I used to believe in God like I believed in cancer. That is, I knew both existed in a kind of distant, academic sense, but they were concepts that applied to other people; they were personally irrelevant to Sean Bell’s life.

Then cancer tore through my family with wind and knives and teeth, thundering and massive, and it ceased to be academic, it stopped being distant. It became real and terrible, more vengeful and omnipresent than any deity, and our lives became reoriented around its rituals, its communion of morphine lollipops and anti-nausea meds, its hymns of vaporizers and daytime television.

We were baptized into the Church of Cancer, and I was as zealous as any new convert, going to every doctor’s appointment, researching every new trial, using every connection I had in this city to make sure my mother got the best of everything.

So yes. I believe in cancer now.

It’s too late for me to believe in God.

I pull into the hospital parking garage, park the Audi, and then jog through the emergency room doors, ignoring the looks I’m getting in my tuxedo. I go right to the triage desk, and just my luck, it’s a nurse I fucked a few weeks back during Mom’s last stint in the hospital. Mackenzie or Makayla or McKenna or something like that. Her mouth twists into a bitter smile when she sees me, and I know I’m in for it.

“Well, if it isn’t Sean Bell,” she says, tilting her head up and narrowing her eyes at me. I’m suddenly grateful for the glass barrier between us, otherwise I think I might be in danger of actual bodily harm. For me, it was a desperate, needy escape stolen during long hours in the waiting room, a momentary distraction with a pretty, available body—but it had been clear after she gave me her number and her schedule that it had been more than just an escape for her.

“Hey, so my mom is here and I need to see her. It’s Carolyn Bell, and I think she got in not too long ago.”

The nurse with the M-name gives me a slow, insolent blink, and then turns even more slowly to her computer screen. Click goes an irritated press of her finger on the mouse. Click. Click.

Goddammit.

Godfuckingdammit. If she moved any slower, she’d be a painting. A statue. Isn’t there some kind of fucking rule about nurses doing their job no matter what former fucks were involved? Surely she’s breaking some kind of nursely oath? There’s a part of me that wants to go full Sean Bell on her, and either charm or threaten my way through this, but both of those things take fucking time, and I don’t have time.

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call,” I say.

She doesn’t even look at me. “Sure.”

Oookayyy. My entire body is screaming at me to get to Mom, my chest is still tight with memories of a girl pretending to be named Mary, and now I’ve got this pissy nurse between me and where I need to go—and this is exactly why I’ve steered clear of entanglements my entire fucking life. Feelings and fucking do not mix, and Mackenzie/Makayla/McKenna is living proof of my theory.

Honesty, Mary’s voice echoes in my memories. Try the honest guy thing.

I let out a long, silent sigh, knowing I need to fix this somehow. Mom’s more important than your pride, fucker. Just apologize for real so you can get to her.

“Look,” I say, leaning forward so that I can lower my voice and spare the rest of the waiting room my humiliation. “You’re right. It was shitty of me to take your number when I didn’t plan on calling, and it was shitty of me to fuck you without making it clear that a screw was all I wanted. You deserved better than that, and I’m sorry.”

The nurse doesn’t soften, exactly, but her clicking on the mouse speeds up, and finally she looks up to me. “Room thirteen,” she says, the flat bitterness in her voice slightly blunted now. “Through those doors and to the left.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“And just so you know,” she says, still looking at me, “you treat women like shit. If you’ve got any decency left inside you, you’ll spare the next woman you meet the headache.”

“I’ll take it under consideration,” I lie, and then I’m striding back to Mom’s room, my dress shoes bouncing reflections of cheap hospital lights across the walls as I go.

* * *

Two hours later, I’m in a surgical waiting room with my phone pressed to my ear. I’m alone because I sent Dad home to grab some things for Mom, and thank God he listened to me when I asked him to do it.

First lesson in the Church of Cancer catechism? Thou Shalt Give Dad Something to Do. The waiting, the bleary uncertainty, the hours of nothing-time—all of it just amplifies his fear and his agitation, and eventually he becomes a mess and no help to anyone. But as long as he feels useful, well, then, he’s fine. And he’s not stressing Mom and me out.

Second lesson in the catechism—text threads are sacred. After I got Dad sorted, I got the family thread updated, and now I’m in the waiting room talking to my brother Tyler.

“I thought they already fixed the bowel obstruction,” he’s saying in a tired voice. I glance at my watch—almost midnight on the East Coast, and knowing my brother and his wife Poppy, I’m sure they were fucking like bunnies all evening.

Lucky bastards.

“It was only a partial obstruction a few weeks ago,” I explain, and then rub at my forehead with the heel of my palm because sometimes I feel like my entire life has been reduced to telling and retelling these condensed medical narratives. “They just kept her in to hydrate her and keep her comfortable. They thought it had cleared itself up.”

