Between Mom and Jo

by Julie Anne Peters

  What? I don’t hear her. Yes I do, but I continue, “She invited me to this dance, or at least I think she did, or she’s going to, or —”

  “Breast cancer.” Jo picks up her juice. Her hand is shaking. She sets the bottle down again. “It’s bad, Nick.”

  My heart seizes. There’s this roar in my ears like a battalion of tanks rumbling through with an army of marching marines. Jo gets up and crosses the room. She squeezes beside me in the armchair. Snaking an arm behind my neck, she cups my ear in her hand and pulls me to her chest.

  I say, barely breathing, “Is she going to die?”

  Jo’s heart is hammering, and I hear her inhale a raspy breath. “That’s a possibility.”

  “No.” Tears spring to my eyes. “Please. Promise me she won’t die.”

  Jo’s arm tightens around me. Then both arms. “I can’t do that. I wish I could, Nicky. God, how I wish I could.”

  I know I shouldn’t, but I start bawling. Jo holds me. She explains how Mom needs an operation. Surgery. A mastectomy. How they’re going to cut off her left breast.

  I try to picture this, but I can’t. I don’t want to.

  Words clog my brain. Questions. After the surgery, Jo says, Mom will probably undergo radiation, maybe even chemo. “She might be fine, Nick. The surgery and radiation might take care of it. They don’t know. They just don’t know. She didn’t go to the doctor right away when she found the lump, so it’s pretty advanced. But that doesn’t mean she won’t pull through.”

  I clutch Jo’s arm. I swipe my nose on her sleeve.

  “She’s a fighter.”

  No, I think. She’s not.

  Jo jostles me a little. “Hey, we have to be strong for her, okay? It’s our job to keep her happy. Keep her spirits up.” She pushes me away to gaze into my eyes. “Got that?” Jo grips my shoulders, hard. “None of this weepy, dopey don’t-die-on-me shit. She doesn’t need that. None of us do.”

  I nod. I’m not sure I can be that strong, but I promise I’ll try. I’ll try. I have this sudden urge, this need to tell Mom about my day. Tell her about Sasha, how she asked me out. How she’s tall and pretty and popular too. How she likes me. Me. Nicholas Nathaniel Thomas Tyler. I want to share my happiness with Mom. “Where is she?” I ask Jo.

  Jo eases me off her and pushes to her feet. She crosses over to the bookshelf and, reaching up, runs a finger vertically down our last family photo. A dust track splits the picture in half. It’s the one we shot last spring out back with Lucky 2 and Savage. Jo says, “She went to tell her family. She asked me to tell you. She just —” Jo stops and swallows hard. “She couldn’t.” She exhales a shallow breath. “Her surgery is Monday morning, Nick. If you want to ditch tomorrow, you’re allowed.” Jo turns and forces a smile. “I am.”

  I think, I’ll never go back to school. I’m never leaving this house. I’ll never, ever let either of them out of my sight again.

  Mom

  I’m waiting for her when she drives up. She doesn’t get out of the car right away because she’s talking on her cell. She rests her head against the steering wheel, phone pressed to her ear. I rise from the stoop and hustle down the front walk. When I tap on the glass, she jerks her head up and blinks fast. She blinks away tears. She says something into the phone and folds it closed.

  Mom opens the door. “That was Kerri. She wants to know if you’re interested in this gourmet cooking class she’s teaching —”

  I throw my arms around Mom’s middle. Then I pull back immediately in case I hit her too hard. Hit her . . . breast.

  She lifts my hair over my right shoulder and smiles down on me. Somber smile. Sobering smile. “Jo told you.”

  I nod. I try, try not to disintegrate into tears.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Mom says. She presses her hands gently to my ears and rests her chin on my head.

  “What did you find? I mean, Jo said a lump. What kind of lump?” What does it feel like? I want to ask. Where is it? How big a lump? Couldn’t she see it? When did it appear?

  Mom sighs. I know that sigh. “I don’t want to talk about that. Not with you, honey.”

  Why? I want to scream. Why can’t you tell me?

  She shoulders her bag and I take her hand. Her hand is smaller than mine now. I shrink in size, in time. I’m suddenly four and holding her hand at Thanksgiving, feeling safe and secure. But not whole. Not without Jo.

  Without Mom . . . ?

  The possibility is unimaginable.

  “What’s for dinner?” Mom asks as we walk to the house.

