A Child's Wish

“Hi, Mom. It’s me.” Meredith held the cell phone against her ear with one shoulder while she unwrapped a granola bar, which—with a glass of Diet Coke—would be her breakfast.

“Meri, hi!”

Meredith’s mood sank. Too much exuberance. She’d been right to follow her impulse to call. Something was wrong.

She had to leave in five minutes if she was going to get to class before her kids started to arrive. And with third-graders, that was always a good idea.

“I was feeling a little uneasy about you this morning,” she said, holding her unwrapped breakfast in one hand as she put down her drink long enough to haul her school bag up onto her shoulder. The big green M&M emblazoned on the black patent leather was facing out.

“I went out to go to bridge club last night and my tire was flat,” she said. Evelyn Foster, a retired scientist and executive from Phillip’s Petroleum, lived in a nice condominium in Florida in an active-living adult community.

“Did you call road service?” Drink back in hand, Meredith headed for the door. “You got that extended warranty.”

“I know. I called and they’re coming out first thing this morning.”

Hmm. Then…

“Nope, I still feel uneasy. Come on, Mom, I’m late. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Evelyn chuckled. “You know how hard it is having a kid you can’t keep things from?” she asked.

Meredith’s tension eased, but only slightly. “Your kid’s all grown up, Mom. You don’t need to hide things. Come on, what gives?”

She was in her car—a Mustang convertible, which she never drove with the top down.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Evelyn said, drawing out the words in a way that told her they were a lie. “I have to go in for a liver biopsy in the morning.”

Her tires squealed and Meredith stopped fifty feet short of the sign at the end of her block. “What?” A quick, automatic glance in the mirror assured her no one was behind her on the dead-end street.

“I had my annual physical last week and the blood work raised a few questions.”

“What’s the worst case scenario?”

“Cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, maybe hepatitis….”

Meredith dropped her granola bar onto the car’s console next to her drink. Stared out the windshield, registering nothing—focusing. Feeling.

Her widowed mother. Alone in Florida—except for the many friends she’d made. Kind. Sixty-one. Active.

Alive. Very alive.

Meredith nodded. She stared again, barely aware of a horn honking behind her, a car speeding around her.

And then, blinking, she picked up her granola bar, stepped on the gas and turned onto the road that would take her to school.

“It’s going to be okay, Mom,” she said.

“It is?”

She found it hard to listen to the fear in her mother’s voice. All her life Evelyn had been Meredith’s strength. Sometimes her only strength. Meredith didn’t want to think about her mother getting older. Failing.

“Yes,” she told her, grinning over her own relief as much as for the relief she felt for her mom.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Meredith told her, eating half the bar in two bites. “But you feel fine to me.”

“You’re sure?”