by Diana Lopez
“I don’t believe this!” Shawntae said, looking over my shoulder. “I dreamed about this.”
“You dreamed about the screen saver?”
“No. Yes. Kind of.” She took a minute to compose her thoughts or, rather, to make up one of her silly after-the-fact predictions. “In my dream, you were in a giant bouncy ball. It was see-through, like a bubble. You were screaming because you wanted to get out, but you couldn’t. There wasn’t a door, only air holes. And you were bouncing down the street. Sometimes you hit the side of a building and sometimes you bounced right on top of a car. When I woke up, I thought you were going to join the basketball team, but now I see that my dream was actually predicting that you would stare at the screen saver.”
I didn’t feel like arguing, so I said, “Hmm… very interesting.” Then I went back to looking at the bubbles.
“Wake up!” Shawntae said, snapping her fingers in my ear. “Why are you acting like a zombie?”
I sighed. “I can’t help it.”
“Because of your mom?”
I nodded. “She’s still in the hospital. She was so weak yesterday. She could barely open her eyes. It was like her eyelids were bricks or dumbbells or boulders. That’s how heavy they were.”
Shawntae put her hand on my shoulder. “I know it’s tough, but you can’t mope around all day. She’d feel awful if she knew you were moping around.”
“And the other thing that’s stressing me out,” I went on, “is my promesa.”
“What’s that?” Shawntae asked.
“It means ‘promise.’ I’m supposed to do something or make a sacrifice in honor of my mother. That way, all the angels will know she needs help. It’s like giving thanks. My sister’s cleaning the bathrooms, and I decided to walk a 5K, which is a bit lame, but what else can I do?”
“Maybe you can plant a garden,” Shawntae suggested.
“Maybe. But if the plants die, I’ll think it’s a sign.”
“Then write a poem every day.”
“I would if I could, but I’m not smart enough to write poems.”
Shawntae thought for a minute. “That’s it!” she blurted.
“You have a good promesa for me?”
“No, but I totally understand my dream now. It wasn’t about you staring at a screen saver. It was about you feeling trapped and hopeless. It’s like you’re bumping into things, with no control over where you’re going.”
“Gee, thanks,” I groaned. “I feel a whole lot better now.”
“Don’t blame me,” Shawntae said. “It’s not my fault you’re stuck in a bouncy ball. I gave you some good suggestions.”
“Suggestions for what?” Patty asked as she stepped into the room. She slurped through the straw of a giant Slush from Sonic, took a big swallow, and said, “Major brain freeze.” Then she kicked off her flip-flops and plopped on the bed. “Well?” she said, all impatient.
“Erica has to walk five whole kilometers for her mom,” Shawntae explained. “It’s so the angels will hear her.”
“It’s called a promesa, which means ‘promise.’ ” I glanced at my feet, imagining them in tennis shoes. “I wish I were more inspired.”
“I told her to think of another promise,” Shawntae said.
“It has to be some kind of sacrifice,” I explained.
“A painful sacrifice, huh?” Patty said, thinking about it. I nodded, even though I hadn’t mentioned pain. “Why don’t you promise to walk over broken glass or hot coals? I saw some guys do that on TV once. They didn’t even get hurt. You just have to put mind over matter.”
I shook my head, remembering how walking barefoot on the hot cement made my feet blister.
“How about fasting?” Patty said. “Or you could ask your dad to drop you off in the middle of the desert and then you can find your way back. That’s what the Indians did, and they always returned with the answers to the universe.”
“I don’t want the answers to the universe,” I said. “I want my mom to get better.”
“She had the operation yesterday,” Shawntae explained. “And Erica’s all stressed.”
Patty slurped from the giant cup again, and then said, “So have you seen your mom’s chest? Did it creep you out?”
“Don’t ask that!” Shawntae scolded.
Patty just shrugged. “Feeling creeped out is a normal reaction to something like this, right, Erica?”
I nodded. “Just thinking about it creeps me out.”
“So have you seen it yet?” she asked again.
“No. I visited my mom, but she was all covered up.”
“It’s not like she’s going to ask her mom to take off her shirt,” Shawntae said. “Things like that are private.”
I shivered as I imagined women without breasts. I didn’t want to think about it, but I also had this weird desire to know what it looked like.
Patty took another long slurp. Then she turned to me. “Your mom has joined a warrior tribe of women,” she announced.
“Because she’s fighting breast cancer?”
“Yes. I mean, that, too. But I also mean a real warrior tribe of women. Have you heard of the Amazons?”
“You mean the rain forest?”
“No, I mean Amazon women. Back in ancient times, they decided to live without men.”
“No guys?” I felt scandalized. How could you have a Boyfriend Wish List when there weren’t any guys around?
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Shawntae said. “I like guys, but sometimes they’re overrated. This world would be a better place with more women as mayors and presidents.”
“That’s what the Amazons thought,” Patty said. “But the men kept trying to take over. So they had to learn to defend themselves, and their favorite weapon was the bow and arrow.”
