THE LAST BEST WEEKEND
Lacey
Staggering into the house after a weekend of full-on Marcia, I always smelled like a distillery and felt like I might never hear again in at least one ear. This Sunday was no different.
“You’re home.” Grandma walked toward me, carrying a dish towel and wiping her hands.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked, putting down my bag and trying not to blink for too long. I was wiped.
“They’re on their way home now.” She smiled, but there was something off. Something in her eyes and her voice and her way of wiping her hands on that towel over and over and over until I wanted to snatch it from her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing. You want some soup?” She turned away from me, still wiping her hands.
“Grandma?” I didn’t move.
“Everyone’ll be home in half an hour, dear. Don’t ask any more questions right now.” Her voice cracked. “The soup’s on the stove. Help yourself.” She turned and left for her room instead of the kitchen, and my insides clenched.
I was too hungover for this, whatever this family drama was. I had plans, great plans. I was going to iron my clothes for tomorrow and get to bed early after about six Gatorades. An upset grandma and some kind of familial tension wasn’t on the books for my first day back at the summer job. Likely whatever was wrong was about money. As in, my parents needed to borrow some from Grandma, again.
Groaning, I wandered into the kitchen and ladled out some of her famous broccoli-cheese soup—my favorite. She even baked the cheesy garlic fingers to go with it, made with love. Like all her food.
Since my grandpa had died a few years back, she’d come to live with us, and I always appreciated having her around. Sure, we lost the home office to her bedroom, but we gained so much more in return. She was a mother and father to me when my own were inundated with work, which was just about all the time. She cooked and tidied and ran the house, which my mother found annoying, but everyone else vetoed her into silence about it.
I spooned the soup and blew on it, cooling it off. The first bite healed at least half of the things wrong with me after a full weekend of partying and reckless endangerment to my organs.
The second bite soothed my stiff neck and shoulders—residual tension from end-of-year exams.
The third bite was a dunked piece of cheesy garlic bread. I moaned into the bowl, forgetting all my worries.
By the time Mom and Dad walked in the kitchen, Mom still in scrubs and Dad looking a little older than he had last week, I was doing amazing.
For five whole seconds, I was doing amazing.
Then I saw their eyes. Red, puffy, and swollen, like they’d been fighting again.
“Hi,” I offered, trying not to be concerned. They argued about money a lot.
“Hi, sweetie.” Mom hugged me. Dad looked weird, constipated or stuck in thought.
“How’s it going?” I asked, kinda scared of the answer.
“Not great, kiddo. We need to talk,” Dad said gravely, and sat, no greeting or hug or even a punch in the arm. I hadn’t even seen him in a week.
“What about?” I gulped, feeling the burn of fear in my throat. Why were they bringing me into their problems?
“Martin.”
“Where’s Martin?” I asked, noting he hadn’t come into the kitchen even though broccoli-cheese soup was his favorite. Was he involved in the drama? Or purposely keeping his distance from it?
“He’s gone upstairs. He’s resting.” Mom sounded exhausted, but also like she might burst into tears any second.
“Is he all right?” I asked, no longer so sure what this was all about. Something was wrong. Really wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten before they got home. I’d assumed there was something to talk about after Grandma’s weird behavior, but this was on a different level than a simple financial spat.
“No.” My father struggled with the conversation.
“No?” Did he just confirm that Martin wasn’t okay?
My mother’s shoulders shuddered as she heaved without making noises, apart from the odd sniffle.
“Martin is sick, Lacey.” Dad’s jaw trembled, and his eyes started to water. “We’ve been holding back from telling you until we had definitive news, but now we do.”
“Sick?” I was lost. My hard-ass dad was crying because Martin was sick. What kind of sick made my dad cry? “What do you mean?”
“The doctors said he’s going to be okay, but he’s got a long road ahead of him.” Mom tried to make it better before she even explained.
“What is wrong with Martin?” I demanded.
“He has cancer. Thyroid cancer. Same as Grandpa had.” Dad’s words turned to a grave whisper.
It took me a second to fully hear him. I repeated his sentence multiple times, but it wouldn’t stick. There was no way my seventeen-year-old brother had cancer. He was fine.
“What does that mean?” I couldn’t comprehend it.
“Firstly, you need to understand he’s going to be okay. Your mom caught it early. His sore throat and coughing and other symptoms lasted too long. She knew something was up. He was diagnosed this week, and the doctors are already on the ball. They’re going to start treatment right away, which begins with a surgery to remove the tumor.”
“Tumor?” I whispered.
