“Let me pull over,” she says, putting on her blinker. “I … It’s better for me not to be driving.”
I’m starting to think that maybe ignorance is bliss.
Mom manages to pull across two lanes of traffic and into the parking lot of the Orchard Street playground. She cracks the window slightly before she turns off the car, allowing in a sliver of fresh air and the sound of carefree toddlers playing.
Turning to me, Mom reaches over and takes my hand.
Now I’m really freaked out.
“Sammy, I should have told you this, we should have told you this before, but you have so much going on already with the SAT and APs coming up that Dad and I talked about it and we decided to wait,” she says. “But then these hackers …”
She trails off, and I can’t stand it for another second. I’m going to explode if I don’t know what this is about. Right this very minute.
“Mom. Please. Just. Tell. Me.”
My mother takes a deep breath and then exhales her news.
“Sammy, I have breast cancer.”
Even though I’ve been expecting bad news, hearing the C-word come from Mom’s mouth feels like driving into a wall of reinforced concrete at high speed. Everything shatters in an instant.
“Are you going to …”
I can’t say die, because I’m afraid if I give name to my fear, it will happen.
My mother’s eyes glisten with unshed tears.
“I certainly don’t plan to shuffle off this mortal coil anytime soon,” she says, mustering a smile. “I’m going to do everything I possibly can to avoid that possibility.”
That’s so Mom: telling me she’s not going to die with a quote from the Great Bard.
But is she telling me the truth or just putting on a brave face so I don’t freak out and bomb the APs? I mean, if Mom’s been keeping something this important from me, how do I know I can trust her?
“It’ll be okay,” she says. “I’m going to the best doctors.”
“But what did they say, exactly? Do you have to have chemo? Are you going to go bald?”
“I will have to have chemotherapy, yes. About three weeks after they operate,” Mom says. “And yes, I’ll lose my hair. They tell me that will probably start to happen a few weeks after the first round of chemo.”
“Operate? When were you planning to tell us about that?”
Mom looks out the window. I follow her gaze to a little girl with brown hair in pigtails, tied with red bows that match her Wonder Woman T-shirt. Her short legs climb the ladder to the top of the slide with strength and confidence, and she slides down, hands in the air, laughing.
I wish I could trade places with her. She seems to have her life so much more together than I do.
“Dad and I thought …” Mom turns to look at me. “We thought it would be best to wait till after APs.”
Well, at least now I know how long they were planning to lie to me. “When’s the operation?”
My mom hesitates.
“When, Mom?”
“I go into the hospital for prep the afternoon of your last AP exam. They’ll operate the following morning.”
This is a horror movie wrapped in a nightmare I can’t wake up from because I’m not sleeping.
“You were planning to tell me when I finished APs? The day you were going into the hospital?”
I’m shaking with a whirlwind of feelings I can’t even begin to name. I can’t believe my parents, who, they are constantly reminding me, are the wise, mature ones, actually thought this was a good idea.
“We didn’t want to worry you when you already had so much on your plate,” Mom said. “We know how important the AP exams are to your future.”
“What, you mean as important as not having a mom?” My voice starts to break on the last word, giving me away.
Mom hugs me then, tightly, even though my shoulders are still stiff with anger.
“I’m going to fight this, Sammy,” she says. “I promise, sweetheart, I’m going to fight it with everything I’ve got so I am here for you and RJ and Dad.”
I give in to the comfort of her hug, and the tears, which I’ve been trying hard not to shed, make a wet patch on her linen shirt. Ugh. I’ve cried more this week than I have in all of high school. I wonder if it’s scientifically possible for tear ducts to dry up from overuse?
“I don’t want to put any more pressure on you than you’ve already got,” Mom says. “But I’m going to need your help. I’m going to need everyone’s help.”
The familiar weight of anxiety slides down my forehead to rest between my eyebrows. My temples start throbbing.
“What can I do? I’m not a doctor.”
“When you pass your driving test, you can help with grocery shopping and picking up RJ. I’ve got some friends who are going to help make meals, but you can help by making sure they get heated up and the dishes get done.”
Just when I thought life couldn’t get worse, now I get to be Cinderella, too. Except this Cinderella doesn’t even get to go to the prom because her handsome prince just asked Geneva Grady.
I sigh and nod, saying, “Okay.”
“I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t all fall on your shoulders, Sammy. I know this has been a shock, and I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” she tells me.
“Me too,” I mumble. “I felt so stupid. Random kids at school know my mom has cancer, but I don’t? They must think I’m the World’s Worst Daughter.”
“You definitely aren’t that!” Mom smiles. “Grandma Sally is going to help out, and I’m sure she’ll assure you that I gave you a run for the World’s Worst Daughter when I was your age.” She pats my knee. “But I turned out okay in the end, and you will, too. Everything’s going to be fine. We just have to think positively.”
Like that’s going to be so easy with my entire life going viral, all these Very Important Tests coming up, no date in sight for the prom, which I have no incentive to work to go to anyway, and now a mother with breast cancer. I can’t exactly see the “half-full” part of the glass right now. Unless my glass is supposed to be full of Evil-Tasting Misery Slime, in which case it’s about to overflow.
