Fear of Missing Out

by Kate McGovern

  If my eyes could roll all the way back in my head, they would. He barrels on, not waiting for a response—which is good, because I have none.

  “You know, I mean, the amount of toxins you’re living with, both physically and psychopharmacologically, you know … they wear on the mind and body. And the brain. Your brain is directly responding to what you expose it to. And if you’re not exposing it to what it needs to heal, it’s just … Well, it’s a magnet for atrophy and disease.”

  He stops there. I don’t say anything. “Astrid? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here, Dad.”

  “I’m not saying I blame you and your mother for your illness, obviously…”

  Right.

  “What I’m saying is just that, you know, you’re relying on Western medicine, chemotherapy—all these drugs—to fix it, but aren’t you just reinforcing the toxic environment that bred the tumor in the first place?”

  I tug at the shade on the kitchen window and bite the side of my cheek. “My tumor was bred when glial cells called astrocytes in my brain began to multiply out of control, rather than following the standard cellular pattern of growth, division, and death. It’s science, Dad. It’s not because our couch gives off VOCs.”

  “VOCs are one thing, Astrid. I’m talking about much more than that.”

  “Okay.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You’re not upsetting me, Dad. I just thought I should tell you I got a place in a clinical trial. That’s why I’m calling.”

  I wonder if there are others sitting around him in the lodge, listening to his end of the conversation—or even my end, if I’m on speakerphone or something, being broadcast to his entire community. I wonder if Suzanne is listening.

  “So more drugs, then.”

  “The trial is intended to boost my immune system to fight the cancer. They’re testing drugs that could block the proteins that normally stop the immune response.”

  “Boost your immune system?” I hear him register this, like I’m suddenly speaking a language he understands. “Surely you can boost your immune response through natural approaches, though. Are more drugs really necessary?”

  “Dad, you can’t just echinacea your way through cancer.”

  “Of course. I know that. And you know more about this than I do. But, Astrid, I’m just saying, it’s not too late for you to cleanse your body and mind and put yourself in a better position for healing. Why don’t you come see me out here, and bring—what’s his name? You still have that same boyfriend?”

  “Mohit.”

  “Yes, yes, Mo-heat.”

  I hate the way my father mispronounces Mo’s name, deliberately, as though he’s the one saying it correctly.

  “Mo-heat must understand and appreciate the power of alternative sources of healing.”

  My eyes, once again, are desperate to roll as far back into my head as humanly possible. “Because he’s Indian, you mean? His father is a phlebotomist, Dad.”

  “Well, anyway. I don’t want to fight with you about this. I love you, Astrid.”

  “Mom needs you to sign some papers for this clinical trial. I have to have both guardians’ permission.”

  “I’m not going to stand in your way, Astrid. I just think there are other options.”

  I sigh. “Okay. Thanks. I have to go, Dad.”

  “Think about coming to visit. All right? Astrid?”

  I let the shade snap all the way back up to the top of the window frame. “Fine. We’ll think about it. I have to go.”

  “Take care, my darling. I love you—you know that.”

  “Mmm. Bye.”

  23.

  I have to watch two episodes of Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel to dispel my irritation toward my father, but by the time I hear Mom and Liam clamber into the front hall two hours later, I’ve actually managed to get some work done on my problem set for Dahlmann. Mom’s footsteps pound down the hall toward my room, and then without warning the door is thrown wide open with what can only be described as a maternal hurricane.

  “Are you kidding me, Astrid? Seriously?” Her face is flushed.

  “Mom, what the hell!”

  “I told you we weren’t doing this cryo-whatever-nonsense. I told you no. You’re in this trial. That’s our next move. Period, end of story, finished. And you’re putting this on the internet! Telling people we need money because I’m a single mother? Are you kidding me right now, Astrid Ayeroff? You know how I found out about this?”

  I don’t, and I’m kind of wondering, but I’m not sure I want to know. Mom doesn’t give me a chance to answer her anyway.

