Chapter 5: Bad News
My mom lived in a little town in the mountains just above Temecula, about a two-hour drive from where I attended college in the City of Orange. The following weekend, Heath drove me there in a borrowed truck to fetch a few pieces of old furniture and bring back some supplies for my new apartment. In the end, I think he was relieved that things had been resolved so easily.
Of course, Brian had been ecstatic that I was on my way out. Yeah, sensitive to Heath’s torn feelings on the matter, he was not. Asshole.
Nevertheless, for Heath’s sake, I wished them well together, though I had my doubts that they were compatible. Sure, they were attracted to each other, but they fought like Mario and Bowser. I said nothing because Heath seemed hopeful about the move and the relationship. During our drive, he chatted about their plans to buy a condo up in the Orange Hills. As bad as it was, all I could think of was who would get to keep it when they broke up.
“Mom!” I called as I entered through the front door. She was in the kitchen and pushed through the double doors hurriedly to greet us.
“There they are. My twins!”
She’d given us that nickname in high school. I’d hated it at first but now thought it was funny. Heath and I could not look less alike. Where he was tall, brawny, blond, and fair, I had dark hair, brown eyes, and a tall but lithe figure. And, thanks to my Greek roots, my skin was slightly more amenable to tanning than his ruddy Norse heritage had afforded him.
As I hadn’t seen my mother in almost two months, I held her tight in a bear hug. She seemed… thinner. And when I pulled back and looked in her eyes, she looked tired. There were bags under her eyes and she was a little pale.
I also hadn’t missed the lack of cars parked in the side driveway. “Where are the guests?”
“Oh, I closed bookings for a bit to give myself a little break.” Her dark eyes darted away from mine. “Spring cleaning and all that…”
I frowned but didn’t press it. Why close down the B&B during high season? And here, spring was definitely the height of the season. The high desert early spring was not to be missed. Beautiful flowers of every imaginable color carpeted the desert for a short period of time—sometimes only two or three weeks before the scorching sun desiccated the plants. It usually brought the crowds in droves this time of year.
Mom prepared our favorite meals, and Heath took full advantage of the flora being in full bloom, indulging in his photography passion. One day he even took off on an hour-long drive out to Anza-Borrego State Park. His photos had been getting better and better, and he’d been taking classes to improve his craft.
As usual, he deftly avoided seeing his own parents, despite the fact that they only lived six miles down the road from Mom.
I spent my time helping Mom air out the rooms and give them all a deep cleaning. We stripped bedding and washed it, dusted along ceilings and light fixtures, scrubbed baseboards, and even washed the windows.
We were finishing up one of the cottages—Roy Rogers, our premium room. She was polishing the small rustic table set up as a writing desk, while I was on the ground wiping down the baseboards.
“You’re old enough now that I’m going to feel guilty not paying you an honest wage for all this free labor,” she joked.
I shrugged and smiled. “It feels good. Gets my mind off things.”
“Your exam?”
I shrugged. “Yeah… that… and other things.”
It had been bugging me since yesterday, actually. The emptiness of the B&B, the hollowness in Mom’s cheeks. Something was going on. Something she seemed to be hiding from me.
I bit the inside of my cheek. Did people do that? Hide important things—possibly even unpleasant things—from their family members?
I’d have to find a way to pry the truth out of her. But should I be subtle and poke around the subject or just point-blank ask?
“Anything you want to talk about?” She wiped the last bit of polish from the wood and sat back to watch me. I ran a clean cloth over the baseboards one more time.
I took a deep breath and let it go. Point-blank it was…
“Yeah, actually there is.”
Mom put aside her rag, looking at me expectantly.
I raised my brows. “I want to know why you look so tired. And I want to know how you hurt yourself.”
She blinked. “How I hurt myself?”
I pointed to the bandage on her upper arm that had slipped, now visible at the bottom of her short-sleeved t-shirt. Mom’s mouth thinned to a faint line.
Then she swallowed. “I don’t want you to get worried about something that might end up being nothing.”
I stiffened, and suddenly there was a cold lump of fear in my throat.
