressure. You can read quietly and Shirley can wait.” He looked at me, as if wanting me to agree with him, but I kept silent.
“It’s all good, Nathan. You have three signed copies. Do you need anything else?”
“No, thank you, Samuel,” I said and slipped all signed copies back into the folder.
I stood up and shook Samuel’s hand. “Have a great flight, and enjoy yourselves. When you come back, we’ll talk.” I’m sure Nathan would love to see pictures from this trip too, I wanted to say, but kept silent.
Chapter 10
Mom still had three rounds of treatment left. But only a week after her surgery, she was back at her old workplace and they were happy to have her back. Mom got used to her wig, and despite her having a different skin color and swollen face, she looked like herself again. Although she complained about looking terrible, to me she still looked wonderful. Whenever someone would say I reminded them of her, I felt it was the best compliment I could possibly get.
I kept working as much as I could, but as my due date approached, my motivation ran lower. I couldn’t wait for my maternity leave. I took as many sick days as I could and used them to rest. When I did work, I would sit with Sarah and brief her about my cases, preparing her for when I would take my maternity leave and she takes over.
Sarah was one of those single women who lived life to its fullest. She loved sitting at trendy restaurants and traveled as much as possible, especially thanks to her previous job at El Al. Marriage, especially children, seemed unnecessary to her at this point in her life. Despite us being in different places in our lives, Sarah was my only friend at the office. She was honest, not fake like many other lawyers who worked here. I also knew that she was on my side.