1. Millie
MILLIE
Six Years Later
As I dump the grocery bags on the ground, my phone buzzes in my pocket, and I mutter a curse under my breath.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I tell whoever’s on the other end of the line, silently willing them to wait long enough for me to pick up. I fumble in my bag to pull it out, and when I see the number making the call, my heart sinks.
It’s Lewis’s school. Of course it is. That’s how it always goes—just when I feel like I’m getting into some kind of routine, I get a call that throws it all out of whack again. I take a deep breath, gather every bit of strength I have, and lift the phone to my ear as I close my eyes.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Ms. Michaels?”
“Yeah, speaking…”
“It’s Carmichael Elementary. I’m calling about your son, Lewis—”
“You need me to come in and pick him up?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingertips and squeezing my eyes shut.
“I think that would be for the best,” the receptionist tells me, her voice as delicate as it can be given the circumstances.
“He’s been in the nurse’s office all afternoon, and he hasn’t been able to eat anything.
I don’t think he’s going to get much more out of being in school today, if you’re able to bring him home. ”
“I’ll be right there,” I reply, with a sigh I can’t disguise. “I just…” I trail off.
I don’t even know what I want her to hear from me. It’s not like there’s anything she can do to change the situation; God knows she probably already would have.
If the school is calling, it’s because they really see no reason to keep him in, which means the Crohn’s attack he was having last night has only gotten worse.
When it’s really bad, Lewis refuses to eat for fear of more pain, and I usually get the call to come bring him home because they can’t deal with the liability of a child who won’t touch any food.
I stuff the groceries in the cupboards, scanning to make sure I have enough of his safe foods to keep him going, and head for the car. It takes a few tries to get the engine to start, and I send up a small prayer to whoever is listening to grant me some kind of break.
Mercifully, the engine purrs to life after my fourth try, and I hightail it down to my son’s school to bring him home and try to get some food into him.
When I arrive at the school, my heart sinks to see Lewis already waiting in the reception area for me.
He looks so exhausted, like he hardly slept all night, and I wonder if I should have sent him in this morning at all.
I just hate the thought of him falling so far behind his peers; in a perfect world, I would send him to a school that was specifically constructed to manage his illness, so he could be around other children dealing with the same problems, but that’s not exactly a choice I get to make when my bank account is hurtling toward the negatives at breakneck speed.
“Hey, sweetie,” I greet him, trying to keep the sadness out of my voice as I stoop down to give him a hug. He grasps hold of me, and I lift him into my arms. He twines his little arms around my neck, and I sign him out of the school to bring him home.
“So, the school called and told me you couldn’t eat today,” I remark, glancing at him in the rearview mirror as we pull away from the school. He has his head between his legs, an attempt to manage the nausea that’s no doubt running through him right now, and he looks pale.
I hate seeing him like this so much, and it never gets easier.
From the very first time he got really sick, it feels like the universe has been playing a joke at my expense, making me watch my little boy go through something so painful and difficult and knowing the best I can do is be there for him and hope that he doesn’t entirely lose his grip on himself.
“You want me to put on some music?” I ask brightly, trying to turn the subject to something more exciting.
“No thank you,” Lewis replies, his voice small.
If he’s not even up for music, that’s bad news. He usually loves to listen to something in the car, but I guess I’m not going to get so lucky today. When he’s really unwell and truly overstimulated, the last thing he wants is to deal with me playing tunes.
We pull up outside the apartment, and I don’t even bother asking if he wants to walk in or not. I lean down and pull him into my arms, heading for the door, and carry him upstairs.
He’s five now, really too old for me to be lifting him like this, but he’s so tiny that sometimes I forget.
With how little he eats, it’s been a struggle to get him to hit his physical developmental milestones, and there’s nothing that makes you feel like a terrible mother than hearing from the doctor that you need to get your act together and start feeding him twice as much as you already were.
“Alright, sweetheart, you just rest, okay?” I tell him, as I gently lay him down on the couch, going to retrieve some of the safe foods that I stashed in the cupboard.
I pull out some pudding, some full-sugar Jell-O, and some fruit juice.
It’s not much, but it’s something, and right now I need something I can cling to.
I plant my hands on the counter and catch my breath for a moment, trying to pull myself together, though it feels nigh on impossible given the situation at hand. I just don’t know what more I can do, and that’s what is driving me crazy.
It has been three years of struggle, three years of tests, three years of trying to figure out exactly what’s going on with him, only to discover that it’s not the kind of the thing you can just slap a diagnosis on and get treatment for.
No, the best I can hope for is that it improves as he gets older, but what if it doesn’t?
What if it gets worse and he spends the rest of his life reliant on people to take care of him, falling behind the stuff that everyone else his age is doing?
Not that I have much business worrying about something like that, given that I’m hardly keeping pace with the people I went to high school with.
Most of them are doing their post-graduate degrees or establishing themselves in careers, but me?