  I can’t speak. I can only look at her and see her. Memorize her. Burn her into my brain and vow to never let go of her.

  Mom says, “Nick, you’re hurting my hand.”

  I loosen my grip, but not entirely. “Chicken nuggets,” I say. “We’re having chicken nuggets and creamed corn.” I changed my mind about the fricassee.

  Mom wrinkles her nose. She doesn’t remember about making me chicken nuggets and creamed corn that night. Her eyes drift to the door, and what she sees alters her expression. I don’t recognize the look. Dread? Sorrow? As if crossing the threshold and entering this house will signify everlasting doom. That can’t be it. Jo’s inside, standing at the door, meeting Mom’s eyes, and searching.

  Mom squeezes my hand and releases me. Or tries to. “I don’t think we can both fit through the door, Nick. You’re going to have to let go.”

  I don’t want to. But I do because she asks. I vow to do anything she asks for the rest of my life.

  She ran a bath that night, I remember, after dinner. The TV blared in the living room and the phone rang. No one bothered to get it. I lay in bed with Lucky 2’s head on my chest, stroking her fur. Her warmth and the bulk of her body felt sure and solid. I listened, waited for the change. There was one coming, I knew. It wasn’t a sound that would register in the range of human hearing. More a feeling. A tremor at first, then moving, shaking. Underneath me, the house quaked and cracked, as if the foundation was crumbling. I held on to Lucky 2 for life.

  Then Jo stuck her head in to check on me like she did every night. I squeezed my eyes shut, feigning sleep. The earthquake subsided.

  I waited for Mom to come in and kiss me goodnight. But she didn’t.

  When the tears came, I couldn’t stop them. For the first time in my life, I cried myself to sleep.

  Jo

  I’m up early to fix breakfast. My eyes are swollen and they burn. I don’t care. I have to cook. I want to make something special for Mom. She didn’t eat last night when she came home from Neenee and Poppa’s. She said she wasn’t hungry; she had a headache. All she wanted to do was run a bath and go to bed.

  I brew a pot of coffee. There’s not much food in the house, and as I’m thinking about calling Kerri to ask how to make a soufflé, Mom rushes out, dressed, shoving books and papers into her carryall. She says, “You’re going to be late, Nick. You’re not even dressed.”

  Jo’s behind Mom on the stairs.

  My eyes meet Jo’s. She says, “I gave Nick the day off.”

  Mom whirls. “Why?”

  Jo widens her eyes at Mom. Which isn’t easy for her in the morning. She’s usually bleary-eyed and half-alive. Today I know how she feels.

  Mom digs in her purse for her cell and checks to see if there are messages on her voice mail. She punches in a series of numbers. “No.” She holds the phone to her ear. “You have to go to school.”

  “Erin, come on.”

  “No.” Mom listens a minute and folds her phone closed. She rushes past us, past Jo who’s now at the bottom of the stairs. “I don’t have time to argue. I have a test today and a paper due on Monday. Shit.” Mom conks her forehead with the phone. “I’ll have to send it in.”

  “Erin!” Jo says. “For God’s sake.” She chases down Mom to the door.

  “No,” I hear Mom bark. “Nothing’s changed. Don’t treat me like an invalid, Jo. Nick,” she orders in a voice that carries across the abyss, “go to school.�
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  The storm door shuts. Jo hollers, “At least sit down with us and eat breakfast.”

  A minute later the car starts.

  Jo returns, shaking her head at me. She flops into her chair at the kitchen table and rakes her hands through her tangled hair. “That woman will be the death of me,” she murmurs.

  I stop breathing. Jo jerks up and swivels her head around. “Nick, God. I’m sorry. It’s just an expression. I didn’t mean —”

  I’m mad suddenly. Furious. I yank out the plug on the coffee pot and storm to my room. Before I can slam the door, Jo’s wedged her body between it and me. “People handle fear in different ways. Pain too. You know that.” Her eyes fix on my face. “I know you know.”

  My stomach grinds. I force it down – the anger, ache, the need.

  “Want to go shooting?” Jo asks. “Mark a few cans? Or hang out at the Y and spar? We should go somewhere, work it off.”

  I shake my head. If you ignore the problem, it’ll go away. That’s Mom’s philosophy of life. It isn’t working so great for her, but I figure I’ll give it a shot. “I’m going to school,” I say.

