Fatal (2 page)

So I kissed her on the forehead as I stood and went to check the mail. Our building was very old, some low-rise four-floor thing dating back fifty or sixty years. The halls were stained with a
sickly yellow patina of nicotine, and the old carpet on the floor so thin you could see the wooden boards beneath it.

Chapter 2

Despite the smell of tobacco infusing everything, I took a deep breath. They'd delivered a new batch of pills last week. These ones made the cloying scent worse. It was almost a relief to get out of there, away from my mother.

I made my way down the stairs. No elevators, here. My footfalls echoed up and down the stairwell as my fingers ran over the cool, rough rail.

It wasn't that I didn't want to go to school, it was that I couldn't. I'd applied to a few before mom got her diagnosis, and even received an acceptance. But I'd put that all away when she told me.

In some way, it was almost a relief. School represented change, moving forward into the next stage of my life. Staying with mom let me take my time, let me think about things.

I pushed the door open to the ground floor and walked up the hall. Sunlight spilled in through the front entrance, much of it being greedily lapped up by the giant fern the landlord kept.

The mail room was right beside the entrance. It was a bank of postal boxes, each little silvered door engraved with a room number.

Sure enough, the power bill was on top. It was stamped "!!!URGENT!!!" in red ink. Let them keep their urgent. They'd send at least one more notice before they actually killed the electricity. Before then, I knew I'd be able to pick up some extra shifts somehow.

I tossed out a few flyers for pizza places and discount manicures. Then my fingers jerked. There were two thick envelopes. I pulled out the top one. In the right hand corner was a circular sigil: the star-topped open Bible of UCLA, the scrollwork reading "Fiat
Lux" below.

I tore it open right there, my heart slamming in my chest even as my mouth went dry. I looked guiltily over my shoulder back into the entrance hall, but there was no one standing there impatiently waiting to check their mail and make me stop.

It was an acceptance into their History program. My breath caught as I unfolded the thick letter signed by some dean at the bottom.

What caught my attention even more was the scholarship. It seemed my entrance essay had caught no small amount of attention. My eyes widened at the number. Was that decimal point really in the right spot?

I leaned back against the stucco wall, not caring as it scratched me through my shirt. I started sinking down, my knees unwilling to support my weight any longer. God, with that money, we could be okay. I could commute to LA from here... there'd be a health plan to cover the rest of mom's medicine.

A million thoughts shot through my mind. It felt like I'd won the lottery.

I saw the other envelope in the open mailbox then. I pulled it out with cold, shaking fingers. It had a square sigil in the corner of an open scroll. It was marked as from Redeemer College in some place called Hazelglen, Massachusetts.

It took me a few frowning moments to recall even applying there. Mom had wanted me to apply to five schools, and I'd already found four, so I just picked that one off the list without really looking. I remember just changing the header information on my essay to UCLA and sending it off.

I opened that envelope, too. Another acceptance. It offered somewhat less money than UCLA. The acceptance letter from the dean was on even richer stock paper than the UCLA one, however.

Two acceptances?
Both with scholarships? I had to be asleep, I figured. My legs jerked beneath me. I had to get upstairs and tell mom right away! God, she'd be so happy!

It was all she ever wanted for me. This was it; I was finally going off to college!

As I stood, a coldness gripped the bottom of my heart, dripping down into my empty stomach.

It was true; I'd have to go away. I'd have to really start my life. There was so much after that, too. What was I going to do for a job? What if I met someone at school?

The enormity of my future dropped onto my shoulders all at once.

I looked down at the two envelopes representing the first step into that great abyss.

Quickly, before I could change my mind, I stuffed the letter back into the UCLA envelope, then shoved that down into the middle of the blue recycling bin already mostly filled with junk mail.

That left the acceptance from Redeemer College, a place on the other side of the country. A place I couldn't possibly go without leaving my mother entirely alone. I'd just explain that to her and stay. Maybe next year, I thought, she'll be better and I'll go. Until then, nothing would change.

So, holding that singular acceptance envelope, I went back upstairs. I tried to affect a look that mixed excitement with disappointment and sadness.

Chapter 3

My shoulders slumped as I went into her bedroom. She smiled, and I gave her a wan curve of my lips in return. She saw the envelope as I sat down in the lawn chair.

"What's that?" she asked.

I handed it to her. She pulled out the contents. In addition to the letter, there were brochures for residence dormitories, suggestions for first year supplies, even a few pamphlets for the apparently "historic" town of Hazelglen.

Mom covered her mouth with one skeletal hand as her eyes widened. They scanned the lines on the letter.

"Oh, Steph, this is so amazing..." she said.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. They left glistening trails down her
cheeks. A lump formed in my throat. I couldn't leave her alone. I'd never leave her alone. I felt better about hiding the other letter.

She looked at me, her face changing when she saw my expression. "Oh, sweetie, what's wrong?"

"It's too far away," I said, feeling some genuine pressure behind my own eyes, "I can't go. I'd be leaving you behind..."

"Stephanie," mom started.

"No, you really can't get by without me. You know it. If that had been from, I dunno, UCLA or CalTech or something, it would be different. But it's just too far."

I thought of the other envelope, down in the recycling bin in the mail room. I looked down at my hands, clasped together tightly on my lap. I couldn't look her in the eye as she watched me. This was too important.

"Here," mom said, papers rustling.

She handed me the envelope. It was heavy, the paper slightly damp from the two of us pawing at it in excitement.

