Plus One

Chapter 1 Monique

Monique Moore pressed her knuckles into her right hip and checked the clock again, watching for the end of this doctor-recommended class that billed itself as a support group.

Adjusting her weight in the hard plastic chair couldn’t ease the dull ache radiating from her lower abdomen, a phantom reminder of what was no longer there.

At forty-seven, she knew better than to watch the clock. The past couple of years had proven that time was not her friend and apparently did whatever the hell it wanted in this room.

“So, who wants to start this week’s reinforcements?

” Dr. Tedrow began, his too-young-looking face open and eager as he sought a volunteer.

“The new year is upon us.” He went on about choices and emotions, and about how resolutions were manufactured pressure.

Monique focused on the clock’s second hand. It refused to budge.

“Mo.” Damn.

“You’ve been quiet this week. How will you Thrive with Cancer as you ring in the new year?”

She kept her eyes on her workbook and the blank spaces that screamed with judgment. All negative space. Nothing would come into focus.

Monique clapped the book shut and looked up. Ten sets of eyes fell on her like an anvil. Attending this group each week was supposed to be her “trying.” Trying for her kids. Trying for her mom. Trying something different.

She hadn’t resigned herself to her mother’s fate, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t afraid. The doctors had been diligent. Cancer came anyway.

Thriving with Cancer. Pfft.

She’d seen too many Black, brown, and poor women in her community—in her family—navigate these dark and treacherous waters and never emerge on the other side after their concerns were called stress and they’d been sent home to “rest.”

But Jasmine and Justin deserved more than a Doomsday Clock for a mother.

She promised she’d try. That’s why she joined this group.

“Well… my cousin is getting married New Year’s weekend.” Romantic sighs rippled around her. “So I’m going to the wedding.”

“That’s fantastic. There’s nothing like a wedding to inspire hope for the future,” Dr. Tedrow said. “I know you don’t have much family here. Are you traveling?”

Tommie Lane was her slightly older cousin on her father’s side and did nothing small, ordinary, or in half measures. That’s why she would arrive in Puerto Rico tomorrow at the ass-crack of dawn. “It’s their second marriage, so they’re having a destination wedding.”

“How fun,” Chickie said beside her, her veins blue-green beneath tissue-paper skin as her cheeks pulled up into a smile. “You’ll be so gorgeous all dressed up.” She reached out and placed a prematurely aged hand on Monique’s.

Chickie was admirable—twenty-eight and always talking in whens, never ifs. Her hospice nurse, though, sat behind her like a shadow. Quiet. Sentinel. Ready.

Monique softly squeezed Chickie’s hand, and her chest constricted at the unfairness of it all. Everyone in this room was fighting the same enemy. But some battles were winding down. She tried to shake off the dark thought.

God, why am I so morbid?

No. She wasn’t morbid. She was real. And real took up a lot of space in rooms like this.

Sharing one evening a week with people on timelines that were anything but flexible, yet were expected to thrive, put her life in a whole ’nother frame.

This wasn’t a misshapen mole to be excised and forgotten. Monique’s insides had been ripped out.

Her body still remembered…

She’d been diagnosed at forty-four with Stage 3 cervical cancer—a beast that required an aggressive response.

A full hysterectomy, the doctors had said, was “the best chance to get it all.” And Monique allowed herself to believe she was on the winning side of that fight.

Then a new pain nagged, and scans confirmed what she never wanted to say out loud.

Relapse. After that, a scorched earth campaign.

More infusions, more radiation, more drugs that stole her color—her flavor—and made her world small and gray.

The mass shrank, and so did she, until her kids were holding the house up around her and reminding her to rest and eat.

“Where’s the wedding?” Eleanor rasped, tugging at the silk scarf she wore that made her look like a golden-age Hollywood movie star. The scarf wasn’t vanity. It covered the creped and discolored skin along Eleanor’s left jaw and neck where throat cancer had scrawled its autograph.

The wedding. Right. Monique blinked and refocused. “Puerto Rico. A resort in Old San Juan.”

More oohs and sighs wafted over her, blending with murmurs of remembrances of lives that felt so far away.

“We went to Puerto Rico a while back,” Chickie said as her nurse nodded along with a mournful smile.