  Jo’s head bobs. “You’re going to school. Great.” She smacks the door. “Lay a guilt trip on me. Now I have to go to work. Thanks a lot.”

  She leaves, but a minute later she’s back. “Nick. You know I’m here for you, right? You know you can talk to me.”

  I’m pulling a T-shirt over my head and don’t have to answer.

  “Nick!”

  “Yeah!”

  “Okay. All right.” She sniffs. “I didn’t want you to worry about that. You don’t ever need to worry about that.”

  Mom

  “What is this?” Mom examines the plastic Jell-O cup. “Come over here, Nick, and tell me if this looks edible to you.”

  Jo and I both peer down at Mom’s tray, at the package of Saltines and cup of lime Jell-O. I think it’s lime. It’s opaque, green, and watery. I almost say, “It looks like your Thanksgiving Jell-O without the mini marshmallows,” but Jo pipes up, “If the cancer doesn’t kill you, the food here will.”

  Mom tries to smile. It comes out a wince. She’s still a little woozy from the surgery, and obviously sore. She hasn’t moved her left arm since they brought her back from recovery. Since they let us up to the room. My eyes keep straying there; staring at the place where they cut off her breast. I want to see. It’s morbid, I know, but I want to see the hole.

  Jo reaches into the back pocket of her jeans and pulls out her wallet. “Here, Nick.” She slips me a twenty. “Go across the street to that BK and buy us each a Whopper.”

  “I’m not really hungry,” Mom says. “Why don’t you two go? You’ve been here all day. Why don’t you go home and go to bed?”

  “Okay.” Jo slings a leg over the railing on Mom’s bed like she’s climbing in with her. I consider circling around to the other side, but that’s her left side. The one with the hole.

  Mom says wearily, “Not now, Jo.” She shuts her eyes. Jo stumbles getting out. She runs her knuckles across Mom’s cheek and smoothes her hair. “You should eat, hon. There’s broth or something in this bowl. Try that.”

  “I can’t,” Mom says. “I’m sick.”

  A nurse comes in to check on Mom, so Jo and I fade into the background. There’s a leather chair in the corner, where I’ve tossed my backpack, and a short sofa where Jo’s spread out the newspaper. I open my pack to retrieve my Game Boy. I don’t know why I brought it. Mom got it for me at Wal-Mart one time when I went shopping with her. This other kid was throwing a temper tantrum in the aisle and Mom said, “I’m so glad you’re mine.” I didn’t even ask for it and she bought me a Game Boy.

  As the nurse takes Mom’s blood pressure, she remarks, “I understand you’re going to law school.”

  Jo pipes up, “She’s graduating in the spring.”

  “Maybe,” Mom murmurs.

  “You are,” Jo counters. “You have to. We already bought your present.” Jo winks at me. We haven’t bought it yet, but we picked it out. Jo says to the nurse, “She has a job lined up at this swanky law firm in the burbs. What is it again, Nick? Johnson and Johnson? Abbott and Costello?”

  “Heckel and Jeckel,” I say. It’s a running joke. We started running it on the way to the hospital. “Bonnie and Clyde.”

  The nurse chuckles and peeks under Mom’s gown. Mom’s eye catches mine. She looks away. The lump in my throat swells, and as hard as I try I can’t swallow it down. I can’t stop looking at her, either. I have to remember how she looks. How she looked, yesterday. The day before, when she was whole. Already I’m having trouble remembering.

  I should’ve saved something. A picture. A drawing. The images in my mind are blurring and fading.

  At the moment Mom looks terrible. Her hair is plastered to her head and her eyes are sunken. Her skin is gray. What if this is my last memory of her? I see a black, bloody hole. The horrid vision evaporates, but the fear doesn’t. Or the odor. It’s not only the hospital smell, it’s Mom’s smell. Like cancer. Like death.

  The nurse asks if Mom’s in any pain and she says no. She’s lying.

  There’s a rap at the door, and a familiar voice sings out, “Knock, knock.”

  “Neenee!” I jump to my feet and rush over. Poppa’s there too, and I hug them both. The nurse bustles out the door around us, and the temperature in the room plummets. It’s chilly, as if an outside door has blown open.

  Neenee says, “Hello, Joelle.”

  Jo continues to read the newspaper. She flips a page. Without glancing up, she says, “Mrs. Tyler. Mr. Tyler.”

