by Felix, Lila
She waved her hand in the air at me, “I’m sure. Chase has enough. The doctor told him he needed to lessen the stress in his life. I’ve already pressed our luck by telling him that I’m sick. He doesn’t need to sit there and watch me go through treatments. It’s just not necessary.”
“Whatever you say, Mom.”
“You’re damned straight,” she laughed and kissed my cheek. As she walked from the house to my truck she stopped to smell every rose Reed planted in the flower bed which bordered her front porch. The term green thumb was a joke compared to Reed. I’d seen her pick up a dead plant she liked from the nursery and a week later it was back to life.
Just like she’d found me and brought me back to life.
Mom smiled at me like she didn’t have a care in the world. For months before she’d been losing weight, she had temps of 104 and higher off and on, and she’d completely lost her appetite. She was scaring us all but had always laughed it off or joked it was menopause.
I wished menopause had been the reason for her symptoms.
Instead, after test after test, she’d been diagnosed with Multicentric Castleman’s disease. There were tumors on almost every single one of her lymph nodes. While they said they could remove some of them, they ultimately recommended chemotherapy as an aggressive treatment. Everyone volunteered to go with her, taking turns, but she insisted on me, claiming I was the only one who could stay calm for her. Owen and Mad got their feelings hurt but finally came to the conclusion that it wasn’t about me or them; it was about Mom. She needed calm and cool during this stressful time and their egos would have to take a vacation on this one.
I drove her to the Tulane Medical Center, grabbed her bags and opened her car door for her. She smiled at me, but it wasn’t my mother’s full smile. It was the one she reserved, not because she was happy, but because she was trying to make someone else happy.
I sent Reed a text, asking how she was and telling her we’d arrived at the hospital. She replied that she was fine, complete with a selfie. And she was absolutely right, she was as fine as always. She also told me to tell Mom she loved her, but I refrained. It would make Mom cry. She needed smiles right now, even if they were fake.
“I hate needles,” she whispered to me in the elevator, turning off her phone, putting it in her pocket and grabbing my arm. I put my arm around her shoulders and she swatted me away, ever trying to be strong. We headed through hallways, following arrows on the walls until we reached the Cancer Center. She was greeted by a woman her age who, after making us scrub down like surgeons, escorted us to a room with wall to wall reclining chairs. Some held people hooked up to tubes, reading magazines, listening to music, watching The Pelican Brief play on the flat screens hanging from the ceiling. I couldn’t help the thought pulsing through my head, ‘no one deserves this’.
The nurse, Calla, sat my mother in the last chair and began to go over her records with her, verifying information and asking for redundant medical information. Things they already knew—it was like chemo-Jeopardy. Except when you bet it all, sometimes you didn’t get to walk away.
“Lose the scowl, Falcon,” my mother berated me.
“Yes ma’am. Do you want your iPod or what,” I asked her as the nurse prepped a small tray full of tools to get the IV started.
“I just want to talk to my son. His wife is having twins, you know, two girls.” She directed her spiel to Calla. I zoned out the rest. She always over-praised me in public. It bordered on ridiculous. But in spite of my embarrassment, I always bloomed under her approval of me. Even at my age, I was proud to know that one of the most important women in my life thought I’d done something right.
I saw them both looking at me, “I’m sorry?”
“She asked what their names will be, Falcon.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was in space. We’re actually not telling anyone until they’re born, even my mom. That’s why she just tried to trick me into telling you.”
Mom reached out with both hands and choked an invisible neck which she wanted to be mine.
“Alrighty, you are all set, Mrs. Black. It will take a little over ninety minutes. I’ll be in and out if you have any questions.”
