Chapter 1 #2
Alicia drives us back to my mom’s apartment, turning up the radio to try to brighten the mood.
Once we’re upstairs, she does the same, putting on music that we used to have dance parties to in high school on her phone and turning it up once I assure her my mom is awake and doesn’t mind.
And it does help. It’s hard not to laugh when my best friend starts belting out Avril Lavigne like she’s doing bad karaoke.
We get most of my books unpacked and stacked on various shelves, and the remaining boxes moved to my room to put on the bookshelves there.
I try to ignore how badly my back hurts as I carry the boxes in and set them at the foot of the mattress I’m using for now until my bed frame is delivered, and plop down on the edge of it for a second, breathing hard.
“I’m going to order Chinese,” Alicia announces from the living room. “Ask your mom what she wants?”
“You don’t have to do that,” I start to say, but she levels that best-friend glare at me that tells me she’s not going to take no for an answer. “Alright,” I relent. “Mongolian beef for me? With lo mein?”
“And extra crab rangoon. I know your order, bitch.” Alicia grins at me from the other side of a box. “Go ask your mom if hers is still sesame chicken or if she wants to try something new.”
Another smile makes its way to my face despite my exhaustion. No matter what—no matter how hard things are—my best friend can always make it a little better. “Okay. Be right back.”
I find my mom in her bedroom, where she said she was going to stay while we moved me in so that she wouldn’t ‘be in the way’—her words, not mine. She’s in an armchair next to the window that overlooks the park, and I blink back tears as I look at her, trying valiantly not to cry.
The cancer isn’t so advanced yet that it’s changed her appearance very much.
She’s thinner and a little paler. Right now it’s still the pretty dark auburn that it’s always been, paler streaks threaded through it from age, piled up on her head in a messy bun, but it will be gone soon.
The nurses warned us about that, the longer she’s in chemo.
The sight of it makes my throat tighten—I can’t imagine my mother losing her hair.
Reflexively, I touch my own ponytail. Mine is just like hers.
I have her hair, and her eyes, and her chin, and her nose.
Her figure, and her sense of humor. I’m almost entirely my mom, which has always made me happy—my father was never in my life, and so I’ve never wanted any part of him to show up in me.
There’s a book in her lap, but I can see that she’s not really reading. She’s looking out of the window at the snow that’s started to fall in light, small flakes, and she glances over after a moment at the sound of my footsteps, a tired smile on her face.
"How's the unpacking going, sweetheart?"
I swallow hard, forcing myself to speak without letting my voice crack. "Good. Alicia's ordering Chinese. You want your usual?"
"That sounds perfect." She nods at the edge of the bed across from her armchair. "Sit with me for a minute?"
I perch on the edge of the mattress, resisting the urge to fall back onto it and let my exhaustion consume me.
My whole body aches, but I’m not going to get to go to sleep anytime soon.
I need to make some sense of the chaos I’ve created in the apartment with all of my stuff, and there’s still that number to call.
I can’t imagine it’s going to be incredibly straightforward, but maybe it will be. I’ll give whoever it is my banking information over the phone—something that I, as a finance major, know to never do—if they’ll give me the money I need to get my mom through this.
"I'm proud of you, you know," Mom says quietly. "For everything you're doing. I know this isn't how you pictured your life going right now."
I manage a smile. “I’d do anything for you. You know that. And plus, it’s not so bad. Moving in, I mean. We’ll get to spend more time together.”
She rolls her eyes. “Sure, Leila. At twenty-two I would have been thrilled to live with my parents. Absolutely stoked.”
A laugh bubbles up from my throat at her sarcasm. “Really. It’s not like I have a hot love life or anything. And I can still go out and stuff… nothing will really change.”
She gives me a knowing look. “You’re so tired all the time already.”
We both know she doesn’t need to say more.
Both of us know how this is going to go—how my endless workweeks are going to be bookended and mashed up with doctor’s appointments and phone calls and, soon enough, me needing to do everything around the house, cook and clean and manage her bills and mine, and take care of her on top of it.
“Maybe we can get a cleaner to come once a week—” Mom starts to say, but I shake my head.
“It’s fine. I’ve got it. Really.”
It’s an expense we can’t afford. Not when the college has let her go after she couldn’t commit to a full course load this upcoming semester, when her health insurance isn’t covering all the costs, when her savings are being blown through faster than either of us can imagine.