  Neenee exhales a short breath. “Erin, sweetie.” She hustles over to Mom’s bedside. Poppa does too. He sets down a vase of red roses, right next to the bouquet of orchids Kerri sent. Jo told me earlier we weren’t getting Mom flowers, that it might remind her of funerals. I don’t know. I think the flowers add cheerfulness and hope. They look pretty. They’re alive.

  Neenee presses Mom’s face between her hands and kisses her forehead. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” she asks.

  “Fine.” Mom’s eyes pool with tears. “Daddy.” She reaches for his hand.

  Jo is suddenly at my side, cupping my elbow. “I guess it’s family hour,” she says. “We know when we’re not wanted, don’t we, Nick?” She steers me toward the door.

  “Don’t go,” Neenee calls. “Not on our account. We never get to see you, Nicky. You either, Joelle.”

  Jo snorts. “Bet you’re surprised they even let me up here, aren’t you? Since it’s family only.”

  “Stop it, Jo,” Mom snaps.

  Everyone flinches at the tone of her voice.

  Jo goes, “You can stay, Nick. I’ve got to check on the house. Feed the animals and take out the trash. Maybe I’ll bring back our wedding album, Erin. So your parents can see how beautiful you looked that day.”

  Mom bursts into tears. Jo’s face shatters, and she charges out of the room. I feel . . . confused. What was that about? Jo and Mom never talked about their wedding. I knew they had one, but I didn’t know they kept an album. I want to run after Jo, but I’m torn. Conflicted. I need to stay here with Mom. Make her feel better. Lift her spirits.

  Under her breath, Neenee says, “How long has it been? Thirteen, fourteen years? We made a mistake. We admit that. She’s never going to forgive us for not coming to the wedding, is she?”

  Mom asks Neenee for a Kleenex. Poppa shakes his head, looking angry. What Neenee said is filtering through my brain, and I’m remembering that Thanksgiving. Mom explaining to me about people holding grudges, being unforgiving. Did I get it wrong? Is it Jo who’s unforgiving?

  PART TWO

  Jo

  My eyelids flutter. Except for the glow of my fish tanks, it’s dark in my bedroom. Shadowy. A filmy presence slithers through my field of vision; then a heavy cloth covers my face. I bolt upright, clawing at it. Jo says, “Get dressed. We’re going fishing.”

  I groan, and throw my jea
ns off my head. On my list of Most Despised Things to Do, fishing earns top spot. Fishing is ranked right above shoveling dog poop from the backyard and playing organized sports in gym. My digital clock reads 4:02. “Do we have to go now? It’s the middle of the night.”

  “I hate to deprive you of your beauty sleep, Cleopatra, but the fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high,” Jo replies. “Wear your poncho over your flannel shirt. It’s pouring out.”

  I curse her silently as she creaks out of my room, flipping the switch for the overhead light and blinding me.

  We’re in Beatrice heading down the freeway, and I shiver for the hundredth time. Jo’s got the heater blasting, but it doesn’t warm my insides. “Where’s Mom?” I growl.

  “Lost,” Jo says. “Trying to find herself. Too bad she forgot to ask me where to look.” She checks her armpit.

  Now I remember. Mom went on a weekend retreat with Kerri. Ever since her surgery six months ago, Mom’s obsessed with all this spirituality stuff. Self-engagement. Integration of body, mind, and spirit. Qigong healing and lojong practice. Jo calls it Buddhist baloney. I think it’s weird, but if it makes Mom happy, so what? Her cancer’s in remission. That’s all I care about. She took me along to her Shambhala meditation class once, and I fell asleep.

  “Where are we going?” I ask Jo in a yawn.

  “You’ll see. I need to talk to you” — Jo lowers her voice — “man to man.” She cranks up the volume on this Metallica song “Purify,” and I lean against the window to let the guitar riff thrash my skull. Man to man. Oh boy. I can’t wait.

  Jo swerves into a KFC drive-through. We order the works: two buckets of original recipe, biscuits, mashed potatoes. Mom’d kill us if she knew. She’s into natural foods now. Jo keeps warning her about the toxic levels of soy in her system, which doesn’t make Mom laugh. Not much makes Mom laugh anymore. She’s real intense.

  “Thought we’d head up to Bear Lake and camp overnight,” Jo shouts over the metal. Clashing cymbals throb in sync with my headache. The only thing I hate worse than fishing is camping. A triple score for fishing and camping together, in the rain.