But I can’t say that to my mom, who is trying to be upbeat about her cancer prospects for my sake, can I?
“Yeah. It’s all good, Mom.”
“Since I’ve signed you out from school, why don’t we go get our nails done and have lunch?” Mom says.
I think of the AP prep I’m missing and which I’ll now have to catch up on during an open or after school tomorrow. Plus, what I missed yesterday and the day before. But looking on the bright side, I get another reprieve from having to face the consequences of the contents of my brain going viral.
“Sounds like a plan,” I say, working my best positive attitude smile.
If I’ve learned one thing from this conversation, it’s that my mom and I are terrible at lying to each other, but great at ignoring the fact that we’re both doing it.
April 11
I spent most of today playing hooky from school with Mom. But even while I was worrying about her and promising myself that I would be nicer, I was super pissed about my parents’ hypocrisy for reading my journal and punishing me for what they found, and then telling me I shouldn’t read any of their stuff because it’s private.
After this morning, all bets are off. Finding out that Mom has cancer from a girl in a bathroom at school instead of from my own parents? That’s beyond messed up. If we’re looking for silver linings here, it actually made me forget that I was upset about Jamie Moss asking Geneva Grady to prom instead of me, for a few hours. There will be other dances. I hope. If my life ever goes back offline. Anyway, I only have one mom. How is that for trying to think positively?
Okay, I’m working on it.
Mom said they were trying to “protect” me because I already have so much stress with APs and the SAT coming up, but you have to wonder what planet they were on when they thought that was a vi
able plan. Did they seriously think that with our private stuff plastered online and being reported in every freaking news outlet that no one at school was going to say anything? I hate to break it to you, dearest parents, but there’s this newfangled thing called social media.
For smart people, my parents are great at being oblivious.
But who am I to talk, right? Wasn’t I doing exactly the same thing with Jamie Moss? Is being oblivious inherited?
More importantly, is it curable? Because it sure seems like a stupid way to go through life.
Maybe the cure is having the courage to face the things that scare you. That’s why I’ve decided to read what the hackers posted. If Mom and Dad can snoop into my private thoughts, it’s only fair I get to look at theirs.
Dad actually comes home early from work, so he and Mom can sit RJ down for “the talk.” Now that the cat is out of the bag, they can’t put it off any longer.
I don’t know how they thought they could keep that cat in the bag in the first place.
I’m in my room writing in my diary when my dad knocks and sticks his head around the door.
“Hey, honey. Mind if I come in?”
I pull the AP study guide over my journal so Dad can’t see it. “No. I’m just here studying, as usual.”
Dad comes in and sits on the end of the bed. “Don’t worry, Sammy. Just a few more weeks and it’ll all be over,” he says.
I stare at him, wondering if either the stress has made him lose it or if he thinks I’m completely stupid.
“Really, Dad?” I ask, dripping snarkasm. “You think I’m dumb enough to believe this will all be over?”
Dad realizes his mistake and a wash of pink appears under his five o’clock stubble. “I meant the AP exams,” he says.
“Sure, they’ll be over. But which of the list of other things that won’t be over do you want to cover first? The fact that you’re a closet racist, that you allow sexism in the workplace, or that you and Mom thought it was a good idea not to tell us that she has cancer?”
For the first time in my life, I’ve shocked my dad into silence. I expected him to be mad, to shout back at me, but instead his shoulders sag.
“I’m sorry, Sammy. We made a mistake.”
Guess we’re only talking about the cancer here. One traumatic secret at a time …
He continues, “We were trying to do what we thought was best, and …” He sighs, heavily. “Looks like it didn’t turn out that way, did it?”
They say you should count to ten before responding when you’re really mad, but I can only make it to four before exploding.
“Seriously?” I ask. “How could you imagine for one nanosecond that someone wasn’t going to blab to one of us about Mom having cancer?”
“That’s what Grandma Sally said,” Dad admits. “She told us we were crazy.”
“Why didn’t you listen?” I ask. “You always expect us to listen to you.”
“Just like you listened when we told you not to go to that concert?” Dad retorts. “Or when Mom said not to borrow her clothes without asking her first.”
Touché, Dick.
I avoid his gaze, and he knows he’s got me. Sort of. I don’t think sneaking out to go to a concert or borrowing clothes is exactly the same as keeping cancer a secret from your own kids. And he’s conveniently avoiding talking about the work stuff. Don’t think this fact escapes me, Dear Old Dad.
“Look, Sammy, we don’t have all the answers,” he says.
“You always act like you do.”
“You want to know the truth?” Dad asks.
“No, lie to me,” I say. “Of course I want to know the truth.”
“Okay, but you have to promise not to tell RJ till he’s older.”
He leans in, and I’m wondering if he’s going to reveal some deep dark family secret.
It’s nowhere near that exciting.
“Most of the time we’re faking it,” Dad whispers.
“That’s your excuse?”
“It’s the truth, Sammy. No one hands you a How to Be a Perfect Parent manual when your kids are born,” he says. “Your mom and I do the best we can, and sometimes we screw up because we’re human, and as someone who reads as many books as you do knows, human beings are flawed. Even great parents like us.”