Then she grabbed my shoulders and pulled me in for a hug. Her remaining strength was much more than I thought, and I found myself almost falling out of my chair. She kissed the top of my head. That smell was so strong near her, but I couldn't pull away.

I rested my cheek against her chest, feeling her ribs pressed against me through that sweater. It was both amazing and terrifying what cancer, and the drugs used to treat it, could do to a person. Her body was little more than skin stretched over a skeleton.

Yet she still had the will to hold me against her like that.

I had to grab her lunch, which
was really just a few slices of white bread on a plate and a glass of water. She couldn't keep a lot of stuff down, and insisted on this simple diet. When I put the plate on her nightstand, she smiled at me again. Her eyes were still red from the tears, and I looked quickly down at my feet as I felt the pressure building behind my own eyes.

After that, I went to my bedroom. I flicked on the light, the bulb in the socket a weaker than necessary one in an attempt to cut our electric bill.

It was a crowded space, the twin bed with wooden head and footboards crowding my tiny dresser. It was so close to the wall I could only open my closet door about half way.

I threw the envelope onto the dresser. It came to rest amongst
an unruly pile of costume jewelry and a few near-empty cans of hair spray. I could have recycled it then, but I guess I considered the matter closed.

"
Already?" I whispered when I looked at my clock.

It was coming up on lunch. I had a shift at the diner starting in about thirty minutes.

Quickly, I grabbed up my work uniform (a pink blouse with puffy sleeves, a skirt a few shades darker, and a pair of white flats).

My stomach growled a complaint at me. Earlier, I promised it a quick bowl of Ramen noodles. But there was no time for that, now. The diner was an easy twenty five minute walk from here. It would have been ten or less on the bus, I thought as I tugged off my shirt and shorts.

I thought mostly of trying to get a few good tips. If I got enough, I could cover the tab at the pharmacy, and maybe even have enough left over to squirrel away for the eventual final cutoff notice.

I didn't think at all a
bout the envelope on my dresser as I rushed out of the apartment, or of my mom's sudden powerful desire to hug me.

I thought instead of the pile of dishes in the sink
I’d have to clean, of how I should change her sheets when I got back. Maybe even run down to the laundry room with some quarters

That was all behind me, now. School was always going to happen, I knew.
But at some indefinite point in the future. After she got better.

***

I worked a double that night, getting home somewhere between three and four in the morning. I walked all the way back in the cool air. My feet ached deeply the entire way.

Mom hated that I worked so late and then walked back, but I almost liked it. There was almost nobody out at this time. The air was almost clean and clear, and everything was so quiet. The loudest thing was the sound of my footsteps.

The darkness, the loneliness, were almost armor to me. They made me feel safe.

I got back inside, careful to turn the key slowly so that the deadbolt wouldn't shoot back with that loud metal clank. Once in, I turned on the small fluorescent light over the sink and used it to set up mom's breakfast (more bread and water).

I put a layer of cling wrap over the plate to keep the bread from going all hard and stale. I could hardly feel my feet. That dull, hot ache of standing and walking for hours and hours had migrated up my calves.

So I put the plate and the glass on her nightstand as quietly as I could, then went and collapsed on my bed. I had to get up a few seconds later when I realized that I forgot to take off my uniform. It couldn't get wrinkled. Wrinkled girls didn't get tips.

My tips were in the pocket of my skirt; a few dollars in quarters and a wrinkled single. Tuesdays were always slow.

I closed my eyes and let the comforting darkness of sleep swallow me up.

Chapter 4

Bzzt
bzzt bzzt
, the alarm nagged.

I rolled over, getting some hair across the face. I'd forgotten to tie it back in my haste to get to sleep.

Bzzt bzzt bzzt
.

A bar of sunlight lay across the foot of my bed. When I felt the heat, I pulled my legs up. It was eight thirty. As I sat up, I stretched, wincing as the muscles in my back and shoulders stretched.

When I put my feet on the parquet floor, I sucked a breath in through my teeth. It felt like someone had taken the soles of my feet, wrung them out, tenderized them with a hammer, and then stuck them back on.

And today I had another double. I also had those dishes waiting for me (dishes were good at waiting, always overstaying their welcome) and the laundry. Was there a delivery today from the
pharmaceutical company?

I ran my fingers through my hair, pursing my lips as I worked through the knots.

Pulling open the top drawer of my dresser, I saw that it had to be laundry day. I was down to a final pair of grey shorts. The same ones I used in PE class last year. I pulled them on, then grabbed an old white t-shirt from the closet.

I was about to go fix breakfast when I saw the envelope again. The corner of the acceptance letter poked out of it, and I saw the top half of the school sigil.

It had been the right choice to stay. It had been the right choice to lie to mom.

Well... I didn't actually lie. I just didn't tell her about the other acceptance letter. I'd have to get rid of this one, too. Today, if I could manage.
Maybe when I went down with the laundry.

Mom's voice came through the wall, then. Was she laughing? My heart dropped. What was wrong? I burst through my door out into the hallway.

It could be a million things. She hadn't really laughed in months. Not like that, anyway. Maybe those new pills stirred something around in her brain.

I thought about how much it was going to cost to have the ambulance come and get her as I shoved her door open.

"Mom!" I said.

She put her forefinger against her lips in that universal request for silence. Her other hand pressed the phone to her ear.

"Yes, thank you. That would be amazing! Oh, and thanks again. Have a lovely day!" she said, the phone beeping at her as she pressed the end call button.