“What?” I ground my teeth when she didn’t respond right away. “Don’t try to brave this alone. Tell me, Mom.”
She sighed. “But you’ve got so much on your plate, and it’s…potentially nothing at all.”
I folded my arms stiffly across my chest. “Which means that it’s potentially something.” I grimaced at her. “Spill it, Mother.”
“I had a couple moles on my arm—a group of little birthmarks, actually. They started to look funny, so the doctor wanted to remove them and have them biopsied.”
“What?” I shot to my feet. “What kind of biopsy? Punch? Excisional? Are you seeing an oncologist?”
Mom held out a hand. “Calm down, Mia. I’m fine. It could be nothing.”
“Then why are you looking so tired? Why cancel the guest bookings?”
Her jaw tightened and then she shrugged. “Just a little stress. Nothing else. It’s been a rough couple weeks of worrying. But the doc is very optimistic that it’s nothing.”
I frowned, biting my lip. “But what if it isn’t nothing? I’ve been working with an oncologist, you know, doing research this year. I could talk to him more about this, get more information.”
She frowned, the creases on her otherwise smooth forehead deepening. “You’re freaking yourself out. I learned this week never to Google symptoms, and I don’t want you doing the medical student equivalent, okay? I’ll get the results later this week—”
“You’re calling me the minute you find out.” It wasn’t a question.
She smiled. “Of course.”
“Mom, you need a plan…in case the test comes back positive.”
She shrugged. “Do people die of skin cancer?”
I swallowed a giant boulder in my throat. Yes, I wanted to say. All the time. It’s insidious and wretched. Skin is the body’s largest organ—by far—and it plays a very important role. Because of that, skin cancer could spread quickly. And once cancer metastasized…
If it was melanoma, God help us. It couldn’t be melanoma. With everything in me, I willed it to be one of the less aggressive versions of skin cancer. But the description of the dark birth marks, the change in appearance, the location on her arm… All these pointed to the deadliest form of skin cancer out there.
“Was there ulceration? Bleeding? Tell me everything.”
She told me, and as she did so, I blinked and swallowed, ignoring the tears rising up and poking the backs of my eyes. I fought to ignore the feeling of having just been kicked in the stomach.
What if…what if I lost her? Aside from Heath, my mom was my only family.
I held it together—barely—for another hour as I tried to act natural while we finished what we were doing. But then I told her I was going to take a long walk.
I took my favorite hike in the hills that surrounded the ranch, to the lookout spot where I always loved to watch the sun set. It was peaceful up there… quiet. I could hear the wind and my own thoughts and not much else.
I did a lot of thinking and still the possibilities swirled in my mind, making me more and more afraid about the future. I was so worked up that by the time I got back, I went straight to the barn to hang out with the horses until Heath got back from his photography excursion.
When he finally pulled up, I flagged him down in the driveway and broke the news to him in the barn. He was much calmer than I was about it, though he did have lots of questions. And he succeeded in calming me down, too.
We’d wait for the results. We wouldn’t jump to conclusions. We wouldn’t borrow trouble.
***
It took us half a day to move my measly belongings into the new place. Another half a day for me to unpack and get settled in.
The day after moving me out, Heath took off on a camping trip in the High Sierras with Brian. Their last little getaway before moving in together—as if they wouldn’t be together all the time now. Heath offered to cancel it, but it had been a chore for him to convince metrosexual Brian to indulge in some of Heath’s greatest loves—camping, hiking and fishing. I didn’t have the heart to foil that plan, so they left with my blessing.
Which meant that, when the news came in… I’d be on my own. And that thought seemed to compound the stress I was already feeling.
“There’s going to be someone out to repair the phone line next week,” my landlady informed me as I finished emptying the last of the boxes. “There’s been a lot of static on the line.”
“Wait, there’s a landline?” Suddenly, I was overjoyed at the thought of not having to burn through my pre-paid cell phone minutes.
“Yes. It’s included in the rent.”
This place was becoming more and more affordable all the time. And to top off the good news, the bargain Internet package I’d ordered was up and ready to go the next day.
