Chapter 3 #2
She attempts to mask the hoarseness of her lungs with a strained laugh. “I feel better already just thinking about it. Maybe I’ll even make it to the market this week.”
Needing to conceal my watering eyes from the only person capable of using them to see through to my soul, I gather her tattered nightgowns from her freestanding closet and place them into the suitcase that barely survived its second continental trip.
It’s the suitcase my mother used when she left Sicily while pregnant with me and severely heartbroken.
I’ve never met my father, but from what I’ve gathered from the rare few who knew him, he is a horrible man.
He beat my mother so badly when she was eight months pregnant that we nearly died.
That’s why it was such an uphill battle to get her to agree to come back to Sicily.
She didn’t want to run into him again, and the leading oncology hospital in the country was in his hometown.
“You should take him first,” I whisper, staring at the ceiling.
When my mother’s eyes land on me, the concern in them triggers a memory of the fun we had when her initial prognosis required her to occasionally use a wheelchair. “We’ll go to the market together. I’ll use your wheelchair as a ramrod. That way, we’ll get all the good tomatoes.”
Mom grins, but her shaky hand when she passes me the tinned cookies I arrived with last week exposes her as a fraud.
She’s as terrified as I am. I act ignorant, though.
I discuss the weather and tell her how our neighbors asked about her last night because I want her to believe she’s on the road to recovery.
I can’t face the truth right now. It’s a reality too cruel to consider. It is tearing me apart.
Shortly after, a knock sounds at the door, and then my aunt bursts into the room, forever cheery and loud. Her arrival breathes life into the oppressive gloom no number of steps will shake.
“Good morning, my darlings!” Aunt Maria’s hands are full of fresh fruit and magazines for Mom, and her smile is warmer than the sun.
She kisses Mom’s cheek before offering her a peach.
“I bought them at the market. It was full of gossip today. Apparently, a by-election is coming up. It was a snap decision after Councilor Messina unexpectedly quit. Some are saying he had a family emergency, but what would I know?” Her pfft sprays the air with spit, which she clears away with a frantic flap.
“I’m not high enough up the food chain for that. ”
Aunt Maria dumps the basket of fruit onto the drawers I’m clearing before she twists to face Mom. Her expression is impassive, but she has a knack for reading people, even when they’re pulling out all their best tricks to hide their pain behind a smile.
She waits until the front-page gossip of a glossy magazine distracts Mom before gently bopping my arm. “Can I have a word?”
“I—”
“This is no concern of yours, Miss Nosy,” my aunt says, cutting off my mom. “Just because your birthday month is coming up doesn’t give you the right to snoop on every conversation. Some things are better kept hidden… like the gift I was eyeing for you earlier.”
Mom’s face lights up with childish glee, and Aunt Maria responds to it with a wet, noisy raspberry.
While smiling with gratitude that I’ll never be crowned most childish in our family, I shadow my aunt into the corridor.
The door scarcely muffles Mom’s husky laugh when my aunt pounces. “What happened? You’re pale. You’re never pale. The only time I’ve ever seen your cheeks this white was when you FaceTimed to tell me about your mother’s cancer diagnosis.”
Tact dictates slowly ripping off the Band-Aid, but I misplaced my empathy somewhere between Dr. Russo’s office and my mother’s hospital room. “Dr. Russo said there’s nothing more they can do. Mom needs specialized treatment, which isn’t covered by the public healthcare system.”
Her sigh rustles my hair, and then she pulls me in for a hug. “Oh, tesoro. I’m so sorry.”
Tears threaten to spill as I offload some of my worries onto her shoulders. “I don’t know what to do. The council keeps raising the interest rate on our overdue taxes, and the building is falling apart. I can barely keep up with the bills, so there’s no way I can pay for private healthcare.”
I inch back and stare at my aunt as if she grew a third eye when she says, “There’s nothing we can’t fix.” She goes from semi-insane to a full-blown lunatic. “You and your mom can stay with me. My apartment isn’t big, but you and your mother can share my room, and I’ll sleep on the sofa.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.” She’s years older than my mother. That doesn’t make her close to ancient, but my back can’t handle the stiffness of a sofa bed, so I don’t see her fairing any better.