“Before the cystic fibrosis got worse.” Chickie shrugged as if staring down death on the regular was no big deal.

“We were all over the island. But my favorite was hiking in the mountains.” A wistful sort of expression made Chickie look like the young woman that she was.

“There was a nature preserve with more birds than I’d ever seen in my life. ”

An ember of interest pulsed at the mention of a nature preserve. If she could spend her time away from the family, just her and her camera, then maybe this trip would be enjoyable.

“Hiking? How did you manage that?” asked Eleanor. She coughed, a nerve-rattling vibrato. Monique winced and nudged Eleanor’s water closer.

“A group from our synagogue went. I don’t remember how it all came together—” Chickie sucked in a long, wheezing breath, the oxygen tubes as much a part of her body as the nose on her face.

“I was only in like seventh grade. My brother came home from college to go with us. He and Dad took turns carrying me when I got tired, and Mom carried everything else.” Her words rattled in her chest like dice.

“One of the other parents who chaperoned was on my medical team.” Her breathing calmed as she shrugged again.

“After that, I was in the hospital for six months.”

Understanding settled over the room like a weighted blanket. It wasn’t comforting. Here, no one’s differences or details mattered. They all knew Chickie’s story and how hard she’d already fought to breathe. Now they were watching her battle end-stage lung cancer up close.

For weeks, Dr. Tedrow preached the benefits of a positive mental outlook, but that was hard, dammit.

Hard when Monique was adrift, isolated, picking at old wounds, and estranged from everyone except her twins.

And the house grew quieter every day. Cancer had scarred her, and not just on the outside.

“Okay,” Dr. Tedrow said, a little too cheery, drawing attention away from Chickie. “Mo is ringing in the new year in paradise, kind of epitomizing our charge to Thrive with Cancer. So, who else? What will you reinforce this week?”

While she wanted to celebrate Tommie’s happiness, she didn’t really want to go. Tommie Lane, though, did not take no for an answer. Ever. And according to her kids and everyone else who voiced their unsolicited opinions, this trip would be good for her.

If only she could believe that.

When Monique next looked up, the room was emptying. She’d been so lost in her spiraling thoughts that she’d missed everyone’s reinforcements and well-wishes as they departed. Now she sat alone with a psychologist who probably still got carded when buying liquor.

“I wanted to check in with you,” he said, leaning on the desk across from her. “See how things are now that your children are home for the holidays.”

Late December in Chicago, and this guy dressed like he was in Key West. The socks and sandals were almost too much.

“Yeah,” Monique said, gathering her things to signal that she had no time for private check-ins.

She had cancer. It sucked and could take up too much space in her head if she gave it more room—like the couple of hours spent in this group each week.

But Monique was a master at handling unpleasant things. Keep it moving.

“I’m good, Doc—”

“Derek.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Now, Mo, we’ve been at this long enough. I thought we’d be friends by now. Still with the formalities?”

Monique shook her head. “Yeah, I just wasn’t raised like that.”

“Okay,” Dr. Tedrow said with a sigh as he leaned back. “Tell me. How are things?”

If she didn’t give him something, she’d be there all night.

“Last round of treatment and scans weren’t too long ago.

Just kind of a wait-and-see now.” She stood, pulling her purse strap onto her shoulder and glancing toward her coat hanging on the hook by the door.

If she looked at him with all his earnest concern and helpfulness, Monique didn’t know what she’d do.

“But your numbers look great. No evidence of disease. It’s okay to celebrate being in remission, Monique.” He made his next words more pointed. “You should celebrate.”

No evidence of disease. “Sure, everything looks good and all, but you know…” She shrugged and walked away.

Remission was just a word, one she had reveled in this time last year.

And then they cut her back open and cleaned out rogue cells that had managed to evade CT scans and tumor markers.

In the process, they had cleared out what little hope she had left too.

Yeah, she’d wait and see before celebrating.

Cancer wasn’t going to catch her slipping again.

Her knuckles found that spot on her hip again and pressed down.

Dr. Tedrow moved almost silently behind her. The soft curls that now covered her head weren’t enough to cushion the impact of his precise, dewdrop-blue gaze.

“You know you can tell me anything, right? I’m here to help.”

Monique took a deep breath to stop herself from breaking into a full sprint out the open door. Coat be damned.