Chapter 9
Eleanor
“He’s so goofy!” I exclaimed as Mom and I went grocery shopping. I wandered in front of her as she pushed the cart. “He kept trying to win me the stuffed animal and ended up with a black eye. Even with the black eye, he seemed proud, though.”
“That’s so sweet, honey.”
“It was sweet, in a really dorky way.” I walked toward the fresh fruit, moving on my tiptoes as I thought about Greyson. Every now and then I’d start humming. “We’re supposed to go out for Mexican food next week, and I’m really excited about it.” My hands moved across the oranges.
Did Greyson like oranges?
I’d have to ask him. I wanted to know everything about Greyson East. The good, the bad, and his opinions on fruit.
“Oh, and I forgot to tell you—”
Crash.
I whipped around quickly at the loud sound, which snapped me from my current dreamy state.
“Mom!” I hollered, rushing over to her side. She was lying on the floor, and her eyes were crossing before they shut. I shook her body, but she wasn’t responding. “Mom, Mom! Someone help!” I shouted.
She completely blacked out, and my heart shattered into a million pieces.
An ambulance was called to the scene, and I cried harder than I’d ever cried as I sat beside her and tried to wake her up.
When she came to, she was dazed and confused.
She tried to speak, but she was too shaky.
I just stared at her, wide-eyed and terrified.
I watched as my tears splashed her cheekbones, so prominent under her thin skin.
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop sobbing.
I couldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t let go of the hopelessness I felt.
We were rushed to the hospital, and Dad met us there.
He forced me to sit in the waiting room as he searched for answers.
I sat, I waited, and I cried.
I sat, I waited, and I cried some more.
Mom was released a few hours later, and the whole ride home was completely still.
That was the day when it became real for me. That was the first time since finding out about her cancer that I was really afraid. For a while, I was naive enough to think that she was getting better rather than worse, then a wake-up call hit me in the fresh produce aisle.
* * *
The next morning, Mom walked into my room and gave me a small grin.
She wore a Janet Jackson T-shirt with overalls, and her hair was wrapped in a bandanna.
For the most part, she looked like her regular self.
You could hardly tell anything was wrong just by looking at her.
From the looks of it, she didn’t seem like a woman who had just blacked out the day before.
I thought that was the hardest part to wrap my mind around: How could she look OK but not be?
“Hey, beautiful,” she said.
“Hey, Mom.”
“So . . . yesterday was tough.”
“You should be in bed,” I told her. “You need rest.” I sat up a bit. “Sorry about that. I—”
She shook her head. “It’s fine, really. I just want to make sure you’re OK. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“You shouldn’t be worried about me.”
“I’m a mother, sweetheart. Worrying about my child is all I ever do.”
I lowered my head. “I’m scared, Mom.”
“I know.” She moved into the room and sat on the edge of the bed beside me. She wrapped an arm around me, and I rested my head against her shoulder.
“I just need you to be OK, all right? Can you do that?”
She combed her fingers through my hair but didn’t reply.
Mom was never one to make promises she couldn’t keep.
“Your dad went out to clear his head and will probably be out for a while. You want to drive over to Laurie Lake?”
“Are you OK enough to travel?” I asked warily.
“I promise, Ellie. I’m OK.”
“OK.”
We headed to the lake and walked out to our secluded area. It was hot that late morning. The high was supposed to be around ninety-five degrees, but it already felt like it was triple digits.
We sat under the sun, melting and drinking from the water bottles we’d brought. It was quiet for a while. I wondered if we were quiet because we didn’t have anything to say or because we didn’t know how to say it.
Mom tilted her head up to the sky with her eyes closed and felt the sun beating against her skin. “I was thirty-three the first time I found out I had cancer. You were two years old.”
I turned to face her, stunned. “You’ve had cancer before?”
“Yes. You were so young, and I remember crying with you in my arms, because the idea of leaving this world was too hard to face. You were so new to me, and your father and I had fought so hard to have you in our lives. You were just becoming your own person. I was watching you grow into this beautiful little girl with her own personality. I thought about all the things I’d miss, all the firsts you hadn’t even discovered.
Your first day at school, your first dance .
. . your first boyfriend, your first kiss.
Your first heartbreak. I remember getting so mad at the world, at my own body for bringing you to me only to take me away.
It felt unfair. I felt as if I’d betrayed myself.
One day when my worries were so loud and my heart was breaking, do you know what your father said to me? ”
“What?”
“‘You’re still here, Paige. You’re still here.’ That changed everything for me. I just need you to know that, too, OK?” She took my hand into hers and patted it gently. “I’m still here, Ellie.”
“I can’t stop thinking about if you weren’t, though. I thought yesterday was . . .” I shut my eyes and inhaled hard. “I thought you were gone . . .”
“I know, but even if a day comes when you can’t physically see me, I’m still here. Always.”
I took a breath.
That was a difficult concept.
“I’m really scared, Mom,” I confessed.
“Fear’s OK, as long as you don’t let it drown you.” She looked down at her hands. “Do you know the story behind the dragonflies?” she asked. “Do you know what they stand for?”
“No. You’ve never told me.”
“In almost all parts of the world, the dragonfly stands for change and transformation. They live most of their life as a nymph. Do you know what that means?”
“Like a fairy?”
She smiled. “Well, that’s one of the meanings, but in this case it means an insect with incomplete metamorphosis. It’s the stage before it gets its wings. Dragonflies only actually fly for a small fraction of their lives.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Crazy, right? When you see dragonflies, you would believe they fly all their lives, but you don’t take into account the number of flightless days that came before.
The dragonfly never gets down on itself for not having wings, though.
It never overthinks when they will come.
It just lives fully in the moment. That’s what they mean to me: living in the moment.
They live each day moment by moment, not overthinking the future. ”
I knew what she was getting at. “I’m not a dragonfly, Mom. I can’t help but overthink everything.”
“I know. I’ve been overthinking things, too, but I also want to find the good moments.
I don’t want the next however many days to be filled with sad times, Ellie.
I want to know the good things. I like to think you can find a reason to smile every single day if you look hard enough.
So can you do that for me? For us? Can you find a reason every single day to smile? ”
“Yes,” I promised, even though I didn’t know if it was true. For her, I’d try. I fiddled with my fingers as dragonflies buzzed around in the distance. “You didn’t miss one of the firsts,” I told her. “Greyson kissed me two nights ago.”
Mom’s eyes lit up, and for the first time in the past twenty-four hours, she smiled, a real smile filled with happiness. “Oh my gosh.” She placed her hands on top of mine. “Tell me everything.”
As I told her, she kept smiling ear to ear, and I realized I was smiling too, not because Greyson had kissed me, but because Mom was happy that day. Seeing her glow felt so amazing. Seeing her not crying was what made my lips curve upward.
She was my reason to smile.