Luxuries are not going to be something we have for a while. And if I could afford any luxury, it would be for my mom, not to take something off of my plate.
“You’re giving up so much.” She bites her lip. “I really wonder if it’s worth it, sweetheart.”
The tears that I’ve been fighting so hard all day instantly well in my eyes. “Don’t say that,” I tell her firmly, leaning forward to grasp her hand. “Don’t even think it. Of course it’s worth it.”
I’m sure of that. She’s right—I am giving up a lot, even if I’d never admit it out loud—the dream apartment I was supposed to be living in, all of the exciting nights I was looking forward to as an early twenty-something living in downtown Boston.
Nights out with friends, hangover brunches, bringing home hot guys and not caring if they called me back.
Working long hours not to see all of the money instantly vanish, but to build my own future and give myself something secure, so that I’d never struggle like my mother did when she was alone and raising me.
I’d pictured saving for vacations I’d take Alicia on.
We’ve talked so many times about going to Spain, or Greece, or Japan, and she always laments how long it’ll be until she can afford something like that with her bartending job that doesn’t pay all that well.
I calculated savings and how soon I could surprise her with a birthday trip.
Now that money is going toward chemo and my mom’s mortgage. But I don’t regret it. I can’t.
I also can’t let myself think about it for too long, though, or it feels like too much.
"I'm not giving up anything that matters," I tell her, and I mean it. "You're what matters."
She squeezes my hand. "I love you, sweetheart."
A few of the tears spill over, clinging to my lashes. "I love you too, Mom."
An hour later, the three of us are sitting around my mom’s antique dining table with containers of Chinese food spread out in front of us.
The smell of sweet, sticky sauce, lo mein, and grease is comforting.
It feels like Friday nights back in high school, when Alicia would come over for a sleepover and my mom would order exactly this.
For a moment, everything almost feels normal.
"So, Leila," Mom says, picking at her sesame chicken, "tell me about work. How are things going with the new project?"
I exchange a glance with Alicia. I haven't told Mom about how strained things have gotten at the office, how irritated my boss is that I have another demand on my time that isn’t what he needs or wants from me.
I have no plans to, either—the last thing I want is her feeling like more of a burden. "It's good. Challenging, but good."
"She's being modest," Alicia jumps in. "She's basically running the whole client analysis for this huge merger. It’s a really big thing.”
I grab a crab rangoon, giving her a pointed look. My mom knows what kind of workload someone with my job has, but I don’t want to overemphasize it. I don’t want her spending any energy worrying about me.
"That's wonderful, honey." Mom's eyes light up with pride. "I knew you'd impress them."
I feel myself relax a little. “It takes a lot to impress the higher-ups there,” I admit. “So I don’t know if that’s what I’m doing, exactly, so much as earning my keep. But it is a big deal. And it’s going well, so far.”
So far. Half the reason I’m not sleeping is the nightmares I have every night about showing up to meetings unprepared, documents getting mysteriously deleted from my computer, being late to work because I slept in.
The typical late-to-an-exam high school nightmares—but now with much more at stake, and dialed up to eleven.
My mom pushes her sesame chicken around her plate again, and my stomach twists. “You’re barely eating,” I murmur. I’d promised myself we wouldn’t talk about anything bad over dinner, but worry is making me break my rule already. "Is the nausea getting worse?"
She shrugs, pushing a piece of chicken around on her plate. “It’s not great,” she says with a chuckle. “But mostly I just don’t have much of an appetite. It’s really good, though,” she adds, taking a bite. “Thank you for ordering it, Alicia.”
“It’s the least I could do,” Alicia says quickly. “That, and helping Leila move in. I wish I could do more—” She looks at me, and I give her a narrow-eyed glare.
Don’t, I mouth, and she lets out a sigh.
“What?” Mom looks between the two of us. “Is there something I’m missing?”
Alicia looks at me nervously, then at my mom. “I offered to give Leila some money,” she blurts out. “I’ve got some savings. But she said no—”
“Absolutely not,” my mom interrupts. “We will be just fine. There’s no way I’m taking money from you, sweetheart.”
“I want to help, though—”
“I know.” Mom offers her a smile. "But we'll figure it out. We always do."