Dropping my damp towel in the hamper, I walked down the upstairs hallway, searching for signs of Mom. Was she hungover? I hated going into Mom’s room. You never knew what you were going to find. Peeking cautiously into her darkened bedroom, I could see that her sheets were all tangled and a mess as usual, but no Mom. I made my way downstairs.
“So what’s going on?” I asked Courtney.
“Ryan, enough syrup, eat your pancakes,” she instructed.
“Why pancakes?” I asked.
“There’s nothing else in this fucking house to eat.”
“Mom hasn’t been shopping?” I asked.
“Where have you been for the last four days?”
“What difference does it make? And why are you suddenly acting all Supernanny with Ry?” I asked.
All the color drained from her face. It seemed like Courtney didn’t know what to say. “Just get your ass to the hospital. Mom has cancer.”
* * *
I didn’t remember driving to the hospital or parking my car or saying my name. All I could think about was the endless times that I had avoided her calls, deleted her texts, or turned off my phone so I wouldn’t have to talk to her. I was always afraid she would ask me about school, so I ignored her when maybe she wanted to tell me about … I couldn’t even say the word to myself.
I sat in the waiting room feeling more alone than I had ever felt in my whole life. I was afraid to call Jess and ashamed to call Nan. They both knew what I had been doing for the last four days. Mom had been in the hospital for three days.
The large beige waiting room was filled with rows of mauve chairs and ferns. Fox News blared from the TV perched in the corner of the ceiling. I was the only one there, and it felt like torture. I remember wondering if the ferns were real or if someone actually watered them. There were well-used stacks of magazines and a stand filled with brochures covering everything from chronic bed-wetting to hepatitis B.
After a while, I couldn’t remember what I was waiting for. Had the receptionist said a doctor would be with me soon? I couldn’t recall. But I recognized some of the nurses walking by, who whispered when they saw me. They knew my mom. I wondered how they felt. Was she as nasty to them as she was to us? I was certain my mother had told them all that I was going to school to become a nurse-practitioner. They probably still thought that was true.
My mind flashed back to the last time I saw Mom, when Ryan was acting like such a wiseass. I kept remembering her rubbing her arm and sliding down the sleeves of her blouse. It seemed obvious now. She must have had tests, I thought. She already knew she had cancer.
“Don’t go off the rails,” she had said. “You’re the only dependable one left.” In my head, I couldn’t stop hearing her say that over and over.
My mind was in a fog. I felt like I had to do something. I decided to ask to see my mother as soon as possible, but as I stood up a doctor approached me before I could say anything.
“Lisbeth Wachowicz?”
“Yes?”
“You mother is being evaluated for hepatocellular carcinoma,” said the doctor. He seemed barely five years older than me. Had his mother wanted him to go to medical school? Did he want to become a doctor? Was he glad he did? His name was stitched into his starched white coat, Dr. Kenneth Newton. He was tall and skinny as a rail and wore black-framed eyeglasses.
“In English, please?” I asked. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and paused a moment.
“Liver cancer. We know she has severe cirrhosis of the liver and we’re trying to rule out cancer,” he said.
“From drinking?”
“Ten years or more of heavy drinking can cause the cirrhosis to form, but there are a number of factors such as how much a person drinks, what they drink, how their body handles alcohol, their underlying medical condition, medical history, genetics. Women who are heavy drinkers are at a higher risk than men.”
“So, yes?”
“Yes,” he responded grimly.
“But she’s been drinking forever. What happened? Why now?”
“Your mother was on her second shift when she became disoriented and confused,” he said. “We have a number of safeguards here, and I pulled her in for testing. The liver detoxifies your body, and if the liver isn’t functioning correctly, toxins can be released into your bloodstream. It’s usually the high ammonia levels that cause confusion and behavior changes,” he said. “That’s what we tested her for.”
Jeez, I guess going to med school pays off.
“Is she in pain?”
“No, actually there are no nerve endings in the liver itself,” he said. “Once we normalize her blood levels, she’ll be her old self again, up to a point.”
Was that a good or bad thing? I wondered.
“Listen,” he said. “I know this is tough, but your mom has a lot of friends here. There isn’t a nurse or doctor at this hospital that at some point or another your mother hasn’t helped.”
As he spoke, I saw some of the nurses gathered at reception, and it seemed as though they were listening and nodding to what Dr. Newton had to say. The woman he was describing didn’t sound like anyone I knew.
“You’re talking about my mother?”
“Yes, Ella headed up the patient-advocacy task force that focused on seniors and has always given one hundred percent to every doctor and patient on the ward,” he said. This was from the woman who never visited her own aging mother.
“Do you actually know my mom?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied in the same calm tone as he had started. “Ella was probably the first person I met here. She runs the orientation program for all new doctors. It is a privilege to take care of her. Let me put it this way: if I were sick, I would want your mom to take care of me.”
“You guys … like her?” I asked, wondering what he made of my astonishment.
“I can only speak for her at work. At home she may have behaved very differently. It’s clear now your mother was a very-high-functioning alcoholic. That may have had serious ramifications for you at home, and we have counseling that we can make available to you and your family, but as for the hospital, she couldn’t be in better hands.”
“Can I see her?”
He signaled the nurses, who were already waiting to take me to her room.
As I walked away from him, I nodded thanks.
I already liked Dr. Newton. I had never known as much about my mother as in that short talk with him. No one had ever laid it on the line in such a matter-of-fact way. I realized that these doctors and nurses knew her better than I did.
“Right this way, hon,” the nurse said. She had a gristled voice like Mom and was wearing the same pale-blue scrubs Mom wore home every day. I noticed the name Brynner stitched into her uniform. I remembered Mom talking about her. I wondered if they had ever gone out drinking together.
With a hiss, the pneumatic doors opened. Gurneys glimmered in a line down the corridor. As we passed the nurses’ station, almost everyone stopped to watch us walk by. I don’t know why, but it made me feel like crying.
In my mother’s room, I couldn’t stop myself. My chest was shaking uncontrollably. I couldn’t hold back the tears. Mom was lying with her eyes closed on her back, a tube in her nose, a finger heart-rate monitor, a catheter in her arm, and a tube in her wrist hooked up to all kinds of machinery.
“Mom?” I said, trying to focus myself. She didn’t move, though I could see that she was breathing.
“She’s sleeping,” Nurse Brynner said.
“Can I … can I just sit here for a while?” I asked.
“Of course, hon, you go ahead. I’ll come back in a few.” As Nurse Brynner left, I turned to Mom, and it all burst out of me. I sobbed relentlessly.