For the next hour and a half, I told my mother everything like I used to at her restaurant kitchen. She’d console me with advice, but most times she’d just listen. I told her about Reed giving her final notice at the horticultural center. She’d wanted to stay home with the girls after they were born and there were no plans for her to ever go back to work. We’d have our hands full with twins anyway. Reed was going overboard cleaning the house and when she’d gotten too big to do everything she wanted to, she hired a housekeeper to come in three times a week. The woman always looked at us like we were nuts—the house wasn’t ever dirty. And I’d learned to fill the freezer with pints of every different type of Bluebell ice cream in stock for Reed. But she’d never complained the entire pregnancy. She was an amazing mother already. She kept headphones on her belly at night, playing the twins Mozart, claiming it would make them smarter. She and I took turns reading her books out loud so they could hear our voices. My tax preparation companies had turned into a chain of sorts, they were spread all over the south and I was making plenty of money to support us. And with my investing, we were pretty much set for life. Reed was due in six weeks and though I dreaded her having to go through the pain of labor, I was beyond ecstatic for the arrival of our babies. Reed had turned the middle bedroom into the nursery. I thought my wild girl would decorate it in zebra stripes or hot pink roller skates, but she opted for a light gray and yellow nursery. She’d read every pregnancy and baby book I could get my hands on and then, after she finished, she passed them down to me and insisted I read them.
“Is she still insisting on a home birth?”
“Yes. It scares me to death, but I’m not the one who has to pop two humans out of my…you know.”
“You’re damned right I know. Owen was nearly twelve pounds, the meathead. You want to know a secret?”
“Of course.” My mom never told her secrets. It must be a good one.
“Storey is pregnant. She’s been faking a knee injury to get out of skating because she’s not ready to tell everyone.”
“Mom, I can’t believe you told me.”
“I know,” she giggled like a school girl, “I swear I couldn’t be cracked by expert torturers before, but grandbaby news is too good not to spread.”
“So, thugs and terrorists can’t make you tell secrets, but the promise of grandkids can? That’s priceless, Mom.”
“Who knew I was such a sap? And Journey is due a month after Reed, so I get two girls and a boy back to back. I need to get well, soon.”
And with that statement we were brought back to our place in the reality of her illness. There wasn’t a guarantee that she’d ever be better. But I couldn’t imagine one single second of our family’s life without her. She was the backbone, the heart, the strength, she was the mother everyone wanted and the woman every other woman privately wished they could be.
And if something happened to her—I didn’t think my dad would survive it.
Hayes
One day, when I grow up, I want a pet octopus in a tank.
My phone rang way too early on a Sunday morning. I had just gotten to sleep.
“Hello?” I hadn’t even bothered to look at the caller ID.
“Tell me you are gonna pursue that fine assed bearded man.”
“Who?” I was awake enough to goad Vera now, just for waking me up.
“Don’t make me kick your ass. You know exactly who, we had to call in a crew to mop up the puddle from your drooling last night. And he was sitting right across from you, and you said nothing. You were chatting up that other girl about her dumb tattoos. Please, please, ask him out, let me live vicariously through you.”
“Ugh,” I groaned, “Look, I don’t even know how to get in touch with him. Anyway, he didn’t look all that interested. He ate without even
looking up.”
She squealed into the phone, “Aha! So you were looking at him at dinner. If I can work my magic and get his number, will you ask him out, please? I need you to tell me how he smells.”
“That’s it, I’m calling Colt and telling him you’re having me sniff other men while he’s offshore.”
“Don’t you dare! I just need a life, that’s all. So will you?”
“Yes, good grief. If you get his number I will call him.”
“You know I went to high school with Owen, right?”
“Who’s Owen?”
“Owen Black.”
“Shit.”
“Yes, bestie, you are officially in deep shit.”
She slammed the phone down in my ear and I tossed it on the chair on the corner of the room.
Vera was seriously delusional if she thought I was going to ask a guy out.
I looked over at the alarm clock and realized it was later than I’d thought. In fact, it was almost ten fifteen and I was due at my parents for brunch at eleven.
