Chapter 43: God save the queen. Long live the queen.
I meet my anxious siblings at the hospital thirty minutes later, leaving Soul Mountain under the watch of Becker and an irritated Kiersten. Kiersten, of course, is always fucking irritated about something, so… sorry, Kiersten, but all my fucks have been officially already given. I have no more fucks to give you for your irritation.
When I walk into the waiting room, I find Dutch sitting with baby Sherry, PJ texting, Gerry pacing. Dutch’s eyes flash up to meet mine when I walk into the room; she looks away just as quickly. PJ doesn’t stop texting, but Gerry stops his pacing, turns, crushes me in a hug.
“What’s going on?” I ask. My heart pounds in my chest, and I’m unsure if I’m ready to hear what my brothers and sister might tell me.
Gerry sniffs, wipes tears from his eyes. He keeps one hand on my bicep, though whether it’s to comfort me or steady him, I don’t know. “They almost lost her. Almost. And they couldn’t get it all.”
I glance from Gerry to Dutch, Dutch to PJ. “Almost lost her? And what do you mean — they couldn’t get it all?”
“They nicked an artery,” Dutch says. “She almost bled out on the table.”
“And they think it’s metastasized,” PJ says, looking up from his phone at last. “That’s why they couldn’t get it all.”
I shake my head. “No, it hadn’t metastasized. They did scans. It was only in the pelvis.”
Whether or not the cancer in Mom’s pelvis had metastasized and spread to other parts of the body or not was a majorly big fucking deal. If osteosarcoma is caught early, if it hasn’t spread to other regions of the body, then Mom’s five-year survival rate stood at forty to sixty percent. I could live with those odds. If it had metastasized, however…
“No,” I repeat stubbornly. “They did scans. It hasn’t spread.”
Dutch’s eyes water; she covers her mouth with her hand. Gerry lets go of me, resumes his pacing.
“What now?” I ask, and I direct my question to PJ because he seems like he’s the least freaked out of the three of them.
“Aggressive radiation,” PJ answers with a heavy sigh. “Five days per week, three or four weeks. Followed by more chemotherapy. The radiation will likely make her sick; the chemo sicker.”
“But she’s already been on chemo,” I argue. “I thought we were done with chemo — that was the point of the surgery. To remove what was left.”
PJ shrugs. “I’m not a doctor, Ani.”
My fists curl; I need something to hit. This surgery was supposed to be easy. The ten weeks of chemo leading up to the surgery — the throwing up in the middle of the night, the weight loss, the hair loss — that was supposed to be done. The surgery was supposed to be the finishing touch, and then Momma could start the recovery process. Now, though… Now, everything has changed.
I’m glad Jenny signed that paperwork this morning. My parents are going to need money sooner rather than later.
#
We wait.
Gerry paces. PJ texts. Sherry bounces on Dutch’s knee.
I stand leaning against a wall, one knee up, shoe planted on the wall behind me, arms crossed tight against my chest. Hands curled into fists.
They did scans. They fucking did scans. It hasn’t metastasized.
Another half-hour passes. Gerry paces. PJ texts. Sherry bounces on Dutch’s knee.
Finally, a man in a white coat emerges through a side door, my father beside him. Dad’s cheeks are wet with tears; when he exhales, his whole body trembles as if the nuts and bolts holding him together are about to all come out at once. The man in the white coat, who is taller than my father but shorter than me, places his hand on Dad’s shoulder, squeezes it, and turns away.
Alone, my father stands in the center of the waiting room. And something miraculous occurs to me: I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen my father standing alone. More than almost any couple I’ve ever known, my mother and father have always been a single unit, moving through life in unison. Even Alex and Graham, as fucking sickening as their unending romance may be, aren’t like my mother and father. Graham goes to school each morning, teaches little kids how to finger paint; Alex yells at college basketball players during layup drills. My mother and father, on the other hand, have barely parted in the twenty-five years since Soul Mountain opened. They go to work each morning together; they work side-by-side all day together; they come home together. All the time together would drive any normal couple fucking crazy. But for them, it works. For them, they are two limbs of one body.
So seeing my father standing by himself, still and isolated like a fucking park statue, is unnerving. Like seeing a bloody, disembodied arm lying by itself in the middle of the floor.
“She’s not completely awake yet,” he says in accented English. His accent has always been a barometer of his mood; the more upset he is, the heavier it gets. And since he’s rarely upset, I rarely hear it this thick. “But they’re about to move her out of the recovery room. When they’re finished, we can all go in.”
“Should we all go in?” PJ asks. “Will it be too much for her — having all of us in there at once?”
Dad shakes his head. “No. She will want all her children around her. At least right now.” He takes a few steps forward, collapses into a chair. The movement makes him look small and old. A sudden urge arises to cradle him like a child, to pull him close to my chest and wrap my albatross wingspan around him.
We wait.
Gerry paces. PJ texts. Sherry bounces on Dutch’s knee.
I stand against the wall, a foot planted behind me, arms crossed tight against my chest. Hands curled into fists.
A nurse appears a little while later. She glances between our faces, a practiced softness in her expression. “They’ve moved her into a regular room,” she says. “And she’s starting to feel a little more alert. You can see her now if you want.”
We follow the woman’s directions, traveling out of the wing of the hospital we’re in and into another. Dutch leads the way; the rest of us trail behind like lost ducklings. My father walks beside her and little behind; PJ flanks him. Baby Sherry gets transferred to Gerry somewhere along the way. He hugs the baby to his shoulder and walks behind their triangle.
I bring up the rear, a yard or two after Gerry.