“Well, obviously not,” Tyler says impatiently, and while I agree with him, I also bite back a surge of my own impatience. Because he’s not fucking here; he’s off in Ivy League land publishing bestselling memoirs and fucking his hot wife, and he hasn’t had to spend the last eight months listening to doctors and negotiating with insurance companies and learning how to flush picc lines. I’ve been the one to do it. I’ve been the one to bear the brunt of Mom’s illness and Dad’s stress, because Tyler’s too far away and Ryan’s too young and Aiden’s too flaky and Lizzy’s too dead.

Shit.

My eyelids burn for a moment and I hate that, I hate the feeling of powerlessness and guilt and loss, and I fight it back. I couldn’t save Lizzy, but I can save Mom, and goddammit, I will.

“They think it’s possible it got worse or that it’s a complication from the radiation treatment she had two days ago,” I say after I’ve regained control of my stupid feelings. “It’s a total obstruction, so they’re doing surgery now, and for whatever it’s worth, they’re extremely optimistic.”

Tyler lets out a long breath. “I should come home.”

The million-dollar question, always. What if this was the time? What if this was the time when everything spiraled out of control, when everything cascaded into bleak certainty? Tyler had only been seventeen when he found our sister’s body hanging in the garage, and I knew that moment had scarred him as much as it had scarred the rest of us—maybe even more—and then he’d spent years serving a hollow, absent god in some sort of pointless dance of atonement. I have no doubt that the thought of missing Mom’s final moments would haunt him even more than not being able to stop Lizzy’s, simply because with Lizzy there was no way to know what was going to happen. But with Mom, the inevitability of her death becomes clearer with every passing day. We all know what is going to happen.

Stop it, I order myself with some annoyance. Nothing’s fucking inevitable.

Nothing.

“If you want to come home to see her, I get it, but she’s going to be okay this time. It’s just a laparoscopic thing, and it will be over any minute.”

Tyler’s silent for a moment, and I know what he’s doing, I know how easily his thoughts stray to things like guilt and shame.

“Look, Tinkerbell,” I add, knowing the nickname drives him crazy, “no one blames you for having a life in another state. Mom is super proud of whatever it is you do—”

“Write books,” Tyler interjects dryly.

“—And whatever it is that Poppy does in Manhattan—”

“An arts nonprofit. Do you actually even listen to me when I talk?”

“Sure don’t. So don’t feel guilty for not coming out, okay? If I honestly thought it was time for you to fly out, I’d buy your fucking ticket myself. But it’s not time.”

“My worry is that you won’t be able to admit it to yourself when it is time,” Tyler says carefully. “Much less tell me.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

A pause, and I know Tyler’s sifting through his words, and that pisses me off even more. “I don’t need fucking kid gloves,” I snap. “Just say whatever it is you want to say.”

“Fine,” he says, and I’m a bit pleased to hear that I’ve made him snappish too. “I think you haven’t dealt with the fact that Mom’s going to die.”

“Everybody’s going to die, kiddo. Or did you forget that part of being a priest?”

“Sean, I’m serious. I know you think this boils down to having the best doctors, the best treatments—the most money—but those things might not change anything. You get that, right? That you can’t control what happens next?”

I don’t answer. I can’t. My hand is gripping the phone so hard I can feel the edges of the glass pressing against my fingerbones.

“There’s no agenda for life, there’s no itinerary, there’s no strategic plan,” Tyler continues. “Everything can go perfectly…until it doesn’t, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. There’s nothing you can do to change it. Don’t you see that?”

“I see that you’ve given up on Mom already, and you aren’t even fucking here to actually know how she’s doing.”

“It’s okay to feel angry,” Tyler tells me quietly. “And lost.”

“Don’t do that priest shit with me,” I hiss, pacing across the room, wishing he were here, because I’d hit him, I’d hit him right in his fucking know-it-all mouth. “You’re not my fucking priest, Tyler. You’re not even a priest at all anymore.”

“Maybe not,” he replies calmly, “but I’m still your brother. I still love you. And God still loves you.”

I snort. “Then He needs to try a little fucking harder.”

“Sean—”

“I’ve got to go. I told Aiden I’d call.”

And then I hang up before Tyler can answer, which is a dick move I know, but he was a dick first, bringing fucking God into this. A god I don’t believe in, a god I hate, a god who let one of his priests hurt my sister over and over again, and then instead of comforting her, let her cinch a noose around her nineteen-year-old neck to escape the pain. A god who’s now killing my mother in the slowest, most dehumanizing way possible.

Fuck Tyler and fuck his god, I don’t need either of them and neither does Mom.

“Mr. Bell?”

I look up to see someone in scrubs standing at the door.

“Yes?” I say hoarsely.

“Your mother’s in the post-op ward now, and she’s sleeping, but she’s doing great. Would you like to come up and sit with her?”

“Of course.” And I go to my mother, leaving all of Tyler’s lectures and my anger at God behind, knowing they’ll be waiting for me when I come back.