I jumped out of bed, showered quickly and tried to run some kind of product in it, hoping it would behave itself. It didn’t work. After throwing it in a clip, I pulled on a pair of my favorite jeans, a vintage Coke shirt and some flip flops. I put on all my bracelets, all twenty of them, I refused to leave the house without something covering my wrists. Quickly, I grabbed my bag and by the time I headed out the door it was ten ‘til eleven. I hated being late to anything.
I drove up to the Acadian style home on the large expanse of land and blew out a sigh. My parents moved us here after my incident to give us more peace and remove me from all the pressures.
We used to live in Jefferson. Hazel and I both went to St. Agnes, upon my mother’s wishes. It was a rigorous school with demands of its own. But I’d taken on tons of extracurricular activities plus clubs and volunteer projects. I knew I was over my head, but somehow couldn’t bring myself to quit anything. And then one day I just snapped. That was the day we referred to as doomsday. But to me, it was a new lease on life.
“You made it,” my mom greeted as I walked in.
“I did.”
“So, I saw Vera today…”
“And she spilled her guts like an open cadaver,” I finished for her.
“Gross, Hay, don’t be so morose.” That was Hazel, my very proper, very uptight sister, followed by her equally snobby husband who walked like a large branch was lodged up his ass.
“Anyway,” my mom rolled her eyes at my sister, or was it me?
“She told me all about someone she called Beardy Smurf.”
“Really? I’ve been calling him Suspenders. I like mine better. I’ve seen him with less beard, he gets beardier as time passes. Did you actually get bread while you were at the bakery or did you and Vera just gossip the whole time?”
She scoffed and dragged me with her to the kitchen, “I got yeast rolls and a lemon ganache cake. Now tell me about this guy.”
Hopping on the counter and grabbing a yeast roll, I answered, “I don’t even know him. I’ve seen him at the bouts and we had a little moment last night. But then over dinner he ignored me the whole time. Who knows? I don’t even know his name. I know he’s one of the Black brothers, or he’s always with them. Maybe he’s a cousin or something.”
“Oh,” she fluttered to the kitchen, racooning through her purse and coming out with a flour covered pink piece of paper which I recognized as a torn off order form from the bakery, “Vera told me to give you this.”
I looked at it and froze, “What is it?” She feigned ignorance
“You already know what it is. Like she didn’t tell you.”
“His name is Rex! Call him now.”
“No. I will call him when I get home.”
“Oh great, another infamous Hayes first date. You should have a reality show or something.”
“Hush, Hazel.””
“No, I’m serious. I’d sit in my recliner and watch that show all night.”
I jumped down from the counter and began to walk towards the dining room, “You’d have to take that huge stick out of your ass first and then ask your ego to move over.”
In the reflection of the dining room mirror, I saw her flip me off. My sister was enraged when we left Jefferson and St. Agnes’ school. She was the queen bee of the school. But our parents thought it would be best for the both of us. But she’d held a grudge against me ever since.
We sat down. Hazel and Baxter, his real name was Baxter, told us all about their new camp in Toledo Bend. They went so far as to tell us how much they paid for it and how much the mortgage was on it. But I couldn’t look at her husband without picturing Evan Baxter from Evan Almighty. I wanted to drop a hammer on his thumb just to see if he’d scream, “I’ve got a boo boo.”
“What are you all smiley about? If I had to ask a guy out, I wouldn’t be so happy. I mean, jeez, desperate much?”
“Zip it, Hazel,” my dad finally chimed in.
“You always take her side,” Hazel whined. I could hear the stomp of her foot under the table.
“Let’s just have a peaceful dinner,” my mom sighed.
“Fine.”
The rest of the meal Dad talked about the business. He didn’t do very much of the heavy lifting anymore. He had tons of mechanics working under him. My mom had never had to work.
Hazel left as soon as the last bite was taken and dragged Noah’s Ark with her. The door closed and then my dad blurted out, “Don’t you just want to see him in a suit making all of those weird noises. You know like Jim Carey made him do when Evan Baxter was the reporter on Bruce Almighty?”