My mother sits halfway up in bed, a sleepy, drugged, contented smile growing on her face when our party of six crowds into the small hospital room.
“Hello, my darlings,” she says.
Baby Sherry lifts her sleepy head off Gerry’s shoulder at the sound of her grandmother’s voice. Little hands push against her uncle’s chest as she twists to see what’s happening.
“Mammaw,” she says, reaching a hand towards my mother.
My mother reaches out for her granddaughter automatically, stretching out ashy arms decorated with hospital bands and plastic IV tubes. “There’s my girl,” she says.
We all watch and smile as Gerry hands the toddler over, but I wonder if anyone else is wondering the same thing I am — will baby Sherry get a chance to know her namesake? Will Momma be around for Sherry’s kindergarten graduation ceremony? Will she still be there when Sherry enters high school? When Sherry goes to prom?
Maybe the rest of my family has the same thoughts, because everyone seems to hold their breath when Mom cuddles Sherry into her chest, when both grandma and baby gurgle at each other happily.
Mom looks up. “I’m still here, babies,” she declares.
Her words break the spell. Everyone shifts and breathes at once.
“We knew you would be,” Gerry says. “You’re too tough not to be.”
“Mmm-hmm,” my mother agrees, squeezing Sherry a little closer and tickling her cheek. “Tumor-free now. How you like that?”
PJ casts a glance at my father; Gerry adjusts the Buckeyes cap on his head and shifts his eyes out the window.
My father steps forward, runs his hand tenderly along my mother’s hairline before leaning down to kiss her forehead. “Tumor-free,” he says, even though it’s a lie. “You did well, rani.”
“Rani” means “queen” in Nepalese, by the way. It is my father’s favorite name for my mother.
But somehow, the use of the nickname twists my stomach, so much so that my hand automatically comes up to my middle. I want to double over and retch. I stop myself from doing so.
Dutch moves to the head of my mother’s bed, strokes her baby’s curls absentmindedly. Dutch smiles, starts chattering to Momma about something distracting and inconsequential. Anything other than the truth of the situation.
I wonder how long they can keep their conspiracy up. How long it will be before someone tells my mother the truth. They’re probably hoping the doctor will do it.
But I don’t think it should come from a doctor. My mother is as strong and stubborn as a fucking mule; I can’t stand watching everyone tread around her so lightly, like she’s made of crystal.
My momma ain’t no crystal. She’s obsidian. Black and hard and beautiful. A scalpel-sharp tongue and mind. The product of the fire that rumbles beneath the Earth.
“Momma,” I say, interrupting Dutch. The room turns to me as one body, and Dutch’s eyes are already flashing with anger, because she knows what I’m about to do. “They didn’t get the whole tumor. You’re going to have to come back for more treatment. Radiation, probably. And more chemo.”
Everyone deflates at once, collective breath hissing out of them like a dying balloon. My father glances over his shoulder, meets my eyes for a moment. His expression is both a show of disappointment in me and a signal of relief.
“Anika!” Dutch says.
My mother turns towards Dutch, gives her that look, the one I haven’t seen much of since we were kids, then she locks eyes with my father. He nods slowly.
“Okay. Can’t say as I’m surprised.” She sighs. “I could feel the little booger growing. Even when I was on the chemo.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, though I don’t really know who the apology is directed at.
“Girl, don’t be sorry,” Momma says immediately. “Just because they didn’t get it all doesn’t mean y’all need to start worryin’ and fussin’ over me.” She gives my father a pointed look. “Treatin’ me like I can’t handle some bad news. Treatin’ me like I’ma stop fighting just because it didn’t work the first go-round. That’s how these things go, you know. They don’t always take on the first go-round. That doesn’t mean we’re done.”
My dad takes a step closer to her bed, reaches for the hand that isn’t around Sherry. He says nothing, just squeezes her hand in both of his, and I don’t need to see his face to know that his cheeks are wet with tears again.
Despite Momma’s brave words, there’s a realignment happening in this moment, and I’m sure everyone feels it. Fire is rumbling beneath the surface again, but maybe the volcano that is my mother is going dormant. Maybe it’s time for someone else to be the family’s active volcano.
PJ moves to stand beside Dutch; he and my sister and my mother begin a conversation I don’t tune into.
Maybe it’s time for the rani, the long-time matriarch of Soul Mountain, the ruling queen of downtown Marcine, the town’s other gravitational center outside Jodie’s hair salon, to pass her crown to someone else.
After a few more minutes of conversations I can’t listen to, I pull out my phone, glance at the time. “I should get back to the restaurant,” I say to everyone. “I don’t trust Kiersten enough to leave her there all day on her own.”
My mother looks over to me from where she’s been deep in dialog with Dutch and PJ. There’s a long pause. Then her face shifts into something that she’s directed at me only rarely over the years — approval.
She nods once. Snorts. “You won’t get an argument from me over that,” she says. “That girl’s about as trustworthy as a mobster in a casino.”
I chuckle, nod. Lift my hand in a silent goodbye wave to my mother and turn to leave the room without another word.
“Anika?” my mother calls.
I turn back. “Yeah?”
“Emir still tends to burn the dal on the bottom, and he lets the chicken dry out. You have to stay on him. He’s still new.”
“I will, Momma.”
She stares at me for a moment. She nods again. “Good. I believe you will.”
I give her a nod of my own, and then — I can’t help it — I grin. This is probably one of the first times in my life I’ve been on the same page as my mother.
Whether the rest of them understand what just happened or whether it was a silent transaction that passed only between me and Momma doesn’t matter. She knows. I know. And that’s what counts.
The queen’s crown just got passed.