“Yes. But hear me, he’s going to get through this.” Dad’s voice cracked a little, making me suspicious of whether that was the truth or whether he was saying it for my benefit. “It’s just the initial shock stings.”
About to ask or say something else, I realized it wasn’t words that were going to shoot from my mouth. I wasn’t going to make it to the bathroom, so I ran for the back door. I tripped on the last step and fell onto my knees on the grass, puking soup and bad life choices all over the yard.
My body refused to allow those words to enter, so it chased them away by expelling everything else from me.
My brother, my seventeen-year-old brother, my baby brother.
Gut-wrenching sadness rocked me, spewing my feelings and vomit everywhere.
It was a scene from The Exorcist.
When I was finally empty of feelings and food and fluids, I sat back on my knees and held myself. I cried, but nothing left me; dry sobs burned my eyes as my parents rushed outside after me.
I wanted to ask more questions, but I couldn’t get past the lack of tears.
Mom and Dad surrounded me with arms and warmth and hugs, stroking my hair and comforting me. As if this were happening to me. I pushed them away, spinning and running for the house. I bolted up the stairs, my legs attempting to give out on every stair before I burst into my brother’s room.
“They told you?” he complained, a solemn look on his face. I dove onto the bed and attacked, smothering him in pukey older-sister love. The tears hit then.
I flooded his shirt, cradling him and, in the end, myself.
“You’re sick?” I couldn’t seem to control myself, making it worse.
“No. Well, sort of.” He grumbled again, wiggling like he wanted to get away but then eventually wrapping his arms around me. “It’s not exactly like Gramps. I’m going to be fine. The doctor sounded really positive. You’re not rid of me yet, and there’s no way you’re getting all the inheritance to yourself.”
“Shut up,” I snorted, wiping my face on him. “You can’t leave me. I’ll never make it with Mom and Dad alone.”
“You have Grandma. And besides, I’d probably haunt you. Remember that time you watched The Ring and ended up sleeping in my bed for a month? I’d re-create some of those scenes for ya. It could be fun. Brother-sister bonding.” He chuckled and adjusted us both so I was lying beside him instead of squishing him.
“For reals, you’re okay?” I lifted my face and stared into his eyes, checking for deceptions.
“No, I have cancer, Lace. But I’m going to be. I seriously am not dying.” His eyes held more humor than anything else. “But doing the hard things, like laundry and cleaning and chores, I mean—” He coughed like Tiny Tim. “That might be hard. I might need my big sis for that.”
“Asshole!” I shoved him, laughing and hitting his arm.
“Ow, that’s my cancer!” He rubbed his arm.
“Oh my God!” My stomach tensed again. “Oh my God, where?”
His evil laugh revealed the truth.
“Dick!” I hit him again. “You can’t joke about that.”
“Yeah, whatever. I am riding this pony all the way to the stables. At this rate Grandma is going to move in with me when I leave home and do my laundry and cooking forever.”
I opened my mouth to scold him some more, but our parents came into the room, climbing on the bed like we were little kids again.
We were dog piled. First Mom and then Dad and finally Grandma.
The overloving lasted awhile, everyone crying while Dad tried to be optimistic.
“We can’t be sad. We caught it early. And you’re young, Martin. The doctor told us you’re going to be fine after surgery and might not even need radiation. So everyone in this family is going to be strong for you. This week was hard. Today we cried. But tomorrow, we look ahead and beat this thing,” he said confidently.
I nodded. It was a lie, but I could lie convincingly.
Grandma lied too.
Mom didn’t even bother. She shook her head and buried her snotty face in Dad’s shirt.
“Guys, I’m not dying today. It’s not awesome news, but it’s not the worst. I could have testicular or ass cancer. Thyroid isn’t so bad. Unless you’re Grandpa.” Martin tried to act indifferent, as he was the eternal sarcastic shit. “Anyway, Grandma, you promised me soup. Can you guys take the sniffling downstairs? And, Lace, you smell like an old dead hooker.”
We all laughed.
Only Martin could bring up Grandpa dying, dead hookers, snot, and soup in the same speech and evoke feelings of camaraderie.
Our grandpa’s passing had been a shock. He hadn’t even been sick; he just said he had a sore throat and was dead a year later. Thyroid cancer, just like Martin now had. I remembered the doctors saying it should have been curable but, apparently, he hadn’t bothered with the sore throat for a while. So, if Martin’s cancer was caught early, he would likely be okay. My heart didn’t care about those odds or possibilities. It was broken for what he was about to go through, and I was still in shock. I honestly didn’t know what to say or do. And I was a little vexed that they’d kept this from me.
