The Promise

by Melody Grace

  “But you’re doing better now?” His voice lifted, a careful question.

  I nodded and squeezed his hand with a smile. “The best I’ve ever been.”

  It was true. Sure, my tumor was twisting and writhing through my brain, spreading one cancerous cell at a time. But my heart? It had never beat so wildly, or sang out such a breathless song.

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That long-forgotten high-school English paper flooded back to me, and I felt it, suspended there in Theo’s bedroom between the two poles of my fate. “C’mon.” I scrambled to my feet, wincing as my bare soles hit the cold polished floor. “I’m going to be late, and you have classes.”

  He groaned, catching my wrist before I could dance out of reach. “Don’t make me.”

  I laughed, falling back into the warm covers. “We can’t play hooky,” I warned him, even as my body sank against his. “Not today.”

  “What if it’s a snow day?” Theo grinned up at me, his eyes bright. “We could look outside that window and find the whole city shut down. Drifts ten feet deep.”

  “Ten feet!” I leaned in to kiss the tip of his nose, his forehead, his earlobe. “If that was true, we’d be snowed in. We’d have to stay home.”

  “Exactly.” Theo rolled, crushing me beneath him. He settled his head against my chest and let out another lazy yawn. “So, bed it is.”

  “But it might not be. You haven’t looked yet,” I pointed out, stroking those tufts of sleep-messy hair.

  “Maybe it can be both. Schrodinger’s snow day.” His arms circled me tight, pinning me happily in his embrace.

  “Schroding—who?”

  “He was a physicist.” Theo propped his head up on my ribs, his smile still so dazzling, it took my breath away. “He posed an argument that something can be and not be, at the same time. Only he made it with a dead cat locked in a box.”

  “Poor cat!” I protested, and Theo laughed.

  “It wasn’t really there. But it was the idea, that the cat could be both alive and dead at the same time, and it wasn’t until someone looks, that it’s either.”

  I shook my head slowly. “This is why I didn’t take physics.”

  Theo laughed. “Me either. I nearly failed it twice. But I had a great professor, this really eccentric guy. He made me think about things in a whole new way, you know, what’s real: how everything we take for granted in the world is really just our senses sending signals to our brain, there’s nothing really more than that.” He paused, self-conscious. “Don’t let Kelsey hear me talk like this, she’ll go off on some rant about freshman guys getting a hard-on for the Matrix.”

  I laughed. “Promise.”

  As I stretched, his words echoed. “Hope said something like that, too. She got all kinds of hallucinations, near the end. Seeing things that weren’t there. Feeling cold when it was boiling inside, or even tasting her food wrong. She would insist it wasn’t her body playing tricks on her, it was just the world going by a new set of rules, just for her.”

  “Maybe it was.”

  Why do I have to be the crazy one? she would demand, so contrary. Maybe you’re the ones who are getting it wrong. You’ll see, she added, warning, and I knew she was right. The doctors always asked me, any auras, any weird scents or tastes? That was the next phase, still to come. I wondered how it would feel, the world shifting off its axis away from the reality I’d known, to something entirely new.

  “There are people who have religious experiences,” I found myself saying. “You know, the really intense ones, where they feel God’s presence—God, or whoever,” I corrected myself. “Scientists have done tests, and they can see the part of the brain that lights up when someone’s having that kind of epiphany. Rapture. Sometimes it’s all chemical, a serotonin rush, but sometimes it’s a tumor. But that doesn’t change what they felt, that experience, it’s still real to them.”

  Theo looked interested, but I realized too late I was on dangerous territory. Tumors, cancer, this conversation was a minefield even without trying to dance lightly through the bombs.

  “Come on,” I said again, rolling out from under him. “Let’s see which reality we’re in.”

  I went to the window. The streets were clear, the skies a frozen, crisp cerulean, my breath fogging the cold glass. “No snow,” I announced, and Theo sighed, swinging his legs out of bed.

  “Next time,” he said, like a promise.

  “Next time,” I echoed, and prayed I could keep it.

