by Lara Zielin
“You think one of these days you guys might actually go on a date?” I asked.
Sylvia shrugged. “Why bother? This is more fun.”
Something inside me whispered, Careful. Out loud, I said, “Totally.”
When I got home, my eyebrow ring blew the lid off everything.
“What have you done now?” my mom asked, standing in the kitchen and holding a can of vegetables that she no longer seemed to know what to do with.
I readjusted my bag and shrugged. “Sylvia and I went to Brainerd,” I said, as if that explained anything.
My mom set down the vegetables. She grabbed my shoulders. “Margaret Winchester!” she yelled. “Enough is enough! This behavior needs to stop! Do you hear me?”
She let go of me, and I stepped back. My mom hardly ever put her hands on me. I stared at her eyes, which were bulging in her face.
I tried not to freak. My parents were smart, educated, and reasonable. My mom especially. She solved her problems with logic; she didn’t yell at them. She’d sat me down a hundred times to tell me things like how skipping school was a “precursor to bigger problems,” how drinking at an early age would “do irreversible damage to my brain cells,” how dressing in all black was “not the way to solve my issues.” No matter what she said, though, she never lost her shit like this. Ever.
My mom looked like she might haul off and try to punch me. I took another step back.
“As a minor, what you’ve done is illegal,” she said, pointing at me, “not to mention grossly irresponsible. What’s more, you look horrible. At least that disgusting makeup washes off, but this.” She took a deep breath. “With this, you’ve all but ruined your face!”
A gash of pain opened my chest, then filled immediately with hot, liquid anger. “So you’d rather have a pretty daughter than a happy one?” My voice oozed sarcasm. “Because that’s going to boost my self-esteem and win you points with the other moms for sure.”
“You’re not happy, Margaret,” my mom said. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
I smiled. “I guess that makes two of us.”
Something in my mom shattered. I saw it. I practically heard it. She sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands. My dad, who must have heard the raised voices from down the hall, marched into the kitchen.
“What’s going—” He stopped short when he saw my mom.
“Gail!” he cried, rushing to her side. “Are you all right? What happened?”
My mom just stayed there, crumpled. My dad whipped around to look at me.
“Did you do this?” he asked, his voice so sharp I swore I felt it slice my marrow.
“I just—I just came home.”
“With that . . . that thing in your eyebrow?” He didn’t even wait for me to answer. He turned his back to me and tried to help my mom to her feet. “Come on, honey,” he said gently. “Let’s get you into bed.”
Bed sounded so dramatic. “Dad, we were just—” But my dad shot me the angriest look I’d ever seen in my life. My hands started shaking. What was going on?
I watched as my dad helped my mom up the stairs to their bedroom. I was still standing there when he came back fifteen minutes later. I wanted to be a badass and march off like I could give a shit, but I hadn’t been able to make myself move.
“What?” I whispered. “What’s going on?”
My dad stood by the kitchen sink. He picked up the can of vegetables my mom had in her hand earlier, then set it down. He wouldn’t look at me.
“Your mom’s sick,” he said finally.
“Sick how?”
“She has cancer.”
I think part of my brain actually melted into my cornea, blocking my vision. I stumbled to the nearest chair and sat. Cancer? My mom? No way.
“When?” was the only question I could think to ask.
“About two weeks ago, her doctor did a standard mammogram and found a lump in her breast. She’s scheduled for a lumpectomy soon, and they’re hopeful. But she’s under a lot of stress and the doctors don’t . . .”
My skin prickled. My mom found out she had cancer two weeks ago? And I was discovering this now?
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You didn’t tell me?”
My dad’s brown eyes—the same color as mine—were bleary.
“We didn’t know how. Your mom wanted to wait until she was sure . . .”
“What? That she’d live?”
My dad shook his head. “No. That you’d care.”
I imploded. Bits of myself collapsed into a void so deep and so black, I wondered if I’d ever dig them out again.
I went to my room and cried until my pillow was soaked with snot and tears. I wanted to hate them. I wanted to help them. I wailed and thrashed and wept.
When my tears were spent, I stood and walked unsteadily to my dresser. With trembling hands, I undid the clasp of my eyebrow ring and pulled it from my raw, hot skin. Pain exploded in my head, and I saw white spots.
I didn’t mind. I wanted the hurt to make me sharp, to help me focus.
My thoughts didn’t get very far. Sylvia called ten minutes later. “I’m pregnant,” she announced.
Chapter Two
TUESDAY, MARCH 10 / 12:10 P.M.
The next afternoon at lunch, Sylvia and I sat in her car in the school parking lot, both of us picking at the slices of our cafeteria pizza.
“So how did you know?” I asked, pressing my napkin on top of the grease.
“I was a little sick, but what tipped me off were my tits.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. They totally started being sore. And I had all this cramping that I thought was PMS but I never really got my period. Just some spots or whatever.”
We were silent for a minute, and I tried to imagine Sylvia being a mom. There were days she couldn’t remember where she parked. I wasn’t sure how she was going to change diapers and be responsible for another person.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
Sylvia stared out the front windshield, watching the kids stream back into the building from their off-campus lunches. “I don’t know.” She swallowed visibly. “It seems so—huge. Like I can’t get my brain wrapped around it, you know?” Her green eyes darkened with pain and confusion.
