Page 25 of Spicy Ever After
Ding!
My phone pings with a message, and I reach blindly for it, aiming to set it to sleep mode so Apple News and Instagram alerts don’t wake me.
But my index finger hovers over the screen when I see the message from the unfamiliar number.
(337) 555-4234: DID YOUR MOM DIE???
The text is a punch to the adrenals. I bolt up in bed, snap the light on, and only then does it occur to me.
It’s her.
Me: Hattie??
The message dots do their dance for a while. And then a while longer. But now, I’m pretty sure it’s her, so I switch the lamp off again and settle back onto my pillow. Waiting.
(337) 555-4234: GAH! YES, IT’S ME. HATTIE MERCIER. SORRY! I SHOULD’VE SAID IT WAS ME BEFORE ASKING IF YOUR MOM DIED, BUT WHEN I READ YOUR EMAIL AND SAW THAT YOU REFERRED TO HER IN PAST TENSE, I FREAKED OUT A LITTLE AND NEEDED TO KNOW. BECK, DID SHE DIE???
I smile at the glowing screen, a rush of something warm and aching hitting my bloodstream.
Me: Yeah, she did. Two years ago. Breast cancer.
I press send and then save her contact. Another text chimes.
Hattie: NO. THAT’S AWFUL. PLEASE DON’T THINK I’M RUDE IF I DON’T SAY I’M SORRY.
I blink at her words, confused but curious.
Me: What do you mean?
I have to wait a few minutes, watching her dots.
Hattie: I WISH SHE WOULD NOT HAVE DIED OR EVEN GOTTEN SICK. THAT’S WHAT PEOPLE REALLY MEAN WHEN THEY SAY THEY ARE SORRY THAT SOMEONE DIED, EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE. I’M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR MOM’S DEATH OR ANYONE’S—AT LEAST I HOPE NOT—BUT I WISH YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT. I HAVE LOST THREE GRANDPARENTS AND THREE DOGS, AND I WISH I HADN'T HAD TO GO THROUGH ANY OF THAT EITHER.
I let out a long, slow breath, thinking about Mom. About the journey of her illness. A troubling mammogram back when Griffin and I were seniors in high school. The biopsy and lumpectomy. A round of radiation that she handled like a champ, never breaking her busy stride. An all clear.
Six months. A year. Then two years. Still, all clear.
If Mom and Pop thought about it, perceived her cancer as a looming threat, they never acted like it.
So when it came back after four years and she acted like it would be okay again, for a while, we believed her. How could it not be okay again?
But this time, even from the start, everything was worse. The surgery more radical. The chemo and radiation more devastating. She lost all her hair. She lost so much weight. Each round of chemo sent her back into the hospital for two or three days, her blood pressure bottoming out, her white blood cell count plummeting and leaving her battling fevers. When she’d come home, Pop would have to carry her upstairs.
Then spots showed up on her bones.
Mom wasn’t just Pop’s wife and our mother. She worked the farm. She ran the house. She used to drive deliveries. Lift crates and sacks every day. She was strong. Tireless.
When she died, she weighed eighty-nine pounds.
I swallow the stone in my throat and resist the urge to pick over my words. I just go with what’s in my head.
Me: She’s been gone two years, and it still feels like we’re going through it. Like the shit that started when she got really sick never stopped.
I don’t share that Pop’s tremors started when Mom decided she’d had enough of chemo and was ready to stop fighting it. She wanted him to see a doctor. He said it was the stress.
It wasn’t.
She was in the ground two months when we learned it was Parkinson’s.