  “Liam saw it,” she goes on. “Your eight-year-old brother. And you know how he saw it? Because some kid in his class has an older brother who goes to school with you, so now word has trickled down from the high school to his class, and they all know he has a sister with cancer who’s ‘vlogging’ about how she’s going to freeze herself after she dies.”

  Her mouth curls around the word “vlogging,” like that bastardized use of the English language is among the worst of my offenses.

  “So he asks me about it, and of course I—your mother—have no idea! Which is how I found myself watching that video of you on YouTube. And I’m apparently the last person in the neighborhood who knows about it.”

  She finally pauses to take a breath. Of all the possible eventualities of putting that video on the internet, Liam seeing it is one I did not think of. Which was stupid. Liam ordered all his own Christmas presents off Amazon when he was six—wooden trains, action figures, and a junior fashion designer sketchbook with colored pencils and fabric swatches showed up at the door in a succession of Prime boxes until Mom finally figured out that she’d saved her credit card information in there—so I shouldn’t be surprised that he knows how to navigate YouTube. Still, I didn’t consider that he’d see the video. That might be the worst outcome of this whole thing.

  “Mom.” I sigh. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

  “I explicitly told you that we weren’t entertaining this, didn’t I?”

  “Technically you didn’t, exactly. You—”

  The door behind Mom opens and Liam’s little face appears. “Are you guys fighting about that video?” He doesn’t look particularly traumatized, just mildly concerned.

  “No,” we both say at the same time.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Mom says, picking him up even though he’s way too big to be picked up. She cuddles him and kisses his brown curls. “I’m sorry. I got upset for a minute.”

  “It’s nothing, kid,” I say. “I just made Mom a little bit mad. It happens.”

  He buries his face in her shoulder, then looks up. “Can we get Thai food for dinner?”

  “Sure,” Mom says. “Can you do me a favor? Get the menu out and decide what you want.”

  “I want pad thai.”

  “Can you go to the kitchen and look at the menu anyway, just for a minute? And then I’ll call?”

  Liam frowns and gives Mom his best I’m-not-buying-it look, but when she puts him down, he scampers off toward the kitchen. Mom watches him go, then looks back up at me.

  “You were saying,” she says.

  “I think I was saying I’m sorry.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But, Mom, you didn’t say I couldn’t even learn about cryopreservation. The whole point of the video is so I can explore it, and you don’t have to worry about it because you won’t need to give me the money for any of it. I just want to go visit the place, okay? As a start, to see the facility and talk to the people. Learn more.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “I tried, but you went all mom-with-a-dying-kid on me.”

  She doesn’t respond, just stands there looking almost petulant. I feel like we’re having a strange reversal of traditional roles.

  “I talked to Dad,” I add. “He’s fine with the trial. He still thinks I have cancer because we have a television or wha
tever.”

  “Your father is a special human being.” Mom rolls her eyes. “Astrid, I don’t know. This all seems … premature.”

  “It’s not. And, Mom? I know you made me and all that, and I’m not saying that doesn’t count for anything. But, like, don’t I get a say in the rest of my life? And/or death?”

  The color drains from her face. She looks exhausted.

  “Just a visit?” I prod.

  Finally, Mom sighs and turns toward the door. “Liam! Bring the menu in here, baby!” She looks back at me. “Maybe.”

  24.

  The email comes two days later:

  Dear Ms. Ayeroff:

  My sincere apologies for my delayed reply. My assistant alerted me to your message, but I confess, my inbox sometimes gets away from me. I hope you’ll forgive me. My deepest sympathies, too, that you find yourself nearing the end of your present life. I can only imagine the heartache you and your family are experiencing, to receive a diagnosis like that at such a tender age.

  We most certainly would welcome you to the American Institute for Cryonics Research for a tour. I would be delighted to show you around myself, and to answer any questions you might have. I hope the possibility of the cryopreservation process may provide some comfort to you, some hope for a future beyond the limited one you have been shown by your doctors. That hope is our gift to you and yours, should you wish to accept it.