But as the week drew to a close, I grew more and more tense, texting Mom frequently to find out if she’d had any updates on her tests. She hadn’t.
While I waited, instead of studying for the MCAT—like I should have been doing—I spent all of my free time grinding on the game. FallenOne happened to be around, too, and he checked in with me daily.
After the third day, he brought it up.
*FallenOne tells you, Don’t you have that test coming up soon?
My stomach dropped. I was so preoccupied with worrying about my mom, I’d put the test out of my mind. I told myself that I knew a lot of the basics, right? That it was my simple deductive skills I’d need in order to apply them to the hypothetical situations for the test. Logic and reasoning. I had those. I used those skills almost every single day.
In fact, I was using those skills at this very moment to justify not studying.
*You tell FallenOne, Yeah…
Him: Do I need to tell you to log off the game to study?
Me: You can tell me whatever you want. Doesn’t mean I’m going to listen to you.
And I didn’t. I kept grinding away. That week, I needed the distraction of the game to get me through.
Because on Thursday, Mom called. And no, the news wasn’t good.
I could hardly believe my ears, those words “tested positive for melanoma” echoing in the back of my head, all through my brain. I’d done as she’d asked and avoided Googling all the possibilities. But I had had a discussion with Dr. Martin, the physician whom I was assisting with a research project. We discussed the process of diagnosis, the possibilities of what she might have and the preferred protocols for treatment, so I was armed with at least a little knowledge.
“They don’t want to do radiation, but…they do want me to start chemotherapy. They are concerned because the margins weren’t clear on the biopsy.”
Oh God. I bit my lip and rocked back and forth in my chair as I listened to her calm voice drone on. She sounded remarkably calm, in fact, for someone who had just received this news. No clear margins meant the doctors weren’t sure they’d gotten it all when they’d removed the moles.
“Mia? Still there?” she asked as I struggled to get hold of myself.
“Yeah,” I said—a little breathlessly.
“Dr. Shuman is confident that with this course of action, I’ll have a great outcome.”
I swore I could hear every beat of my heart in my eardrums and every breath that I took in.
“Mia…it will be okay.”
I closed my eyes and bit my tongue so I wouldn’t speak the words that rested there. She had no idea whether it would be okay or not.
I begged off soon after, using the truthful excuse that I was almost out of minutes. But I really did it because my mom didn’t need to hear me break down over her news.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Shit. Shit. I could lose her. That was a very real possibility. But as I went through my normal household tasks—washing the dishes, tidying up—I didn’t cry. Instead, I went numb inside.
I ended up practically pulling an all-nighter on DE. I went on a leveling binge and didn’t care how far ahead I got from my friends. Not long after I hit level 35, a familiar notification flashed onto the screen.
Your friend FallenOne is online.
*FallenOne tells you, Hey, you’re on late…and…wow. Congrats on all the new levels. Planning on letting us catch up anytime soon?
*You tell FallenOne, Not in the mood. You might need to bark up someone else’s tree.
Him: …
Me: Really having a bad night over here.
Him: What’s up? Can I help?
Me: Not unless you have a miracle cure for cancer in your back pocket.
Him: Cancer? Okay, now I’m worried. What’s going on?
Me: Bad news. Someone I care about has cancer.
Him: Do you want to talk about it? I can call…
Me: That’s kind of you, but I have no minutes left this month.
Him: No landline?
Me: Oh actually, I do have one at this new place.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard, hesitating. Did I really want to open up this can of worms? It seemed so much simpler and almost fun to have a mystery friend—one I knew very little about, but who could be there for me. It was a little romantic, actually, the thought that we could be friends like this without romantic feelings getting in the way.
I kind of liked that idea and found myself a little reluctant to give it up—even if it was just a phone call.
But, on the other hand, Heath was up in the mountains above Yosemite, out of cell phone range, and there was no one else I cared to vent to. Suddenly, I realized I wanted to vent. I needed to.
And…who was I shitting…I was still morbidly curious about FallenOne. Maybe I’d even get a real-life first name out of him. After finding my new phone number on Lupe’s information sheet, I sent it in a message to Fallen.