  Chapter Twenty

  My parents arrived at Wired halfway through my shift, stepping over the threshold and looking anxiously around the café like it was foreign soil. I was stationed behind the counter, and I beckoned them over, already determined to be bright and shiny and about as brand new as I could manage on three hours sleep and too much caffeine.

  “What can I get you?” I asked. “Espresso, right, Dad? And Mom, we’ve got a great herbal tea.”

  She nodded, looking slightly stunned. But there I was, dressed in a festive red sweater dress and thick ribbed tights, concealer under my eyes to hide the shadows, and my shower-damp hair caught up in a braid. I poured their drinks and added buttery croissants too, whirling between the register and coffee machines like I was back in third grade, trying my hardest to point my toes in the holiday dance recital.

  Despite everything, I wanted them to be proud. To see what I’d done here, building a life from scratch.

  “On the house,” I told them, delivering their heavy porcelain mugs with a smile. “Why don’t you grab the couches? I can take a quick break, just let me finish up with the people in line.”

  Kelsey emerged then from the back, yawning. “How are you so perky?” she demanded, not noticing my parents—or rather, noticing, but not caring about them at all. “Don’t tell me you managed to sleep, with Moose on the Xbox and the guys having that fucking midnight jam session right down the hall.”

  “The guys?” my mom echoed, blinking.

  Kelsey turned and lifted one eyebrow in a challenge.

  “These are my parents,” I announced brightly. “Dave and Susan.”

  My dad cleared his throat. “It’s great to meet some of Claire’s friends. Are you a student here?”

  “Nope,” Kelsey answered shortly, and walked away.

  “She’s . . . prickly,” I covered. “But she’s great, really. And that’s Mika and JJ.” I nodded, pointing them out. “It’s a really nice group.”

  My mother nodded faintly, still looking dubiously around as if she’d ventured into some dark, remote corner of the dangerous city, not a coffee shop crammed with study-break students and tourists snapping pictures of their perfect latte foam. A line was forming behind them, and my dad glanced around. “We won’t keep you,” he said. “We’ll just be over there, when you get a moment.” He steered them over to the couches, and I caught my breath, just for a moment, before the next demand for low-fat, no-foam, triple shot came hard and fast, and I was back to the rush again.

  I worked with one eye on the corner. They sat, talking softly over their untouched drinks, and I could only imagine what they were saying. Plans to drag me back to Texas, or strong-arm me straight to a hospital bed. I wished they would look up, just for a moment, to see how I handled the long, impatient lines with ease: remembering orders, giving my regulars a special smile or greeting, keeping the tide of demands moving on. It wasn’t much, certainly not the dreams most parents have for their kids: no college graduation gowns, or law-school diplomas, but this was all mine. I’d done this myself, and it still ached the way I so desperately wanted them to recognize my life here as a blessing, not a curse.

  Kelsey bustled beside me, taking over duty on the espresso machine. “So, the Brady Bunch comes to town.”

  “Yup,” I answered, deadpan, refusing to rise to her bait. “We’re going to sing Christmas carols and make pie later, if you want to come with.”

  She snorted with laughter, clattering another bag of coffee gro
unds into place.

  “Are you heading home for the holidays?” I asked, cautious. I half-expected her to give me an eye-roll and flounce away, but Kelsey just sighed.

  “I go tonight. Connecticut. Five days of my mom’s obsessive cooking, and my annoying brat of a half-brother, and my creepy Uncle Nate walking into the bathroom without knocking. Joy to the world,” she quipped. “Mika said you were covering shifts?”

  I nodded. “I didn’t think I was celebrating. I guess they had other plans.” I looked to my parents again. Last year, they’d tried so hard to drench the season in holiday cheer. Hope was spiraling towards the grave, and I barely had the spirit to lift my head out of the covers in the morning, but they didn’t relent: shopping trips and tree-lighting, the radio tuned to Christmas classics from the moment Thanksgiving dinner was cleared away to the morning the scent of cinnamon cookies wafted upstairs and I awoke to a room packed with presents in their shiny paper. Now, I wondered if they were doing all of that for me, or if it was their own fierce bargain with the universe, playing pretend hard enough to make it true.