  I have copied my assistant on this email. Please let us know when you would like to visit.

  Best wishes,

  Dr. A. R. Fitzspelt

  25.

  Mrs. Parikh looks surprised to see me when I ring their bell on Sunday morning. “Astrid. Hi, dear.” A gust of warm air blows out the front door, bringing the familiar smell of Mo’s house, with its different cleaning supplies and spices. Mrs. Parikh frowns. “Everything okay? Come on in.”

  When I step into the vestibule and take my shoes off—Parikh house rules—I can hear Mo’s horn coming from upstairs, muffled by the floor between us. I hate to interrupt his rehearsal, but I need to talk to him, and he’s been taking off so quickly after school that I feel like I barely see him anymore.

  “He’s up there, as usual. I guess you can tell. Go on up. You’re…” Mrs. Parikh hesitates. “Are you okay to go up the stairs on your own?”

  “Yes, thanks.” I give her a smile and she looks relieved, not because she wouldn’t want to help me up the stairs—she’s one of the nicest moms I know—but probably because she didn’t want to offend me by trying.

  I bang on Mo’s door once, but the playing doesn’t stop, so I go right in. He’s in his usual corner, by the window, back to the door. He doesn’t even notice my presence when I slink over and land on his desk chair.

  It’s a piece I haven’t heard before, with a low, melancholy melody. I rest my head on the back of the chair and watch him, his eyes closed but his face responding to the notes as he plays them. He leans into the music, bending forward at the knees and then back. After a moment, he hits something wrong and stops abruptly. His eyes shoot open.

  “Oh shit!” He jumps when he sees me. “Gosh, Astrid! You scared me.”

  “Sorry. I did knock.”

  “Obviously I didn’t hear you. Hi.” He kisses me. “What are you doing here?”

  I need to talk to him about our road trip to Arizona, but I don’t want to dive right in. Instead I push his desk chair around in a circle. “Nothing. I just hadn’t seen you in a few days.”

  “I saw you at school on Thursday.” Ever since my post-chemo incident in the cafeteria, Mom has insisted I stay home on Fridays after my Thursday-afternoon infusions.

  “I know, but that was, like, three days ago. And it was in math class. It doesn’t count.”

  “Sorry. We rehearsed after school on Friday and then all day yesterday. These guys are so intense, man. They know everything about jazz. They talk about artists I’ve never even heard of, like this guy Johnny Griffin…” He lets his saxophone dangle from the strap around his neck and starts tapping on his phone. “He’s so good.”

  “That’s awesome, Mo.” I listen for a minute, not that I’m sure what I’m listening for. I can’t tell good jazz from crappy jazz, no matter how many times Mohit tries to give me some “helpful parameters for listening.” It all sounds the same to me: a mishmash of disjointed sounds, with the occasional melody I can grasp. Except when Mo’s playing. When Mo’s playing, it’s like watching the Perseids all over again, every time. Like bright light burning through the dark sky, like pure magic.

  “Seriously, they name-drop these musicians and I have to pretend I know what they’re talking about until I can google them.”

  I zone out, basking in the sound of his voice as he drones on. The words themselves blur together. He’s so happy, and I miss him already, even though he’s right in front of me. Maybe I won’t mention the trip to Arizona, after all.

  26.

  There’s nothing exciting to look at on the ceiling of Dr. Klein’s exam room. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to think about this: doctors should really put something interesting on their office ceilings. My dentist’s office, for example, has a light panel on the ceiling that projects soothing scenes from nature—oceans, sunsets, et cetera. That’s not bad. It’d be even better if you could read an e-book, or catch up on TV, or do, like, a word search or something. Anything. But no, here at Dr. Klein’s, it’s just a plain old drop ceiling, pocked with fluorescent lights. Hardly doing its part to make the experience of lying on a cold table in a paper gown more humane.

