A documentary about the Second World War is the only interesting thing to watch as I lie on my side, foam-rolling my IT band. My skin is sticky from sweat and I still feel out of breath from my run.
My mother’s laughter peals through my apartment, her ringtone drowning out Tom Hanks’s voice on the television. I reach blindly behind me, searching for my cell phone on the coffee table. Grabbing it with two fingers, I hit the speaker button right before it goes to voicemail.
“Hi, Mom,” I say, a little breathless.
“Hello, my little pot roast.”
I laugh. She hasn’t called me that in years. Probably since I was in middle school and complaining about the social politics of band or the actual politics of mock UN.
“What’s up?” I ask, as I switch to my other side to roll out my opposite leg.
She pauses. “Not much. Just wanted to hear your voice.” Hers shakes.
I pause. “Is everything—”
“How’s work?” she asks over me.
“Fine,” I say slowly. The hairs stand up on the back of my neck. This is it, I realize. This is the call.
“How is your intern?”
I’m so caught off guard, I stop, my mouth half open. I don’t want to talk about him. But Mom can read the pause for what it’s worth. One of the best things about this woman is she knows when you need to be pushed and when you need time. This time she pushes.
“Everything going okay with him?”
I sigh. Mom now knows about the elevator. At the mention of the C-word, she made a twittering sound and got very flustered.
I hum to avoid the real answer: that I think I made an assumption about him and treated him poorly for the last few weeks because of it. That no matter what I throw at Mr. Chambers, he does it without question. He certainly scowls about it. But he hasn’t once complained, to me or about me, to anyone.
“What’s up, Mom?” I ask, turning the subject back to her. I don’t even want to say the word biopsy, so I go with, “Is everything okay?”
Another pause. “Let me get Daddy.”
She calls for my stepdad, her voice muffled, and a few seconds later, he picks up the extension.
“Hey there, princess.”
I’ve never loved the nickname. But it was my stepdad’s version of affection when I was growing up.
“Hi, Dad.”
There’s silence again. I sit up slowly, turning the television down and moving the foam roller to the side. I stand and start pacing. “What’s going on, you guys?”
Dad clears his throat. “Lindy?”
I imagine my stepdad in his office.
My mom in the kitchen.
They still have landlines, with curled phone cords. She’s looping it through her fingers right now.
“Well, I had the biopsy,” she says slowly.
I walk toward my office. My face is a furnace, my head floats above my shoulders, not quite attached to my body. “Okay.”
“Because you know, I’ve been having some...” She pauses. “Stomach troubles.”
She says this nervously, an uncomfortable little laugh attached that reminds me, in a sudden hot flash, of Mr. Chambers. I shove the vision of his face aside. My mother does not speak about the things that take place in bathrooms.
Setting the phone down on my desk, I poise my fingers above my laptop keyboard, ready to type the diagnosis into Google.
I swallow down the nerves. “So you went to the doctor and...?” My voice sounds as tight as my chest feels.
“It’s cancer.”
She says this so quickly. There’s no preparation. No time to adjust to the idea. It’s just there. Cancer. No amount of prep or anticipation can prepare me.
Up until this moment, I thought cunt was the worst C-word anyone had ever said to me.
“What kind of cancer?” I am surprised by how level I sound, because I feel like I’ve been knocked over.
Mom says nothing.
“Well, the mass is on her ovary,” Dad explains.
His voice trembles and this pulls tears from my eyes. Big, bold Daddy. Good Midwestern stock. My stalwart, stoic stepfather trying not to cry.
“Dr. Gimble said not to Google anything.”
Mom throws this out there quickly but it’s too late. Early signs, symptoms, detection, treatment, and causes all come up on my screen.
“They still have more tests to run,” she says.
Her voice is quiet but strong. Mom is trying to be brave, for us. I can be brave for her, too. I put the phone on mute and take one large, gasping breath. I fill my lungs with oxygen until they feel like they’re going to burst. I hold it for three, five, ten seconds. Not until I can feel my heartbeat behind my eyes and my lungs are screaming, do I let it all out. I do it once more. Then I unmute.
I feel less like a balloon floating into the atmosphere and more like myself.
“Have you told the boys?” I ask. I am older than my triplet younger brothers, John, James, and Sebastian, by six years. They are all adults with full-time jobs, but they’ll always be “the boys” to me.
“No. Not yet,” Mom says.
I nod even though she can’t see me. My brothers are momma’s boys. She’d be comforting them more than they’d comfort her. I didn’t realize until this moment, though, how much of a momma’s girl I am.
“I can get a flight out on Saturday evening,” I say, scrolling through the flight options.
“No, no. You stay there. I’d rather not turn it into something bigger than it is,” Mom says quietly.
“This is pretty big, Mom,” I say gently. I’m torn between respecting her wishes and just wanting to be with my mom. My brain, heart, and many more of my internal organs already feel like they’re halfway to Minnesota even if the rest of my body is still in this chair.
“I love you, Mommy.”
I haven’t called her Mommy since the boys were born. When I became a big sister I decided that I was too mature to have a mommy anymore.
“Oh, Corrine.” Her voice breaks. “I love you, too.”