  This year would be different. I didn’t want rituals and traditions, going through the motions of celebration for one last time. All that mattered to me was on a scribbled notebook page, Hope’s last requests. I’d let my scare and Theo distract me, but I hadn’t forgotten that slim scribbled list, and with winter now blanketing the streets around us, I could make some progress with the next demands: snowball fights, snow angels, and sledding. Like me, she’d loved the snow, spent a last, glorious winter with her grandparents in Colorado, and came back breathless, the sparkle of a fresh snowfall still in her eyes. It’s perfect, she told me. Perfect and pure, good enough to taste.

  A lull came before noon, so I poured myself a mug of cocoa and pulled off my apron. But when I finally turned to the corner, I saw that my parents weren’t alone. Theo had joined them.

  My heart lurched. I hurried over, skittering with a guilty beat. “Hey,” I greeted him, interrupting. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  How long? I looked quickly between them, searching for any sign of the revelations, but Theo just slipped a hand around my waist and squeezed. “I had a free period between classes.”

  “Theo was just telling us about his teaching job,” my father added with a tiny nod, as if to reassure me. “It’s a very prestigious program, I understand.”

  “Not really,” Theo answered, modest, at the same time as I replied, “It is.”

  Theo laughed.

  “And is that what you’d like to do when you graduate?” my mom asked, her voice still a little strained, so polite. “Teach?”

  “Maybe.” Theo’s voice was relaxed, but his shoulders felt tense under my hand. He was trying, too. “It’s still a ways off. I have my thesis ahead to worry about first.”

  “Your parents must be proud.”

  Theo nodded, but didn’t reply. I quickly spoke up. “How long do you have?” I asked him. “Do you want some coffee, or food?”

  “I’m fine. You’re on a break!” Theo tugged my hand, pulling me into a seat. “What about you?” he asked, frowning. “Have you eaten yet? You need to be careful about your blood sugar, remember what the doctor said.”

  I caught my mom’s pinched stare, and felt trapped all over again: walking that careful tightrope wire between my separate lives. “Theo was with me when I had that little fall,” I said carefully. “Anyway! What have you guys been up to? Did you have a chance to see any of the city yet? Any sightseeing while you’re here?”

  My mom gave me a look, as if she knew exactly what I was doing. Then she smiled. “I thought we could plan it together, sweetheart. Maybe going shopping this afternoon, the two of us? You need some proper winter boots, I can see. We can make it a girls day, doesn’t that sound nice?”

  I was trapped by my own distraction, and she knew it. “Fine,” I agreed, reluctant.

  “And then dinner, tonight,” she continued. “Theo, why don’t you join us?”

  “I . . . sure.” He glanced at me, questioning. “I’d love to. If that’s OK with Claire?”

  I didn’t have a choice. I nodded.

  “Perfect.” My mom beamed. “It’ll give us a chance to get to know you. I’ll make reservations somewhere nice.”

  “Well, I better get back.” Theo rose and reached for his satchel. “It was nice to meet you both again. I’ll see you tonight.”

  I walked him to the door. “You don’t have to do this,” I said, shooting a look back across the room. “It’ll be boring and tense, and—”

  “Hey, it’s fine.” Theo interrupted me with a soft kiss, a split-second ray of sunshine. “I want to get to know them. And don’t worry, they’re just looking out for their baby.” He smiled at me, like these were any other protective parents. Like this was any other trip from out of town. “We’ll have dinner, and they can see I’m not leading you into a life of debauchery. Everything will be fine. They’ll love me.” He winked, so confident, but that wasn’t the problem.

  Of course they’d love him. How could anyone not? I was already too far gone to catch myself, a free-fall into thin air.

  “OK,” I murmured, choosing to believe in his golden certainty. One dinner, two hours at the most. I’d kept my secret locked safe for months now, I could make it one more night. “I’ll see you later.”

