Rhys
Diagnosis [die-uhg-noh-sis] n—The process of determining the nature and
circumstances of a diseased condition
Emmy and I haven’t spoken since we left Mom’s house. And as I pull up in front of Emmy’s, I can’t help thinking I’ve ruined any chance of a relationship. I turn off the ignition and move to open my door, but Emmy puts her hand on my arm, stopping me. “Is she why you’re here?”
One of the things I like best about Emmy is that she isn’t afraid to ask questions. I love her innocence and her wide-eyed curiosity. She also gets when I don’t want to talk any further about a subject. Like right now, instead of pressing for answers, she waits for me to take the lead. “Yes. She’s why I’m here.”
Nodding, she looks around the truck’s interior, then back at me. “You had to move here and take care of her. She’s why you didn’t get your truck.”
I let out a quick breath and nod. “Any hope I had of buying that truck went up in flames when I decided to move here.” I laugh humorlessly. “I was upset at the time. It seems stupid now, but I had worked hard to afford that truck, and not only did I have to leave UCAL, I also had to cash in my savings.”
“It’s not stupid. If I had worked so hard for something and my dream had died, I would have been disappointed too.”
That’s true, but . . . “Mom’s dreams died too.”
“Do you live with her? Is that why we can’t study at your place?”
“No. Mom wants to maintain as much of her independence as she can for as long as she can. I tried to convince her to let me move in, but she said no.”
“Oh. What made her choose Provo?”
“When she wasn’t able to work full-time anymore, she got really into network marketing. Provo is a mecca for that kind of thing.”
She nods, smiling, and I study the angel sitting next to me. My eyes follow the curve of her lips, and her bright-blonde hair glows in the moonlight. She’s told me so much about herself over the past few weeks, and I’ve shared so little. It’s unfair to dump anymore on her tonight, but she deserves to know more.
“When I was in second grade, my dad moved our family from Arizona to Denver.” I pull at my collar. “That’s where Mom’s left hand first went numb.” The truth doesn’t exactly roll off my tongue. This is the first time in years I’ve volunteered any significant piece of information about myself to anyone. “The numbness didn’t last long, and because it was her left hand, it didn’t affect her life much. She was able to keep working, and she was still able to cook and clean, so nothing much changed. We all thought it was a fluke, something brought on from stress. Nothing to be concerned about, you know? But then a few months later, she was so dizzy she had trouble standing, and she got so weak she couldn’t zip her jeans.
“At first Mom and Dad made it work. Dad picked up the slack while we waited for her to get back to normal. But after a few years, he couldn’t take Mom being tired or grumpy or sick anymore”—I crack my knuckles against the steering wheel—“so he left.”
Emmy blanches. “Your mom got sick, and your dad left?”
School of hard knocks. “Yeah.”
Emmy exhales, shaking her head.
“After he left, Mom, Cami, and I limped along. Mom took temp jobs when the vertigo and fatigue lessened, and I found small jobs fixing things around the neighborhood to help out when she couldn’t. But when her legs went numb, we knew it was more than a coincidence. Cami and I talked Mom into going to see a doctor, and after several visits and scans that cost more than we could afford, we finally got a diagnosis.”
Emmy leans forward as if scared to hear the results, much like I remember feeling when I was sitting in the doctor’s office the day my life came crashing down.
“Multiple sclerosis,” I say. “MS.”
“Oh, Rhys.” Emmy’s eyes squeeze shut for a moment. “I’m so sorry.”
I shrug. “It’s nothing.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not nothing.”
“It’s been my life for so long it’s hard to remember anything else.” And it will be my life for one more semester, until I have my diploma and I can work a real job. After that, things will change. Life will get easier.
I clear the emotion out of my voice. “Things haven’t always been bad. After Mom was diagnosed, she took medication for a while, and her health improved. She even held down a full-time job while Cami and I were in high school. I think that’s why we both felt confident moving away from home for college.”
“Where did you guys go?”
“All three of us moved from Denver, actually. Cami graduated a semester early and moved to New York to pursue her dream of working in fashion. Mom moved to Provo to start her own network-marketing business. And I moved to Los Angeles to go to school at UCAL.”
My senior year of high school, when I got the acceptance letter to UCAL, I felt invincible, like for the first time in my life I was finally creating my own destiny. Dad had left, and Mom had been sick, but that was all in the past. Los Angeles, UCAL, was my future, and no one could stop me. But now, sitting next to Emmy, admitting my escape to LA, I’m ashamed. I should have been caring for Mom.
“What happened? How did you end up in Provo?” she asks, confused.
“Mom’s disease relapsed.” The perfect kink in my plan. The one thing I will never be able to control.
“But you were in school. Why didn’t Cami come?”
“She had just been hired as an intern at her dream job. Mom and I agreed we couldn’t ask her to come home.”
“Don’t you have extended family?”
“Nah. Mom’s an only child, and both her parents are gone.”
Emmy nibbles her fingernail. Without thinking, I reach out and pull her hand away from her mouth. I move to let go, but her grip tightens, so I rest our hands on the center console instead. My eyes trace the woven pattern of our fingers. Hers are a pale white, mine a deep brown. Everything about us is different. Our families, how we grew up, and probably how we see our futures. But right now, holding her hand feels right.
“Will your mom be okay?” Emmy asks quietly.
“Mom’s symptoms come and go, but when she’s on medication, she does much better.” I massage the back of my neck with my free hand. “You remember the night we got ice cream?”
A smile touches her lips, and she nods.
“I had to leave because Mom sent me a 911 text.”
Emmy’s thumb rubs the back of my hand, and I loosen my grip, realizing how tightly I’m holding on to her—like she’s my lifeline. But as soon as my hold lightens, Emmy’s grip strengthens like she’s not willing to let me drift away without a fight.
“There is no cure,” I continue. “Her medications help alleviate her symptoms, but because they can’t cure her, she refuses to take them. All she wants to do is change her diet or try some weird new potion. I’m constantly battling with her to take her disease seriously. I wish she would accept that she has MS and take her medication. If she had been on her meds, maybe she wouldn’t be in a wheelchair right now.”
“Is it possible that her way of fighting her disease is just different from yours?”
“Yes. But it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. All the pamphlets and support groups say to get mad at the MS, not the person who has MS, but every time she tries some new-age therapy instead of taking her FDA-approved medication, I want to scream.”
Emmy is silent for several moments, as if processing all the information. Some first date. I look at my cell for the time. We’ve been sitting here for over an hour. It’s nearly midnight. “I should walk you in,” I say, even though that’s the last thing I want to do.
As we head up the brick steps to her front porch, Emmy reaches for my hand. The simple gesture reassures me that she’s as reluctant to say good night as I am.
She unlocks the front door but doesn’t open it. “Thank you for trusting me.”
She squeezes my hand, and a warm chill races up my arm. Everything inside of me wants to kiss her, but I can’t remember what the rules are, and I don’t want to rush things, so I stuff my hands in my pockets.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asks.
“It’s my day off, and Mom needs help around the house.”
Emmy doesn’t miss a beat. “Let me come with you. After rehearsal. Two hands are better than one, right? Or no, four hands are better than two . . .”
I try to disguise a smile as the words flow out of her mouth. I love it when she does this. This night turned to trash, but I’d live through it all again to listen to Emmy ramble.