“That’s cool,” I said, imagining arrows arcing across the sky.
“But there was a problem,” Patty added. “The Amazons had big breasts that got in the way.”
Shawntae stood up, pretended to pull back on a bow. “I guess it’d be hard if you had giant boobs.”
“You want to know how they solved the problem?” Patty asked.
Shawntae and I nodded.
“They cut off the breast. Can you imagine a whole group of women walking around like that? But it worked. They were the best archers around.”
“They weren’t sick?” I asked.
“No, they weren’t sick at all. They volunteered to do this, and it made them stronger.”
I imagined a tribe of women warriors in the forest. They had long hair, muscular arms and legs, and white tunics, one side flat. But they were wrestling, swimming, and running through obstacle courses. And Mom was with them, doing all of those things—not sick but strong.
180 TILES
A few days later, Mom returned from the hospital.
“Be careful,” Dad said as he helped her sit at the kitchen table. “You’re still recovering.”
As soon as she sat down, Carmen and I gave her hugs and took the seats beside her. Dad poured her a cup of coffee and then went to the sink to rinse dishes, while Jimmy rolled a ball across the floor.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Mom.
“I’m tired, but I’m glad to be home.”
She wore a shirt that buttoned down the front. I couldn’t help glancing at her chest and noticing that the right side was flat now, just like an Amazon. Mom must have caught me looking because she said, “I’m going to get a special bra. A prosthetic.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
Carmen turned into Little Miss Factoid again. “It’s a replacement part, like a fake leg or a fake arm.”
“That’s right,” Mom said. “I’m going to have a fake boob.” She was silent a moment, and then she laughed. She winced as if the laughter hurt a bit, but the chuckles kept coming. Soon, Carmen and I were laughing, too. Even Jimmy joined in.
“Okay,” Dad said, his voice stern. “Quit laughing at your mother.”
“Oh,
lighten up,” Mom told him. “They’re not laughing at me. We’re just having some fun. You have to admit that a bra with a fake boob is funny.”
“No, it’s not.” Dad turned from the sink to face us. “There’s nothing funny about cancer, about having to get…”—he glanced at Carmen—“replacement parts.”
Mom frowned. “I’m the one who’s sick,” she said, “so I get to decide what is and isn’t funny about my body. Isn’t that right, girls?”
Carmen and I didn’t want to take sides, so we kept our mouths shut.
“I’m just saying…” Dad began.
Mom held out her hand to hush him. He stared at it for a second before turning back to the sink. When I looked across the table at Carmen, I caught her biting her lower lip. I almost bit my lip, too. That’s how tense the room was. I wanted to lighten the mood, change the subject, talk about something fun and easy, like boys or Jimmy’s cartoons. I wanted to suggest we eat ice cream, fly a kite, or go to the movies. But when you’re sitting beneath the gloom of cancer, everything that’s not cancer seems silly. You wonder why boys or ice cream or kites ever mattered in the first place.
Dad finished the dishes and left the room. A few minutes later, I heard him vacuuming the den.
“Can you refill this?” Mom asked me, tapping her coffee cup.
I brought the pot over, poured the coffee. Mom lifted it, a bit awkwardly. She spilled some on her shirt. “I don’t believe this,” she said, all frustrated.
“Why are you using your left hand?” Carmen asked—a good question because Mom was right-handed.
Before she could answer, Jimmy walked to her and climbed onto her lap. He hugged her tight, making Mom grimace.
“Careful, Jimmy,” I said. “Mom’s sore, remember?”
She hugged him back but with her left arm only, and since Jimmy wiggled a lot, he slid off. He tried climbing onto her lap again, but she waved him off.
“Up, up,” he told her.
“I can’t, mijo. At least, not right now.”
“Up!” he cried.
Mom looked at Carmen and me. “My right side’s weak,” she explained. “When they took my breast, they took some muscle tissue too, so I won’t be using my right side for a while.”
Mom looked like an Amazon, but she didn’t feel like one. Not yet. I still hoped, though, that soon she’d feel stronger.
Jimmy reached for her again. She leaned over and kissed him. “I can’t carry you, but you can sit right next to me.”
“Gimme Mommy,” Jimmy said as he started to bawl.
Now it looked like Mom wanted to bawl, too. “Chia,” she said, her voice a little choked, “will you take him? I’m going to the bedroom to rest.”
As she walked out, Jimmy kicked her chair. “Mommy’s mad!”
I picked him up. “No, she isn’t,” I said. “She really wants to carry you, but she can’t right now. She’s sick, remember?” His whole chest shook with sobs. “She’ll get better,” I went on, “and then she’ll hug you and carry you and never let you go. I promise.”
At that, Carmen said, “I’m going to clean the bathroom,” and she hurried off. Carmen never volunteered to clean, so I thought an alien had taken over her body. Then I remembered her promesa. She was going to clean bathrooms till Mom got better. My sister could be a real brat sometimes, but once in a while, she did something nice.