“Why not?” she immediately fires back. “I’ll be there if Concetta needs anything while you’re working, and I won’t have to commute across town after being on my feet for nine hours a day to babysit her. My offer will benefit me as much as it will you.”
I don’t consider her tiny kitchen, cramped living room, and single bed with as much time as they deserve. That’s how lost I am. Two hours of aimless wandering didn’t yield a single solution to our dilemma.
“Are you sure?” I ask after a beat. “I don’t want to put you out.”
Aunt Maria smiles while brushing a lock of hair from my face. “Family is family. You need help. Let me do that.”
Relief cracks through some of the despair sitting heavy on my chest. “Thank you.” I wrap her up in a hug so firm that I knock her back. “I’d be lost without you.”
She squeezes the living bejesus out of me before she gestures with her head to Mom’s room. “Let’s go tell your mom the good news. She’s been seeking ways to share a room with me since we were kids.”
I cease following my aunt back into my mother’s room when a familiar voice calls my name.
Cranking my neck, I spot a nurse who’s been working on my mom’s ward for the past month.
Luca is friendly but a little creepy. I’ve caught him watching me from afar more than once.
His gaze always lingers too long and too low for my liking.
I highly doubt he could tell you the color of my eyes.
Luca shuffles from foot to foot when I join him at the nurses’ desk, and glances over his shoulder before speaking.
“I hope this isn’t too forward, but I wanted to talk to you about your options for your mother.
” I prepare myself for another lecture about palliative care, but he surprises me.
“There’s a clinic in Palermo that pays women to donate their eggs.
It isn’t easy money by any means, but it’s good money.
It could be enough to get your mother the care she needs. ”
I stare at him, stunned. This isn’t a solution I’ve ever considered, and I genuinely don’t know if I should consider it, but curiosity killed the cat. “How much, exactly?”
“Ten to twenty thousand a deposit.”
“Thousand?” I double-check, certain I heard him wrong.
I didn’t. Nodding, he hands me a leaflet for a specialist IVF clinic.
“You’d have to go through some tests, but I’ve seen women pay for their treatments this way…
” His nervous shuffling is back. “And new boobs. But you don’t need them.
Yours are…” His words stop when I not so inconspicuously yank together my blouse.
Finally, his eyes lift to my face. “I thought it might be something you could be interested in, so I gathered a pamphlet for you. I’ll put my number on the back in case you’re interested.
” Faster than I can blink, he yanks the brochure out of my hold and scribbles his details on the back.
“Call me if you want to go through with it. I have a contact there, so I could probably get you in sooner than the standard wait time.”
I thank him, but my praise is weak. I can’t imagine doing something so intimate and clinical for money, but I’m also desperate. This kills me to admit, but I can’t give him a definite answer until I’ve had time to weigh the pros and cons.
I can’t do that while being eyeballed like the last dessert at an empty buffet, so I tuck the leaflet into my pocket, tell Luca I’ll think about it, and return to my mother’s room to continue packing.
With my mother too frail to walk, and my faith in the Maps app too low to consider busing it home to check if the battery charger is functional, I use the last of our funds to take a taxi to my aunt’s apartment.
The driver doesn’t speak during the commute. He stalks us through the rearview mirror, and he eyeballs Mom like the disease stealing the life from her eyes also stole her beauty.
It hasn’t. My mother is a beautiful woman. Men of all ages admire her, and during her youth, she often had more than one date a night.
The further we travel, the more I realize this ride is nothing like the one I took this morning. There are no leather seats or hints of quiet confidence from a powerfully rich smell. Just the rattle of loose change and the aroma of stale cigarettes.
Needing to distract myself from the surging fare, I peer out the window and watch the city slide by. The market stalls shut hours ago, and instead of chasing pigeons, the children are playing football in the street.
Everything is distant, as if I’m watching someone else’s life from the outside. It’s a scary outlook. This isn’t meant to be my life. My mother left her abuser. She escaped the torment, so why is she being so cruelly targeted?
