Chapter Twenty
Jesse
Before
“What are we going to do?” my mother said from the other side of the bed.
It was the bed she shared with my father and there was a half-empty bottle of wine on Dad’s nightstand, where I’d placed it before I’d climbed onto the mattress, and there was a glass in each of our hands. I didn’t know if this was the appropriate moment to drink. I didn’t care. Both of us needed it.
Oh, God, did we need it.
When I saw the bottle in the kitchen, I grabbed it off the shelf, found an opener, and brought it right in here. I didn’t know what it tasted like. I didn’t know if it was red or white.
It didn’t matter.
After what felt like hundreds of tests, not a part of my father’s body that wasn’t poked or scanned, we finally got the results today.
Before walking into the doctor’s office, we knew there was a problem. We knew there were possibilities. But we had no idea what we were in for.
Now, thirty minutes later, we were in their bed because we didn’t know where else to be.
“I don’t know, Mom,” I finally replied.
Since I was an only child, it had always just been the three of us. We did everything together still. I was as involved with his doctor visits as my mother. So, when the doctor spoke the diagnosis, we heard it together as a family. It passed through all six of our ears. My father’s first, he was the closest to the doctor. Then, my mom, and me. Once he finished giving us the news, I grabbed my mom’s hand and squeezed it.
I needed to hold on to something.
I knew she did, too.
The second our fingers linked, she was clutching me, using a strength I never knew she had. My skin was screaming as her nails dug into it, but I needed the pain. It gave me something to focus on besides the torture that was happening in my heart.
“Baby …” Her voice broke at the last syllable and I turned toward her.
My mother wasn’t a woman who moped. She was a positive person, never focusing on the negative aspects of any situation. To find her in bed after my dad’s appointment, fully dressed, with the shades drawn, wasn’t easy to see.
But it wasn’t easy to watch Daddy drive off either. It happened right after we walked out of the doctor’s office. We got to the parking lot and he said, “Jesse, take your mother home, I need … to go for a drive.” Before I could utter a response, he was gone.
Mom didn’t move from where she was standing. She stayed frozen in the same spot, watching him drive away. Without her. Completely devastated.
I told her he needed time. It was the only thing that made sense since leaving his family after such a traumatic moment wasn’t something he would ever normally do.
The truth was, we also needed time.
Time … we didn’t have.
“Yes, Mom?”
She was aching. She was in a state of shock. She wanted to tell the doctor he was wrong, that he needed to fix my father, and if he wasn’t going to than she would. That was what wives and mothers did—we fixed.
But it didn’t matter what she said or tried. It would all be for nothing. This was one she couldn’t solve and she couldn’t fix.
It was the most helpless, heart wrenching thing to watch.
“I’m scared.” Her voice was so soft I barely heard her.
I had to be the strong one. I had to hold the both of us up. One day I would be able to fall apart, but that wasn’t today.
“I’m here, Mom. We’re going to get through this together.”
“Please stay.” She brought the wine up to her lips, so I did also. She swallowed several times and I did the same. “I usually send you home to your husband and kids but today I need you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assured her.
Remembering the photo I had seen on Dad’s nightstand, I rolled back to grab it and set it on the bed between us. It was a framed picture of my parents on their wedding day. It had a dull finish, which was popular back then, and round corners. Mom’s dress was simple, despite the decade, but her hair made up for it.
As she stared at the picture in my hands, her eyes dripped with tears. Her lips quivered. Her body shook like she had a fever. “God help us,” she whispered.
She went into the bathroom before I had the chance to try and comfort her. The door shut and locked. With the silence in her bedroom, I could hear everything. I expected a sob she could no longer hold back or the sound of her blowing her nose.
What I didn’t expect was to hear her throwing up.