Fatal (3 page)

There was more color in her face, today. Her eyes were clear and bright. Why did she look so happy?

My body shook as the adrenaline coursed through it. Chilly waves rushed through my arms and legs.

"Mom?"
I said.

I felt wary, my eyes scanning the room for anything amiss. Her plate was empty, only a little water left in the glass. The little TV was off, its curved screen giv
ing a stretched, distorted reflection. Everything seemed to be where it belonged. That was good.

But something was definitely different. I could feel it in the way the hairs on the back of my neck stood, in that cool nervous sensation in the pit of my stomach.

I'd done everything so far to keep things the same. Not to have them change. Change was bad. Yes, waitress, I'll have a refill of the status quo, please.

"Yes,
Steph?" mom said, reaching idly to scratch at her scalp as though nothing was amiss.

"Who was on the phone?" I said, looking down at it like I might look down at a snake.

"The pharmaceutical company," she said.

My blood turned to
ice water.

"What? Is everything okay? They're not stopping the drugs, are they?" I said.

We couldn't afford to go back on her old medication. I couldn't handle this. I looked over at all the pill bottles on her dresser as though I could get a rough count of how long we had left. How long she had left.

But then another part of my mind tugged at my thoughts. If they were cancelling the drugs, why would mom be happy?

"No, no. You worry too much about me. Remember that letter they sent a while back, saying that they were looking for volunteers to study at their facility in LA?"

"Yes..." I said, feeling like I was about to step off an invisible cliff.

We'd talked it over and decided it was best for her to stay home, with me. I couldn't afford an apartment in LA to be close to her. It had all been decided.

"Well, I just finished talking to one of the doctors there. He said they're still looking for people."

She smiled at me, nodding. Normally, I would have caught her drift right away. But I was still shaking, coming down from the thought of losing all that assistance.

"And... and what did you say, mom?"

"I told them I'd do it," she said, grinning broadly enough that I could see all her teeth.

I didn't understand. Couldn't she see I was doing all this for her?

"But... why?" I said, leaning against the doorframe. My knees felt like jelly.

Mom frowned at me, as though it were obvious.

"So you can go off to school! Why else?" she said, her cheeks coloring.

"What?" I said, catching myself against the doorframe.

All the heat in my body seemed to concentrate in my chest and stomach. Mom's smile didn't even falter. She thought I was excited! That I was happy!

I could feel the weight of that future pressing down on me, closing in fast. Why was it all going wrong? I didn't want to be away from her, not when she was like this!

"Call them back," I said, lurching into the room.

Grabbing the phone from her bed, I held it out to her. This time, her smile did fail her. Two little creases formed between her eyebrows as she looked at me, as she saw the phone shaking in my grip.

"Call them back and tell them you don't want to."

She laid her fingers over my hand and gently pushed down on the phone, making me lower it to my side. Then she squeezed my palm.

"But Steph, this is what you want. Isn't it?"

My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Instead, a breathed in a long, shuddering gulp of air. I could almost taste that sweet, cloying scent coming off her body.

"You've always wanted to go off to school, ever since you were little. Remember?" she said.

Her skin felt like thin, dry paper against mine. It felt like the slightest jerk would tear it open. I covered my mouth with my hand.

Mom nodded, "Oh, don't worry about me. I'll be fine at the research center."

My breath caught in my throat as something pushed at the back of my eyes. Guilt mixed in with the apprehension and anxiety already stirring in the pit of my stomach. Yeah, I worried about her. But I found myself worrying about me more. Sure, our existence was almost the definition of miserable. But it was familiar.

This school wasn't even on my side of North America! I couldn't go there. I wouldn't.

"Please, just call..." I said, offering the phone again. Its plastic casing already felt slick and warm from my sweat.

"I've made up my mind. You don't know how it feels to lie here in this bed, gobbling down a handful of pills every day. All I think about is how I'm holding you back. We're both alive, but not really living. I want you to go and live."

I sank down onto my knees beside the bed. From there, I had to look up into my mother's face. The way the sun was coming in through the window caught in the wisps of her hair, making it look like they were burning.

I felt very small, then, like a little kid. I wanted to call for my mom, but I knew she wouldn't help. She did stroke the back of my head. It was amazing how much better that made me feel. How could something
so simple as that pull me up out of my worry?

"The best part is
, they've arranged everything. In one week, they'll be sending a van to come get me and a few things I'm allowed to take."

"What about all our stuff?" I said, looking around.

We didn't have a whole lot. Just about all our valuables had been sold already to help pay the medical bills. We had some furniture, some DVDs, CDs, lots of books and magazines. But it was all ours.

There was so much I'd have to do.

"I'm so proud of you for getting accepted," mom said, "I know you'll be great! You know, it makes me feel good to just think about it. So, no more of this about calling them back, right?"

I pulled her hand over to my cheek. If she could do this, so could I. I mean, come on, she has cancer! All I would be doing would be moving across the country to a place I'd never been before to go to a college I'd never heard of.

For the first time, I found myself feeling the barest hint of excitement at the idea. I'd been stalled for so long, I wasn't certain I could feel that way anymore. It was good, but frightening at the same time.

"Okay," I said.

I pushed her hand against my face and closed my eyes, willing my mind to imprint this moment in my memory. It felt like I was on one of those long, swaying rope bridges between two sheer cliffs.