  I’m not actually in a gown right now. Dr. Klein just gives me a quick once-over because she says medicine is really a tactile art; the scans and labs alone aren’t enough for her. She gently probes at the nodes on my neck, shines her little light in my eyes, and watches my gaze follow her fingers. Then she asks me to sit up so she can listen to my chest and back.

  “Thanks, Astrid,” she says when she’s done, like she always does, as though I’ve done her some favor by subjecting my sick body to her care. Maybe I have, in some ways. She loves what she does. Thanks to my cancer, she gets to become a better doctor. I just get to be dead.

  “So, aside from the episode at school, which I think we can chalk up to a little bit of overexertion for the day after an infusion…” She pauses there to give me a stern look. “Other than that, you’ve felt more or less okay?”

  I glance at Mom, who’s tapping her foot rapidly against the leg of her chair.

  “Pretty much.”

  Dr. Klein waits, like she always does, to see if I’m going to say more.

  “I’ve been a little more tired than usual. Like, getting out of breath a little more quickly.”

  She nods. “Headaches are about the same? And your vision?”

  “Yeah. Well, maybe a little more haziness in my peripheral vision.”

  “Okay. Well, look, your scans are not bad.”

  “What does ‘not bad’ mean, exactly?” Mom asks.

  “Your tumor has grown a little bit, as you probably guessed from the increased fatigue and vision loss, right?”

  She looks at me, so I nod, because it’s true.

  “But if we’re taking the view that your tumor has proved itself to be fairly aggressive already, I would say that the growth we’re seeing right now is not as alarming as it could be. Growth has slowed since your last scans.”

  “Slowed? So the chemo is working?” Mom perks up.

  “The tumor’s not receding, Maxine. We have to be realistic about that. But it hasn’t spread beyond the brain at this point, which is great, because it means you’re still eligible for the trial. So in that respect, yes, I would say the chemo is helping.”

  Mom seems satisfied with that, as satisfied as she can be.

  “And your side effects have been manageable?”

  I shrug. The antiemetic she put me on after the first chemo session has kept me from feeling too nauseated. My hair is starting to come out in tangled tufts of brown and blue
, but that much I expected. Dr. Klein carries on, explaining that she’s going to outfit me with an oxygen tank I can drag around behind me.

  “Come on, really?” I groan. “I’ll look like a sick person.”

  “Only when you need it. You make the call, Astrid. But at least you’ll have it, so if you want to go on a longer walk or do something more strenuous, you can, and you’ll have this as an option to help you.”

  I think of my trip with Mo to the amusement park, and how I might’ve made it through the day if I could’ve taken some O2 breaks, like a climber heading up Everest. If there’s a trade-off, I guess, between looking like a sick person and feeling moderately more like a healthy person, I should probably take the latter.

  “There’s one more thing,” Mom says as we’re getting ready to leave. “Astrid wants to take a trip to Arizona for a few days, to visit, um, a research facility.” She’s careful not to mention the purpose of this particular research facility, and Dr. Klein, with the subtlest of looks in my direction, indicates that she’s not going to give away the fact that I talked to her about cryopreservation long before I mentioned it to my own mother. “What do you think about … I mean, it’d be a lot for her, don’t you think? To travel that far? And I wouldn’t want her to miss any infusions.”

  “Sure, she’d be tired,” Dr. Klein allows. Before Mom can interject, she goes on. “But I’m fine with it if you are, Maxine. It’s your call. I see no medical reason why she shouldn’t go at this point.”

  I shoot Mom a triumphant look, which is met by what I can only describe as her I-don’t-like-this-but-you’re-probably-going-to-get-your-way face, a favorite of mine. As we get our things together to leave, I give Dr. Klein a covert thumbs-up.

  I probably shouldn’t feel so excited, but I like winning, even in dubious circumstances.

  27.

  Chloe and I spread the maps across the kitchen table. She printed them off Google and taped them together in eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sections. My mother surveys our work skeptically.