When I seek answers from the only person who can give them, I learn that the half-dozen stairs at the front of San Giorgio’s must have exhausted Mom. Her head is resting on my shoulder, and the breaths of her faint snores dust my cheek with warm air.
I kiss her temple before breathing in the comforting scent of honey and amber. I feel like crying. Salty blobs have been threatening to spill from my eyes all day. But I can’t release them yet. I need to remain strong for Mom.
Furthermore, crying won’t help anything. It will just add another problem to my already overstuffed plate.
“One more step, Mom,” I say, aiding her slow climb up the stairwell in my aunt’s building that’s painted the color of an old lemon. “We’re almost there.”
Aunt Maria is at her front door, ready to welcome us with open arms. She helps me settle Mom into her bed and is rewarded with my first genuine smile of the day when she fusses over every minute detail. Maria gives Mom the best pillow and wraps her in the softest blanket.
Although the apartment’s sole bedroom is compact, it’s clean, and the sunlight warming the aged walls provides a luxurious ambiance Mom hasn’t experienced in months. The rays highlighting her petite features burst happiness through her eyes.
“Go fetch some milk from the corner store.” My aunt presses a few coins into my hand. “I’ll pop the kettle on. Your mom’s been dying for a sneaky granita di caffè for a week.”
Grateful for the excuse to get some air, even if it’s only for a few minutes, I collect my purse from the kitchen and leave.
Freshly baked goods and sun-kissed skin permeate from the busy supermarket. I place some discounted bakery items the store will discard tonight if unsold and a pint of milk in a basket.
When I get to the register, I pull out my phone and hope for the best. The cab fare took me down to my last ten dollars, but because I forgot about the bus fare this morning, I’m suddenly not confident I’ll have enough funds.
The cashier barely glances at me when I tap my phone against the payment terminal.
My heart plummets to my stomach when the machine beeps and then flashes red.
Declined.
My cheeks burn when I try again and achieve the same result. Mumbling that there must be a bank error, I fumble for coins at the bottom of my purse. On the counter, I count out what little funds I have while striving to ignore the internal alarm announcing payday is still four days away.
I don’t have enough, so I tell the cashier I’ll return when the bank fixes its error to purchase the baked goods I have to leave behind.
Outside, the ghastly humid air adds to the sting of humiliation painting my cheeks red.
The coins I gathered in a hurry feel heavier in my pocket than they should.
They’re a testament of how little stands between us going under.
Even the smallest comforts, like a sweet pastry or a cup of coffee, are luxuries now.
Back at my aunt’s, I sit in darkness and watch Mom sleep.
She looks fragile in a bed designed only for one, and her breaths are shallow and uneven.
I’d give anything to pound out my frustration with a five-mile run before downing shots like I’ve never had a hangover.
Instead, I press my palms to my watering eyes and breathe through the burden drowning me on land.
The afternoon passes in a blur. I help my aunt with dinner and act as if it’s normal for a child to spoon-feed her parent before I get ready for my shift at the pub.
As taught, I empty the pockets of my skirt before placing it in the laundry hamper.
A trickle of hope peeks out from beneath the dark swamping me when I remember the pamphlet Luca gave me.
I try not to grant his promise of a big payday any attention, mindful that nothing good comes easy, but the more I strive to forget it, the more the crumpled pamphlet beckons me to it.
Dr. Russo discharged Mom with enough medication to last her four weeks, but after that, we’re on our own. I’ll have to pay for the next round. It won’t be the full rate since we’re on benefits, but the number of prescriptions she needs is more than I can afford.
The numbers I mentally crunch drop my heart to my feet. Months of scraping by and watching hope still slip through my fingers snaps something inside me.
Before I can talk sense into myself, I snatch up the crumpled pamphlet and dial the number on the back.
I can’t save Mom with hope. I can’t pay for her life-saving treatment with pride.
I need money—real money—and if the only way I can get that is by selling a part of myself, then so be it. I’ll do that.
In under a minute, I’m no longer the girl who came to Sicily for a fresh start. I’m a daughter and caregiver. I am whoever I need to be to save my mother’s life.
Even someone who’ll sell their soul to the devil, if they must.