A few minutes later, the phone rang, and my hand shook as I answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” a deep, distinctly male voice responded. A weird little shiver ran down my spine when I first heard it, and I had no idea where it came from. Was it nerves? Attraction? I didn’t know.
The line immediately started to crackle, and I remembered Lupe’s warning that it needed to be repaired.
“Sorry about the static… apparently, this is a bad line.”
“Yeah, it sounds like shit,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Um, yeah. Kinda.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” His voice sounded a little garbled, but I could still understand him.
“I don’t know. Heath’s not here and I don’t have anyone else to talk to, but I’m not sure I have anything to say besides this isn’t fair and life sucks.”
“Life definitely isn’t fair.”
If I lost Mom, I’d lose all the family I had except for Heath. That thought brought sudden tears to my eyes, and for the first time since receiving the news, they spilled onto my cheeks with such force that I couldn’t blink them back. It was like opening a floodgate.
Fallen let me sob without saying anything. I could hear him take a breath every now and then, but mostly I was just drowning in my own misery.
“I’m sorry,” I finally wailed into the static after almost ten minutes of sobbing. “It’s my mom…”
“Oh shit. I’m sorry.”
“It fucking sucks.”
“Yeah, it does. Will she be okay?”
I gulped. “I don’t know…” The static roared up again, and I could barely hear what he said next.
“I can’t hear you,” I said.
The static persisted, and I pulled the receiver from my ear and waited. And waited.
And waited.
Finally, I glanced at my screen and saw he’d typed a message to me in-game:
*FallenOne tells you, Your phone is a piece of shit. I had to hang up.
*You tell FallenOne, I know...sorry! But thanks for calling…I guess I needed to get that out.
Him: I suspect you have more steam to blow off. Let’s go kill stuff. It will make you feel better.
Me: Thank you for calling. But I don’t want to keep you. It’s gotta be *really late there.
Him: I am more than happy to be there for a friend—even a friend with a shitty phone line.
I laughed through the residual snot and tears. Then we headed straight for a high-density area in the game to grind on mobs without doing any quests. We just camped our spot and waited for them to spawn so we could beat them down. We got by without a tank or a healer. Just perfect teamwork. And we did this for hours. In the downtime, we chatted.
We’d just finished a particularly close call, and I had to wait to get the mana back for my spells. Eloisa ate and drank virtual sustenance to help with the process.
Him: I hope you’ve had a chance to spend time with your mom. I mean, I know you have a really full schedule but…that’s important. Just for her to understand how you feel. Don’t let anything go unsaid.
Me: We are close, but thanks for the reminder. I won’t let anything go unsaid…
My fingers hesitated on the keys before continuing to type.
Me: Sounds like you’re speaking from experience…did someone you love get sick?
Him: Yes. Someone I loved very much.
Loved. Past tense…
So FallenOne had lost that person in his life. My chest ached with sympathy and the knowledge that there, but for the grace of the universe, did I go.
Me: I’m sorry. I hope you’re doing okay.
Him: I hope for nothing but that your Mom will be fine. But…just remember not to hold back, okay?
Me: Did you hold back?
Him: Yes. And I regret it. Every day of my life.
A lump formed in my throat. He didn’t give details about his own loss, just empathized and listened while I typed out paragraph after paragraph of my own fears and worries.
Having someone to be with at this time helped so much. If I couldn’t have Heath give me one of his famous bear hugs, at least I could have FallenOne’s virtual presence.
It was a surprising place from which to receive comfort.
He stayed online with me until dawn. At some point, after the sun had risen, I woke up with my face smooshed into my desk. I jiggled the mouse to wake up the screen and saw that he had logged off, but only after several messages went unanswered, the last of which was…
*FallenOne tells you, I suspect you’re asleep. Or at least hope that’s the case. I’m about to collapse myself, but please send me a text when you wake up so I know you’re okay.
I crawled over to my bed and fell unconscious within minutes, but before I felt sleep take me, I was warmed at the thought of Fallen having stayed up all night with me to keep me company.
And yet, after all that, I still had no idea what his name was.