  He left, back onto the brisk, ice-chilled street, and I made my way through the café slowly back to my parents. “You promised,” I warned them quietly, but my mom was energized now, full of the promises I’d had to make.

  “We didn’t say anything, did we, hon?” She nudged my father. “And it’ll be good to get to know him. If he’s the reason you’re doing all of this, it’s the least you can give us, don’t you think?”

  As usual, I had no answer for that. I never did when it came to what I owed them, how I could possibly repay the debts and sacrifices they’d made. She stood, looking brighter and determined. “When do you finish here? We can take a walk around until you’re done.” She sized me up, assessing. “I saw a couple of stores with winter coats. And I noticed your teakettle is cracked back at the apartment, and you don’t have a matching towel set. We’ll need to pick some things up.”

  This was my mother. Ten minutes in my home, wracked with worry and tired from an eight-hour trip, and she still managed to clock the dollar-store hand towel in the bathroom and the lack of matching plates. But behind her words, I realized, there was a surrender of sorts. I wouldn’t need snow boots back in Texas, or a kettle for our gleaming range back home. She wasn’t talking about packing me up and whisking me away anymore, and that had to be a good thing, so I gifted her with a smile. “My shift ends in an hour,” I agreed. “I can meet you back here, and then shop.”

  My father disappeared off somewhere, “to see the sights,” my mom said vaguely, but she was waiting outside on the stroke of one. “Boots first,” she said, already powering through the festive crowds. “Then maybe we can find a salon and do something about your hair.”

  I let her propel me through store displays and dressing rooms, standing obediently as she dressed me in boots and sweaters and thick winter jackets, fleece-trimmed and scratching with wool-lined warmth. My nails were a disaster, my split ends crying out for mercy, but I soon gave up my protests. She was determined to cram months’ worth of mothering into a few short hours, and it was all I could do to simply keep pace, our footsteps sharp on the parade of gleaming department store floors, the bright lights catching silver in her crop of ash blonde hair. She navigated us across the city with determined ease, not hesitating for a second despite the unfamiliar streets. Taxi cabs arrived the moment she beckoned, and surly store clerks melted into acquiescence with a single measured request. Her years of steering me, unrelenting, through the tangled paperwork and red tape of a dozen hospital wards had made her an army major, battle-ready, and unwilling to ever back down.

  She hadn’t always been like this. Before my diagnosis, she’d bee
n gentler, free. She’d worked as a graphic artist at an ad agency in the city, wearing brightly colored print dresses and trailing armfuls of jade bangles that clattered with every touch. She loved her job, and when I was still a toddler, she’d bring me by the office sometimes when she needed to stay late on a project for a big client. I would sit under her desk with a crumpled stack of craft paper and colored pens, happily scribbling the lurid designs she’d proudly pin to the refrigerator door back home. I inherited her artistic streak, she’d always say, and I, in turn, watched proudly as she rose through the ranks until the day that first specialist pinned up my scans and introduced us to the shadow lurking on my MRI. She quit that afternoon, and wouldn’t hear a word of argument. One of them had to handle this, and she’d decided it would be her.

  I didn’t understand it at the time; their talks were all kept in hushed whispers in the next room, but as the years passed, it began to press on me just how much she’d had to sacrifice. I was a teenager, I should have been becoming more self-sufficient, not less—getting my driver’s license, fixing my own snacks after school, and amusing myself without a babysitter or constant supervision—but instead, we’d plunged back in time. I was completely dependent on her, a newborn at fourteen, fifteen. She ferried me to appointments, scheduled specialists and travel the way some moms organized play-dates, and carefully fed me all my prescription pills. When the chemo sessions poisoned my body and made me a hollow, aching shell, she was there: fixing me a tray, wrapping me in that soft baby’s quilt, and sitting up with me those long afternoons as I wretched, sobbing to feel the toxins clawing in my veins. Her life became my tumor, just as much as mine, and although I was grateful, it weighed on me, too, a debt I could never hope to repay, especially once those last results came in and we knew the years had been in vain, and there was no winning this fight.