Well, I got pregnant before I could so much as get into nursing school, and dropped everything to make sure that I could take care of my little boy.
I might have made a different choice, had it not been for the car accident that took my parents just a couple of weeks before I found out about the pregnancy.
By the time I came to realize that I was with child, there was no way in hell I was going to be giving up more family than I already had.
Matt swore to help me in any way he could.
Though, if he had known how I managed to get pregnant, he might have felt a little differently about the matter.
Which is precisely why he can never know the truth.
He adores his nephew, and I know that Lewis’s life wouldn’t be the same without his uncle Matt in it.
I don’t want the truth of how he came into this world to get in the way of the family bonds that they share.
God knows that I need to cling to them with everything I’ve got, because sometimes, it feels like they’re all that’s keeping me above water.
I arrange some food on a tray and bring it back through to Lewis, and grab my laptop, popping it open and clicking over to the streaming site that Matt has been kind enough to share his subscription with me for.
“Shall we watch something while you eat?” I suggest, draping my arm around Lewis’s shoulder and pulling him close.
“I’d like that,” he replies quietly, as he reaches for one of the Jell-O pouches, bringing them to his lips and gulping down a little. He must be starving, but his little stomach is so bloated I wonder how he doesn’t burst.
God, I hate seeing him like this so damn much, but I can’t let him know how deeply it upsets me. It’s not his fault he’s ill, and I’m never going to be the mom who makes him feel that way.
I scroll through a few different options until I stumble across a show that looks good, a silly little cartoon about a pair of dogs going to the beach. I turn it on and run my fingers through Lewis’s hair as the episode plays out in front of us, looking down at him and chewing my lip.
I love him so much, sometimes it feels like I have to bust wide open right then and there. I didn’t know how much I could adore a child until the first time I held Lewis in my arms, and I swore, in that moment, that I would do anything in my power to give him the life he deserved.
And I have, but it doesn’t feel like nearly enough.
I had a little bit of money put away before he was born, but that soon went down the drain as I had to pay for endless medical tests, expensive food that wouldn’t upset his stomach, everything that he needed to get by.
And it’s not like I can exactly take on some nine-to-five, given that I’m constantly called away to look after Lewis.
I’ve worked a little since he was born, but by the time I’m on my fifth callout of the week to pick him up from school during a particularly bad flare-up, the places I work normally tell me not to bother coming back in.
Matt does what he can, traveling around the country as a neurology specialist, but I don’t want to have to rely on my brother to take care of me, not if I can help it.
It makes me feel so damn useless, knowing that I have to turn to someone else to keep the money coming in, to help me with childcare.
Not that he’s around much to do that—right now, he’s across the state at a conference, and it’s not as though I can text him to ask him to bring me a few bits and pieces.
It’s just me. Me and Lewis. I kiss the top of his head and close my eyes, breathing in the scent of his hair, reminding myself how I felt when I held him at the hospital.
No matter what happens, I can’t let all this stress and frustration turn into resentment, because I know he wouldn’t choose a single part of this.
I don’t know where he even got the disease from in the first place.
I guess from his father, given that we don’t have a history of it in our family, but then…
But then, which father am I speaking about?
I have three to choose from. Three men I was with on that night, three men I’ve avoided ever since.
Matt has mentioned meeting up with his old roommates a few times, since they run a clinic doing something or other across the city, and he has invited me to join him, but I’ve turned him down every time.
I don’t know if he’s told them about Lewis, or, if he has, if they’ve put the pieces together about his parentage, but I’m not sure I want to know one way or another.
Some things are better left in the past, and I know that inviting all three of those men into my life after all this time would just bring more stress down on my head.
And on Lewis too, for that matter, which is the last thing he needs right now.
No, the best thing I can do for him is to keep things as steady as I possibly can, even if it feels like the truth might come leaking out the cracks at any second.
Lewis laughs at something in the cartoon, and I blink back into the moment, bringing myself to the here and now.
“Can I have one?” I ask him playfully, as I go to swipe one of the pudding cups from the tray.
Sometimes, he gets a little more enthused about eating if he gets the idea that his food is just that irresistible.
I should probably be more careful about watching my figure, but it’s not like I’m seeing anyone anyway.
Not like many people would look twice at a single mom with a kid who needs more help than most.
“No!” he protests, as he tries to scrabble it back from me—but he’s smiling, and my heart warms at the sight of the joy on his face.
It’s moments like these, no matter how few and far between they might be, that make it feel as though it’s all worthwhile.
I need to hang on to these for dear life, to remind myself that all of this is for a reason.
I want to see him smile, to see him happy, to see him thriving, and there’s not a thing in the world I wouldn’t do to make that happen.
I turn my attention back to the cartoon on the screen in front of us, trying to unwind a little. I doubt that the rest of this week is going to be any easier than the days that have already passed. But right now, it’s just me and my little boy, and I don’t care about anything else.