Page 4 of Irish Fury
It had been three months since her parents had exploded some shit news all over her person. Not only had the news rocked Mags with fear, but it had also changed the trajectory she thought her life was headed in.
Mags remembered the night before Bébhinn and Gray’s big day. She’d been so excited to celebrate two of her best friends. That was before her mom told her she had something she needed to say. Mags recalled every hair on her body had stood to quivering attention.
Mags recalled how her mom’s face had flushed red before going startlingly white. Her mom was generally self-possessed,but she wasn’t that night. Instead of getting out whatever she needed to say, she cleared her throat no less than four times and fiddled with a string at her cuff obsessively.
The most alarming—she wouldn’t meet Mags’ eyes.
At her mother’s continued silence, her dad placed a hand over his wife’s and said in his smooth, professor’s voice, the one Mags and her mother teased him about, “Aileen.”
Scrunching her eyes closed once, she finally sighed and met her daughter’s worried gaze. “The cancer is back.”
As Mags dodged another slowpoke walking three damn dogs in the middle of the footpath, she internally winced at how her mother’s pain-filled image had seized Mags’ chest as the awful words had kept coming.
Recurrence. Lymph nodes. Lumps. Swelling. Collarbone.
Those words sounding one on top of the other—terrifying.
Her mother had beaten cancer once before Mags was born, but Mirren had told her how scared she’d been, though she’d done her best to stay positive for their mother’s sake.
It had been a blow to hear her mother was sick. More than a blow, it had felt like she’d been set on fire and was still burning. Mags made a conscious effort to be strong every day—every moment of every day, if she were honest. A world without her mother wasn’t one she allowed mental space to contemplate. She couldn’t.
Her mom and dad had always gotten by financially. They weren’t wealthy by any stretch, but Mags had never wanted for anything, and though there were times she might have gotten a tad bit envious of her friends, she knew how loved and lucky she was.
She was still loved and lucky to have both her parents. However, the secrecy of her mother’s health took its toll on Mags. According to her folks, Mags’ Uncle Coll, Josephine, and Thomas MacGregor had paid for her original cancer treatments.They financially supported her when she had to take months off from teaching.
She didn’t want to burden them this time, even though Mags had furiously argued that they would never consider her a burden and would be hurt.
Her father might not have agreed with his wife, but her mom was the love of his life, and he would acquiesce to her wishes.
Her mom took another leave of absence, while her father took a sabbatical from the university to research and write a sequel to his one and only historical fiction, written during his first years of teaching in America.
He’d explained the situation with his wife to the university board members, and they were more than happy to grant his request for leave.
Her parents believed that the facility that offered her mom the best and healthiest outcome was John Hopkins. So, they left the morning after the wedding to live in the United States for an unknown number of months. Baltimore, Maryland, to be exact.
They’d told family and friends that her dad got a huge grant to write a novel, and they were going to treat it like an extended holiday.
The subterfuge was exhausting. Mags had complained to her dad, telling him that all the lying was bullshit, and she was sick of covering for them.
Her dad very kindly but firmly replied, “Your mother is scared, Margaret. She’s scared to leave her daughters and grandchildren. She’s scared about what she’s missing now and what she might miss in the future.
“The treatments are brutal, and though I know her brother and friends would bring her comfort, she doesn’t want her ravaged body to be the last thing they remember her by in case she doesn’t make it.
“It’s why she chose America for treatments over France, like last time. She didn’t want to be close enough that you and Mirren would stop your whole lives to live at her bedside.
“So, I don’t like lying either, but I’ll do it for her, and so will you.”
And that was, as they say, that. Mags begged forgiveness, which her dad had assured wasn’t needed because they were all struggling with the entire situation.
“Your mom getting cancer again sucks, sweet girl. Hiding it sucks, watching you and your sister and your mum cry sucks. Don’t ever believe that you’re the only pissed off Morrow.”
That was two months ago, but Mags heard her father’s honesty and encouragement in her head every day. By then, she’d been wallowing for four weeks and feeling ridiculously lonely. After her dad’s kick-in-the-pants speech, she’d attacked her life with the same fearlessness her mom used to attack cancer.
Mags wasn’t one to wallow for long. Wallowing was for lazy people who lacked direction and motivation. She had both in spades and only had to make a few adjustments…or forty. Some had been harder than others.
Her parents were frugal people and had plenty of money in savings for an occasional splurge and emergencies. However, with neither of them working, their budget had to be tighter. Thankfully, they found a modest one-bedroom to rent close to the hospital that was affordable, and her dad made all of their meals and was a king of budget shopping.
Her mom said there were several stunning parks near them, including one with the most beautiful flowers. Mags adored the pictures her parents had sent and immediately set to work on a white dressing gown covered in the American flora as a get-well gift for her mom.