I decided to follow her example and work on my promesa, too. I told Dad I was going to start training, and since he was so busy cleaning, I offered to take Jimmy. He loved being pushed in his stroller, even though he was getting too big for it.
“Come on, Jimmy,” I said, and he happily joined me.
We walked down the block, and by the time I reached the next street, sweat was dripping into my eyes and stinging them. My hands were swollen, too. I could tell by how tight my mood ring felt. And my T-shirt, this one with beetles and ants over a caption that said “You’re bugging me,” was getting damp. Was I crazy? No one exercised when it was near one hundred degrees. Then again, the promesa was supposed to be a challenge, so I walked on, refusing to turn back until I reached the major street at the end of our neighborhood.
When I got home, I took a shower in the sparkling clean bathroom. Carmen probably spent a whole hour polishing the counters and floors. I couldn’t blame her. Even though I felt tired, I went to the laundry room, sorted the darks and lights, put in a load, and dusted furniture while I waited for the wash cycle to end. In a strange way, cleaning made me feel like I was accomplishing something. Carmen and Dad probably felt the same way because they were doing extra chores, too.
Later that night, I heard Carmen turning pages in a book. The lights were out, and since she didn’t have her book lamp on, I knew she wasn’t reading.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Counting the pages.”
“What for?”
“I like counting things,” she said. “Did you know,” she went on, “that there are one hundred eighty tiles around our bathtub?”
“I can’t believe you stood there and counted tiles.”
“At first, I multiplied the number of tiles in a row by the number of tiles in a column. Then, I double-checked my calculation by counting each and every tile. And then, I triple-checked. If you don’t believe me, you can count them yourself. You’ll see. There are one hundred eighty tiles.”
“That’s amazing,” I said, my sarcasm as thick as the cheese on the pizza we ate for dinner. “I always wondered how many tiles there were. How can I ever thank you for enlightening me?”
She didn’t reply, but a few seconds later, I heard the rustling pages again. How annoying!
“Will you stop that?” I said.
“I’ll stop when I get to the end of the book.”
“Why on earth are you counting pages when they’re already numbered?”
“I told you,” she said. “I like counting.”
“But it’s ridiculous. No one who’s sane counts pages in a book.”
“Then I guess I’m not sane,” she said, getting out of bed and heading to the door. “Don’t worry. I won’t be bothering you anymore. I’m going to the living room to count in peace.”
She stepped out, and I almost said “good riddance” because without the sound of rustling pages and mumbled numbers, I could finally fall asleep. At least, that was the theory. For some reason, though, I couldn’t relax. Sure, Carmen got on my nerves with all her counting, but at least she had cleaned the bathroom. I spent a while resisting the urge to call her back, but eventually, my guilty conscience got to me.
I found her in the living room. The porch light’s yellow glow came through the window. Carmen was asleep with the book open on her chest. I shook her.
“Hey, Carmen,” I whispered. “Come back to the room.”
She opened her eyes partway, reaching for the book and mumbling, “Not finished yet.”
“You can finish tomorrow,” I said. “If you start early enough, you can count all the pages before you fall asleep.”
She nodded, and without saying another word, she followed me to our room.
1 BELLY FLOP
Because of Mom’s weak arm, I had to put away the heavy pots and pans, carry the baskets of laundry, and vacuum. She didn’t ask me to do these things, but when I caught her wincing at the chores or giving up, I decided to do them myself, but secretly. That way, she wouldn’t feel like an invalid. And when things were settled at home, I’d go walking. After a while, I could walk around the whole neighborhood without feeling tired, even though I still had to deal with sweat and swollen hands. I kept thinking a 5K wasn’t enough, but since I had no other ideas, it would have to do.
I kept in touch with my friends, though I wasn’t seeing them very much. They invited me to all their outings, but I felt too guilty to go when I had so much to do at home. So when Iliana called to invite me to the pool, I said, “I wish I could go, but I hate to leave my mom. She’s still not one hundred percent.”
I should have felt excited about seeing my friends, but I felt angry instead. “Why did you tell Iliana that I’m all stressed out and worried? That I’m moping?”
“Because you are.”
I glanced at my mood ring, wondering if Mom knew how to interpret the colors. “No, I’m not,” I lied. “But even if I was stressed out, it’s none of Iliana’s business.”
“She’s your friend, so it is her business.”
“But that’s the problem,” I complained. “She’s going to tell everybody and they’re going to feel sorry for me, and instead of having fun, they’re going to give me useless advice, like the kind you find on a cheesy card, because even if they really try to understand me, they don’t. Then I’m going to get mad. But if they think everything’s fine, I won’t get mad because instead of talking about me, we’ll talk about other things.”
“So tell her I was exaggerating,” Mom suggested. “That way, you can have some fun.” She pointed to my dresser. “Now get ready.”
“But I’ll have to—” I stopped myself.
“You’ll have to what?” Mom asked.