“Yes!” My mom agreed.
We laughed, going back and forth remembering the Almighty movies. And then they exchanged a glance.
Here we go.
“Hazel is gone. Tell us how you’re really doing.”
I scraped the lemon frosting from the side of my piece of cake, making a pile to indulge in later.
“I’m fine. I’m not sleeping much, but as long as I keep busy, but not too busy, I’m okay.”
My Dad grabbed my hand, “You’d tell us the moment you think you’re not, right?”
“Dad, yes. Come on. I have a lot better sense than I did when I was sixteen. And a lot better options than your Bic razor.”
Simultaneously they threw down their forks and groaned. My mom hated when I talked about doomsday so candidly. I thought it was pretty damned funny—I was seriously ridiculous. It went on a lot more than just doomsday, but that was the dramatic climax.
“I’m sorry. I have to joke about it. Otherwise, I get all self-flashlighty.”
“Self-flashlighty, that’s a good one. And I don’t think they make Bic razors anymore, so you’re safe.”
“We should write them a letter and thank them for discontinuing their products.”
“Yes. I never understood why you didn’t use shaving cream. I mean, do you like those little red bumps?”
I gasped. There was nothing I loved more than my dad joining in on my smartass quips about that day.
“Dude, I thought I could count on you to do me a solid and hit me with some Aqua Velva. What the hell?”
“You know—we were fresh out. I keep tons in the cabinet now just in case.”
“Stop it!” My mom banged her fist on the table and though she was mad, she was also smiling.
“Sorry.” We said together.
Mom made Dad and I do the dishes for the table comedy while she went to her sewing room for some surprise she’d made for me. It was usually a derby skirt or something just as cool.
“How come Hazel never gets reprimanded?”
“She is eternally punished, I defer you back to her husband—Baxter.”
I laughed, my dad was the best, “That’s true. She reminds me of the sister in Dirty Dancing.”
“Oh good Lord, please don’t mention that title in front of your mother. She’ll make me watch it.”
“Watch what?
”
Dad shot me a look that begged me not to tell.
“Rambo. I think Dad has a man crush on Sylvester Stallone.”
“Thanks for that,” Dad mumbled under his breath.
I dried off my hands after finishing up and turned to see several things on the table. There were three new derby skirts in black, pink and one in bright green. And then there was a new set for my kitchen; a new apron, new dish towels with sewn on handles and new oven mitts. My mom knew me well.
“Thank you, Mom. They’re so nice.”
“You’re welcome. Now, you know I love you, but go home and call that boy. I’ve got a good feeling about this one. Plus, I’m about to make your Dad watch Dirty Dancing with me. You two forget, I’ve got supersonic hearing.”
“Son of a—I’m looking forward to it, honey.”
“I can stay. I wanna watch it too.”
“No way, when it gets juicy, we’re gonna make out on the couch. Go away!”
I almost gagged, but it was very endearing and gave me a little hope.
“Yes, get out. I forgot how make-outy your mom gets during that movie,” my Dad laughed and kissed the top of my head. I’d been dismissed.
On the way home, I scrunched my pocket in my hand to make sure the piece of paper was still secure. I’d never asked a guy out before. But this guy—I had a feeling about him too. He might just be the one to make me or break me.
I danced around the note on the table for a half an hour. What if he had a girlfriend? Vera would’ve found that out for me, right? What if I croaked?
Screw it.
I picked up the phone and dialed the number. It rang several times before a deep voice, deeper and raspier than I’d imagined, answered the phone, “Hello?”
“Hi, this is Hayes from…”
“I know who you are.”
He sounded annoyed.
“So, I was calling to see if you’d like to go to dinner with me sometime, maybe Wednesday night? It’s the only night I don’t have practice or work.”
Silence, I was met with a full bucket of steaming silence.
“Ok, I get it. Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. Goodbye.”
I banged the cellphone against my forehead.