Last night, I hadn’t asked her any of this. I’d been so hysterical about my mom I could barely process her news. Instead I told her my own: my mom was sick; I’d talk to her about everything the next day.
Now here we were and Sylvia, the toughest person I knew, was on the verge of crying. And if she started, I’d probably wind up blubbering like an idiot, too. Not only because of my mom, but because there were days when Sylvia wasn’t just strong, she was downright invincible. I didn’t like to be reminded that maybe she wasn’t. So I tried to refocus her attention.
“How far along are you?” I asked.
Sylvia leaned her head against the window. “I think a couple months. It’s just a guess. I’ll know for sure when I see a doctor.”
That explained why she wasn’t showing yet. I rolled down the window and tossed the remains of my pizza slice into the parking lot. It stared at me from the blacktop. For the first time ever, I thought about my mom seeing litter at the school and worrying about it. On top of cancer, that would pretty much suck.
I opened the door and picked up the half-eaten pizza, wrapping it in my soggy napkin.
Sylvia stared at me. “What the hell?” she asked. “Did you suddenly think you’d save that for later?”
I shrugged. “Sorry. I just—I didn’t want to litter.”
“You have a thing for trash suddenly?”
“If by trash you mean you, then yes.”
I was relieved to see Sylvia grin. “I am pretty trashy, aren’t I?”
“If I could haul you out to the curb on Tuesday mornings, I would.”
Sylvia’s eyes widened innocently. “But how can you say that when I’ve never even been with a man!”
I snor
ted. “Tell that to the stick you peed on.”
After our smiles had faded, I asked, “It’s Ryan’s, right?”
“Well, duh.”
“How did it happen?”
“Are you going to keep asking me the stupidest questions of all time?”
I ignored the jab. “Come on. You know what I mean. Weren’t you using protection?”
“Of course we were. But the condoms broke sometimes. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“Well, how about Ryan? What does he say about it?”
Sylvia opened her own window and dumped out her pizza. “He doesn’t say much. I haven’t told him.”
“Oh. When do you think you’ll mention it?”
Sylvia wiped her hands on her jeans. “I don’t know. Maybe this weekend. Maybe after the doctor.”
I nodded. “You need someone to take you?”
“No. I told my mom. She’s coming home in a few days to take me to her ob-gyn.” Sylvia’s mom was on the road a lot as a pharmaceutical sales rep. She was a single parent, which meant Sylvia was at home alone most days. Except when Ryan was over there, I thought.
“When you told her, was she mad?”
“Not really. She had me when she was, like, nineteen, so it’s not like she can’t relate.”
I also figured Sylvia’s mom’s matter-of-fact personality made it so she was handling it more like a clinical case and less like an emotional shit storm. Which, secretly, I was relieved by, since I was bound to be useless. I’d never even done much babysitting. I’d stand by Sylvia all the way, but at least she’d have her mom for the practical stuff.
“You took out your eyebrow ring,” Sylvia said suddenly. “Is it ’cause of what happened last night? About your mom or whatever?”
“Yeah. She saw my eyebrow ring and had a freakout. She didn’t mean to, though. My dad said she’s stressed out, because I guess they’ve known about the cancer for a couple weeks. But they didn’t say anything to me till last night.”
A groaning noise came from deep in Sylvia’s throat. “Jesus,” she said.
I blinked. I refused to lose it. Not now. Not after a whole night of crying.
“Well, that explains why you look like shit,” Sylvia offered.
“Ha,” I said without smiling. “Thanks.”
“Come on. It sucks, but let’s make it all better by blowing off steam this weekend at Jefferson’s.”
“Yeah,” I said, “except my parents want to have this family dinner on Saturday night to talk about everything.” They’d sprung the plans on me that morning before school. “I feel like I should be there.”
“Just come to Jefferson’s after. A dinner can’t take all night, can it?”
I shifted in my seat. “I kinda feel bad asking to go to a party, though.” My mom had cancer, and here I was, anxious as ever to get out of the house. I sucked for wanting to diss them. They sucked for keeping the cancer news from me.
“So offer to make them dinner, which they’ll think is super sweet, and then tell them you’re going out,” Sylvia said. “They won’t try to stop you because you’ll have cooked for them.”
I thought about that. It wasn’t a bad plan.
Sylvia took one look at my face and knew we were on. “Pick you up at nine,” she said.
Chapter Three
SATURDAY, MARCH 14 / 7:50 P.M.
“Fuck,” I swore. “Fuckity fuck fuck.” The onions in the pan were burning, and a pot was boiling over. The smoke detector was seconds from sounding.
“Everything okay in there, Ag?” my dad called from the living room. I could hear the concern in his voice, and I could just see him twitching on the edge of the couch, anxious to run in and help me. But I’d specifically asked him (and my mom) to let me cook Grandma Lou Belle’s spaghetti dinner (i.e., noodles and Grandma’s special from-scratch sauce) solo.