I was right in the middle of it, and every puff of air across the old wooden boards sent the whole thing creaking. Behind me was my past, and ahead of me my future. And someone was slowly but surely working a sharp blade through the ropes.

Chapter 5

My applications and subsequent acceptance were both late. It was mid-July when everything happened. The semester at Redeemer began in just over two weeks.

In all that time I had to explain to the landlord why we weren't giving him two months' notice about leaving the apartment. I had to throw a ton of ads up on Kijiji, Craigslist, and eBay to get rid of as much stuff as possible.

Then I had to find some way to either get rid of or give away whatever remained.

Not having to pay August's rent really helped with things, of course. It even let me get rid of enough shifts down at the diner so that I was no longer locked in that cycle of sleep, take care of mom, work, sleep.

For the first time since mom had sat me down in the kitchen last year right before I graduated to tell me she had an inoperable tumor pressing against her spine, I felt free.

But freedom doesn't mean the same thing as good or happy.

No, I had to spend some time down at the Galleria, picking up notebooks, pencils, pens, a messenger bag, and a few bits of clothes I had to constantly fight with myself
over whether or not to return them.

I used the free internet access down at the library to wrap all my online dealings up, as well as to do a little research on
Massachusetts.

It was going to get cold there, I knew. I'd never really left
SoCal my whole life, and I had countless tubes of sun block to prove it.

But buying winter gear would have to wait until I got there. No one sold anything like that around here. Why would you? It snowed maybe once a year. Ninety percent sunshine, baby!

Snow looked like it could be fun, piled all high like in the movies. But I had this awful feeling I was going to hate it like a cat hates taking a bath.

All this gear I packed into two old suitcases and a backpack I'd gotten in a trade off Craigslist for some DVDs.

I'd followed the checklist the school had sent, but it still felt like I was forgetting everything. For a few days there, mom became my mother again, consoling me when I flew into a panic over whether I'd remember how to take notes in class, or if I should use a three-ring binder or a clipboard.

It really made her happy to see me like that, and I felt almost as though I was putting on a show for her. I couldn't really be this girlish over choosing a few new pairs of jeans and
flats, could I?

One night I woke up in a sweat, realizing that there would be boys at this school.

I hadn't hung out with guys my own age since high school ended. I stayed up for an hour, the weak digits on the clock ticking away the minutes of the early morning as I fussed with my hair and tried to remember how to do my makeup in a more everyday manner, rather than the exaggerated stuff expected at the diner to try and get more tips.

By the time the week ended, I felt even less prepared than when I'd started getting ready.

It was Friday morning. For once, the sky outside was overcast. Outside, the street looked damp. Looking straight down from my bedroom, some big rectangles of cardboard someone had tossed the night before sagged under their own weight as they absorbed the moisture from the air.

My bed was gone, as was my dresser. I slept on an old comforter spread across the parquet floor, with a sweater balled up for a pillow. There were still a few bags of old clothes I had to drop off at the Salvation Army a couple blocks over.

But I wasn't really looking at the cardboard. I was looking for the big white van coming to take my mother away.

They were supposed to be here for 9:30. It was a couple minutes shy of 10:00. It was like they were sadists, dragging the entire experience out to prolong my apprehension.

I didn't have any breakfast that morning. My stomach had tied itself into a nice, tight knot as soon as the alarm went off. I'd woken covered in a sheen of sweat, the white undershirt I wore as a pajama top sticking to my skin.

Mom rolled around in her wheelchair in her room. I could hear the noise of it through the walls. We'd packed up all her stuff yesterday, but she was just as nervous as I was.

We both knew this was the last time we'd see each other for months. I told her yesterday that I'd come home for Christmas, but who knew if that was going to happen? I'd spent all the money I'd made selling our stuff on a one-way ticket to Massachusetts and a shuttle ride over to Hazelglen.

I didn't tell her this, of course. She thought
I had plenty of money to get myself fixed up there, but the truth was I had no idea what to do other than to report for orientation and hope they served refreshments. I'd have to open a bank account out there to put the scholarship money into, and who knew how long it would take them to cut me a check and for it to clear.

These and a whole constellation of other worries whirled around in my head as I listened to mom putter around. I knew I should go in there, that I should spend every last second possible with her before they snatched her out of my hands.

But the truth was I was scared.

I had this picture of her in my mind from that day earlier this week when she'd made the call to go in for the study and for me to go to school. When I closed my eyes, I could see her smiling. I could see the little spots of color in her usually pallid cheeks.

If I went in there with her, it felt like that picture would disappear, deleted from my mind as though someone dragged the file over to the little trash bin icon.

The urge to go into her room and demand that she call the whole thing off welled up inside me as an insistent heat. My fingernails scratched at the white paint on the windowsill and I leaned my forehead against the glass, which felt smooth and pleasantly cool against my skin.

Even if she did call, I knew, things were already changed. Someone else would be moving into this apartment. I'd given my notice at work. All our stuff was gone. Life tugged me ever forward, no matter how hard I tried clinging to what I already had.

A big white van pulled up to the curb beside those sagging pieces of cardboard. Two men got out, slamming their doors shut with muffled thuds.

That nervous ball building inside me burst. They were here, coming through the front door, come to take her away.