Page 30 of Disobedient Pawn

My hand tightened on my mum's, my stomach flipping and making me feel sick as tears pricked the back of my eyes, but I didn’t cry or throw up. I needed to be strong for my mum.

“Oh, I see. What happens if it is cancerous?”

“You may need chemo or radiation. We will also be checking to make sure it hasn’t metastasized,” the doctor said calmly, while I wanted to scream at him and ask him what all that meant. It seemed very serious by the worry on my mum’s face. How could he act so calm?

“What am I looking at, time-wise?” My mum asked as she held my hand tighter. I laid my other hand on top of hers.

“It is too early to say. We’re not even sure what we are dealing with at this point.” He spoke so evenly and stood perfectly still, like a robot. His hands were neatly folded in front of him with a clipboard in his hand.

“Do you know why this has happened?”

“Again, it is far too early to say. It could easily have been there for years or not long. The fact you haven’t had any symptoms until your collapse is very optimistic. I don’t want to give you false information or hope, so let’s wait and see what the tests say.”

My mum sighed and looked at me with silver eyes that matched my own. She smiled at me, but I could see the worry all over her beautiful face.

“Okay, whatever you need to do,” my mum said, and the doctor stepped forward with papers for her to sign.

I wiped away the tears that were such a common occurrence this last year that most of the time, I didn’t notice them trailing down my cheeks. Grabbing the paints from the cupboard, I opened the drawer at my station to pull out my brushes, but they were gone.

Panic instantly squeezed my throat as I stared into the empty space. “Who would take my brushes? Why would someone even want them?”

I dug around in the drawer, hoping they’d somehow jumped out of the tray and landed in the bottom. I knew it was stupid, but it was the only thing I could think of. Vicky and her friends didn’t take this class neither did Myles, Blake, or Nash. They were the only ones that I could see doing something like that.

The tears I’d managed to get control of hit again as I gulped in air. As I stumbled backward, my back hit the wall. I slid down and put my head between my knees as the panic and sadness compressed my chest until I couldn’t breathe. The world swam, and little dots floated behind my closed eyes.

“What do you mean you couldn’t get it all?” My father yelled at the surgeon. My father had shown up halfway through the surgery and raced around asking questions that I already had the answers to, but he didn’t look at me. He didn’t even check on me as I sat alone in my mum’s room and waited for word that she’d be okay.

How had I become so invisible to him? What had I done wrong that he never wanted to be around and didn’t offer to do any of the things we used to do? Ice cream runs on Sundays had been my favorite. I loved getting a bag of bread from the convenience store and our favorite ice cream before we fed the ducks at one of the parks nearby. They were so cute to watch, catching the bread out of the air like a dog doing a trick.

That all stopped six months ago. At first, I kept asking, hopeful that the new job keeping him so busy would slow down and we could do things as a family again. But the job didn’t slow, and my father was home even less, and now…now it was like I didn’t exist at all.

“The tumor has wrapped itself around one of the major arteries using it as a blood supply. I have done all I can until the radiation treatment is complete. We will reassess at that time to see if it’s possible to go back in and start again,” the doctor said.

Keeping my ears trained on the conversation, I stared at my mum’s face. She looked like she was sleeping with one of her beloved scarves tied around her head. At least, that was how I chose to see the white bandages hiding the long line of staples holding the skin on her head together.

I wasn’t supposed to know that, but there was no way I was sitting in a chair in the waiting room. Besides, I needed to know what my mum required to get better. It was my only goal now. She needed to live so we could try out the new paintbrushes she’d just gotten me for my birthday.

I always hated that my birthday was on Devil’s Night, right before Halloween. It felt like I was getting ripped off, choosing between trick-or-treating or having a party. I now realized that was pretty selfish, considering my mum always did whatever she could to make my birthdays exceptional. I linked my fingers with hers. She was cold to the touch still, and I hated that. I grabbed the blanket folded at the end of the bed to lay over her.

“This is unacceptable. I want a second opinion,” Father argued and pulled out his cell phone. He left the room with the doctor, and I was left in silence with only the low beep of the monitor to keep me company.

“Hey mum, it’s me. That was probably pretty stupid to say.” Glancing around the room, I could feel tears wanting to form, but I wouldn’t let them fall. I was old enough now to handle this, and my mum needed me. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere, not ever. Dad is fighting to make sure you get the best care.” I hated that I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to say what I wanted as my jumbled thoughts bounced around in my brain while the emotions tore at my chest. “I love you.”

Maybe I left them by the sink. Using the sleeve of my sweatshirt, I wiped away the tears so I could see and pushed myself to my feet using the wall to balance. I still felt dizzy, but I needed to know. I had to check.

Stumbling away from the wall, I grabbed a desk to rest for a second and let my mind clear before pushing on. Taking a deep breath, I focused on the lineup of sinks and forced myself to put one foot in front of the other. Anyone who saw this would say I was irrational and panicking over nothing. They were just paintbrushes. But they weren’t just paintbrushes and meant so much more than that to me. They were the last gift my mum got me before she got sick. They were my only link to happier times when we argued like mother and daughters did and laughed just as hard. When we would string cranberries for the Christmas tree, bake cookies and stay up all night playing board games on holidays.

My mum was my whole world. One day she was fine, then in a blink, she was sick, and then she was gone.

Bang.

I jumped up from the large recliner where I’d been sleeping and looked at my mum. She was wide awake and staring at the bedroom door. So that meant the noise wasn’t my imagination.

“Turn on the security cameras,” Mum wheezed.

With my heart hammering in my chest, I grabbed the remote and hit the buttons for the television that would bring up the security feed inside the house.

“Oh my god, mum. What do they want?” My hand shook as I stared at the three men wearing black masks, going through rooms and trashing everything they touched.