“Yup, everything’s fine,” I shouted back, hoping I sounded convincing. I turned off the heat under the noodles and scooted the onions to a back burner. On the counter, tomatoes were hacked up like body parts in a horror movie.
“Oh God,” I groaned. So far, nothing was looking very edible.
I’d seen my mom do this a thousand times, so what was my problem? I was even wearing her cooking apron—the one I’d bought her that said MAKE MY DAY: GET AN A. That’s before I really understood a principal didn’t grade papers so much.
I glanced at the clock. Sylvia was going to be here in just over an hour. Just focus, I told myself. It’s not rocket science.
I smelled burning and realized I’d forgotten about the garlic bread in the oven. “Oh no,” I said, grabbing an oven mitt and yanking out the blackened bread. Strike three.
I knew better than to do this. My mom had tried to teach me to cook when I was ten, and even back then I’d been a lost cause. We’d started with all the recipes Grandma Lou Belle had used: Georgia staples like grits, cornbread muffins, and collard greens with diced ham.
“Aggie, honey, a pinch of salt, not a fistful,” my mom would say as we crisscrossed paths through the kitchen, pulling out bowls and measuring spoons, leveling out ingredients just so, since my mom was Martha Stewart organized about stuff.
Every now and again, she’d wipe her forehead with the back of her hand and leave a grease or flour stain there.
“Isn’t this fun?” she’d ask, her pronunciation of fun reminding me she hadn’t always lived in St. Davis.
That was a long time ago, though. And clearly I hadn’t learned jack.
I grabbed a frozen pizza from the freezer and tossed it into the oven. I dumped the overcooked noodles down the disposal and swept everything else into the garbage.
The pizza sat untouched on our plates. After taking one look at the disaster in the kitchen, my mom had made a salad, which she and my dad now speared in slow forkfuls.
I stared at my pizza crust. My dad finally spoke. “Aggie,” he said, “we were hoping over dinner we could explain more about your mom’s cancer. We didn’t mean for the news to come out the way it did the other night, and we realize we probably could have handled things better. We were thinking that if you have questions, we could take this time to answer them.” He looked at my mom. “To the best of our ability, anyway.”
Yeah, news flash, it’s not cool to wait two weeks before telling your daughter about her mom’s cancer. I bit back the words, trying to keep a level head. “Okay,” I said instead.
My dad ate some salad, and I watched him chew. His face was rounder than my mom’s, his cheekbones wider. His chin was strong, though, and he was one of those dads I knew the MILFs around town were always throwing themselves at. I’d seen it myself in the grocery store.
Not that they had a chance. My mom was tall—five foot eight—with thick brown hair and an athlete’s body. She’d been a runner-up Miss Peachtree in Georgia and had hinted once that she’d done some modeling in college to pay the bills. I’d inherited her height and the color of her hair, but not much else.
Other than her face being a little more pale than usual, I’d never have guessed anything was wrong with her. She caught me staring, and I looked away.
“The other night,” my dad said, setting down his fork, “I used the term lumpectomy. Your mom is going to have one, and I wondered if you were clear on what it was?” I shook my head no.
“A lumpectomy is where the doctors go after the lump in my breast,” my mom said. “That’s different than a mastectomy, where they would remove my breast entirely.”
The air in the room was pressing down on me. I was having a hard time breathing. “So the lumpectomy will fix the cancer?” I asked.
My mom wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Not by itself,” she said. “They’ll have to do radiation after my surgery. Just to make sure they got everything.”
My dad cleared his throat. “There’s a chance that after the lumpectomy, the doctors will go in and take out some lymph nodes, too. But we’re not planning for that. Right now, we’re just trying to get
the cancer out without a mastectomy.”
“How long will it take? I mean, how long will you be in the hospital?” I asked.
“Just a day,” my mom replied, surprising me. I’d been thinking this would happen over the course of weeks, maybe months. “It’s a standard outpatient procedure. I’ll go in in the morning and be home in the afternoon. The radiation treatments will occur regularly after the surgery, but not right away. They want to give me time to heal first.”
“Oh. Okay.” This was sounding more like an appointment at a dental office than cancer surgery.
“The good news is that the cancer is in a very early stage,” my mom continued. “It shouldn’t alter our lives much, if the doctors can get it. I’ll have to take some time off work right after the surgery, but I expect to beat this.” Her eyes were calm; her tone was even.
Not, This is hard for me, and I know this must be so hard for you, too. Not, Maybe this can bring us together. Not, I’m scared as well.
Anger flared in me for a second. I wanted to get past the technical part. I wanted her to go back to her eye-bulging rage from the other night. At least then she’d been overwhelmed enough to drop her façade for five minutes.
Now she was back to being a professional. An expert. A trouper. But that was my mom. She hadn’t become the first female principal in St. Davis’s history for nothing. After finishing at Georgia College, she’d moved to Minnesota to get her PhD in educational administration, and that’s where she met my dad. They both decided they wanted to have an impact on rural communities like St. Davis: my dad as an architect specializing in green buildings, my mom as a school administrator.
Dad sipped his gin and tonic. Ice cubes clinked. “Gail, you don’t have to work while this happens. I hope you’ll think about it.”