Dad looks at me with a pointed smile. “And even great kids like you.”
Okay. I’m a screwup. Whatever.
“But how could you have thought it was a good idea?” I persist. “I’d finally be breathing a sigh of relief that the APs were over and then you were going to hit me with ‘Oh, BTdubs, Mom’s got cancer and she’s having an operation today!’”
My dad looks down at his hands, and I notice that the gray patches at his temples seem to have grown in the last week or so.
“Mea culpa,” he says. “You can blame me for this more than Mom. I was so worried about you doing well on your exams that I didn’t listen when wiser heads told me to look at the bigger picture.”
“Yeah … like that Mom could …”
Dad sees the tears welling in my eyes, and he wraps me in a bear hug before I can say the word.
“Come on now, Sammy. We have to think positively,” he whispers at my temple. “It’s going to be okay. The prognosis is good, we’re consulting with the top doctors, and Mom needs us to believe she’s going to be fine. One hundred percent.”
I rest my head on Dad’s shoulder, willing myself to believe, and worrying about the consequences if I can’t.
Dad pats my back and pulls away. “I’ve got to go talk to RJ. We haven’t told him yet,” he says. “But I wanted to talk to you first, to apologize … and to ask for your help. Because Mom and I are really going to need it.”
“I know, I know. Making dinner, doing the dishes, all that fun stuff.”
“And helping us to keep RJ in good spirits. It’s going to be tough for all of us, especially with everything else that’s going on.” Dad drops a kiss on the top of my head when he gets up.
For a brief moment, in the warm comfort of my father’s hug, I’d forgotten about the everything else. And honestly, right now, I don’t have the energy to deal with it. So I let him get up to leave.
But of course it’s all out there online, waiting. And anger and distrust is still bubbling within me like a slowly simmering volcano.
“Study hard,” he says.
“I will,” I promise. Just not what you think I’m supposed to be studying. “Can you shut the door, Dad? I need to concentrate.”
“Sure thing,” my dad says, closing the door behind him.
As soon as the latch clicks shut, I get my laptop and search for our name and hacked files. It takes all of three seconds to find a website that’s posted all of them, and which has even conveniently broken them down into “texts and emails,” “chats,” and “S. Wallach journal.”
Don’t look at that, don’t look at that, don’t don’t don’t don’t DON’T CLICK THERE!
The cursor hovers over the link to my journal. I didn’t write those words expecting anyone to see them, and I know that there’s a 100 percent probability that the comments are going to make me feel bad about myself and I shouldn’t look at them if I want to keep a shred of my self-respect. So why is my finger itching to press on the link?
I guess it’s the hope that even if there are two hundred people who make fun of me and say that I’m just a typical dumbheaded girl who only cares about some guy who will never ask her to prom in a million years, maybe there’s someone, even if it’s only one person, who read my words and understands. Who thinks, Yeah, I’ve felt like that, too.
Do I have the courage?
We’ve been reading T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in AP English Lit, which isn’t much of a love song at all. I think it’s more about not daring to live an authentic life because you’re too afraid of what everyone else thinks. (Trust me, the irony hasn’t been lost on this girl.)
To wonder, “Do I
dare?” and “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair
No. I don’t.
I’m just as much a wimp as J. Alfred Prufrock was when T. S. Eliot wrote that poem over a hundred years ago. The world is more high-tech, but maybe people haven’t changed much. We’re still just as cowardly, and cruel. Technology just circulates what we say faster.
I decide to click on the emails instead. Since Mom and Dad read the texts between my friends and me, it’s only fair that I get to read the stuff they sent to each other.
Here’s a text exchange between Mom and Dad.
Mom: You better come home from work at a decent hour tonight or I might murder your daughter.
Murder his daughter? That’s me she’s talking about! Wow. Thanks a lot, Mommy Dearest. I love you, too.
Dad: Will do my best. Got enough headaches without having to bail you out of the slammer. :p
Ha-freaking-ha. Dad’s not worried about Mom killing his only beloved daughter; he just doesn’t want the headache of bailing his wife out of jail. My parents are a laugh riot.
Mom: I mean it, Dick. I’m not sure how much more of this fighting I can take. What happened to our daughter?
Dad: She’s still there. Remember what your mother said.
Mom: I know, I know, “This, too, shall pass.” But I might not live that long.
Gasping as I read those words, I check the date stamp on the email to see how long ago this exchange took place. March 28. Then I open the journal file on my laptop—the one that’s now posted for the entire world to see.
March 28
I’m not sure how I can stand to live in the same house as my mother for another year and a half without either (a) committing matricide, or (b) my head exploding.
Nothing I do is right. I can’t wait to go to college. Too bad I have to jump over so many insane hurdles in the next few months in order to get there. NO PRESSURE, RIGHT?!
I can’t believe I talked about killing my own mom, even as a joke.
Did Mom know she had cancer then? So when she says, “But I might not live that long,” is she joking or is it because my parents are lying to me about her prognosis?
In Case You Missed It Page 12