“Come on.” Dad tugged at Mom and me. “He needs to eat. Poor kid’s been poked and prodded all week long.” He grabbed my arm and lifted me up.
“I hate you.” I glared at my brother.
“You love me and you know it.” He winked, and I let my dad drag me down the stairs.
When we got into the kitchen, Grandma served everyone soup.
I stepped back from my bowl. “I’m good.” The smell was tainted. In fact, I might never recover from the memory. “How long have you guys known?” I needed details, not food. “Why didn’t anyone tell me what was going on?”
“We’ve only suspected something these last couple of weeks, Lacey. You had finals and were so stressed out. We didn’t want to interfere if it was nothing. I really guessed it was mono. Martin’s repeated sore throat and hoarseness and the lump in his throat troubled Dr. Mercer. So he suggested, because of Grandpa’s diagnosis, that we should do some more intensive testing than just strep and mono swabs.” Mom finally started sounding like herself again. Dr. Mom was what Martin and I usually called her. But whenever it was one of us, she was stressed and emotional.
She continued, “I pulled some strings and got him in this week, and since I was working today, Dr. Mercer agreed to meet with us at the hospital to get the results in. It’s his thyroid, but it’s stage one. It’s not too serious, just scary, ya know?”
“Okay.” I wrapped my arms around myself and squeezed.
Mom smiled, reaching for me and rubbing my arm. “He should be back to school in September like any other year.”
“I just can’t believe it,” I said. “Is it hereditary? Like, will we all get it?”
“It is, but the chances of you developing cancer are slim. It’s a hundred-million-to-one odds or more that Martin would get this.” Mom sounded exhausted but still managed to dramatically exaggerate.
“Is there anything I can do?” I wasn’t sure how I could help, but I needed to make sure my family knew they had my support.
“Well—” Dad began.
“No!” Mom cut Dad off. “We can talk about the details later.” She flashed a look at him, and I knew there was more to the story. I wasn’t exactly sure I could handle anything else right now. At least Mom understood that.
“Okay, well, I’m gonna go shower then.” I gave them all a look, like I was waiting for something else.
But they didn’t say anything.
They smiled and waited for me to leave.
I turned and hurried up the stairs to the bathroom on the second floor and closed the door. I lifted the floor grate off and hung my face over the air that came blasting out, listening.
“We can’t keep anything from her. She’s old enough to understand and help out,” Dad said.
The grate was Martin’s and my secret. Every family discussion we weren’t invited to was heard from this spot in the house. Tonight was the first time I didn’t want to hear whatever was being said. But I needed to. If there was something I could do to help my family, especially when it came to Martin, I would.
“The sooner we tell her, the sooner she’ll be able to start planning,” he added. Oh, God. What did that mean?
“No, this is too stressful,” Grandma said softly. “Her brother getting cancer is enough for one night; adding the fact that you’re going to have to use her tuition money for his treatment costs would push her over the edge. She starts work tomorrow. Give her time to absorb one thing before throwing another at her.”
My stomach convulsed, threatening to start purging again.
My tuition? They were going to use my tuition?
Martin’s treatments?
My family was going to need to use my tuition money to save my brother?
How could I even complain about that, even if I wanted to? My mind tried to bitch, but there was no way I ever would. I was going to have to suck this one up. In the grand scheme of things, my brother’s health was way more important than anything else.
“What if she can’t afford the year and has to delay getting her degree?” Mom asked.
“We refinance the house. We could look into student loans,” Dad answered.
“No!” Mom shouted, and then lowered her voice. “We agreed these kids weren’t going to be like you and me, breaking our backs to afford a normal life with all our student loans. I’ll talk to the bank about refinancing the house. It’s only fifty grand. Worse comes to worse, she takes a year off to earn the money.”
I gagged as she said all of that.
“We have to be careful. The La Croix family is counting on her graduating next year. Mr. La Croix might not be able to wait for her to take the year off to earn the money,” Dad said, clearly chewing.
“And what if the medical bills are more than we expected? What do we do then, start taking out more loans?” Mom sounded worried. “Use Martin’s tuition savings?”
I got up from the floor. I didn’t want to hear any more of this.
Grandma was right: I didn’t need to think about this tonight.
Martin had cancer.
That was more important and immediate than anything else.
There was no way I was going to feel sorry for myself. Not even a little.
Not when my parents and family were going through this.
I could figure out how to pay for my own education, and I would start doing just that tomorrow.
Tonight, I would get lost in the book recommendation I got from Martin. It was called Swan Song by Robert McCammon. It was about the end of the world and fitted my current mood and situation perfectly.