Jackpot! (31 page)

Now the wheels were spinning in my head and I knew something was very wrong. “What’s going on?” I asked.

Instead of answering me, she walked toward Frankie’s bedroom. I practically jumped across the apartment to meet her there. When Rose opened the bedroom door, I was so shocked I literally had to put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. There was my mother, lying in bed asleep. Rose gently closed the door and put her arm around me.

“Is she okay?” I whispered, my voice shaking.

“She’s going to be.”

A second later, I heard a frail voice coming from the bedroom. “Jamie, is that you?”

I opened the door and walked over to my mother’s bed.

“Come sit on the bed,” she whispered.

Suddenly, I was frightened. Ma’s voice sounded so old.

“Ma, what’s wrong with you?” I asked, sitting down on the bed, “Please tell me.”

“I have breast cancer,” Frankie said, “My surgery was last week. I came home from the hospital yesterday.”

“She got an excellent report back from the doctor today,” interrupted Rose, “They got it all. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Jacobson?”

“Yes, Rose.”

“Oh, Ma…” I said, my eyes rapidly filling with tears.

She took my hand. “It’s okay. Really. I’m going to be fine.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” she said softly.

I hated myself for doing it, but I burst into tears. I knew Ma didn’t want that, but I couldn’t help it. I was devastated. My mother had cancer! Apparently, she’d been having radiation the past few weeks to shrink the tumor, and then she had an operation. And she went through it alone! All I could do was bawl, which I did for a few minutes.

“I’ll go make some tea,” said Rose, leaving the room.

“I’ll let you cry for a minute or two more, and then that’s enough,” said Ma, “There’s nothing to cry about. I’m good. I’m going to recover.”

When I was finally able to stop blubbering, I looked at my frail mother, lying in her bed and asked, “Is that why you did all this? I mean, the bribing and the contract?”

Frankie slowly nodded. “All I want before I die is…”

I interrupted, “I know…grandchildren. I’m sorry, Ma. We couldn’t do it. Danny and I, we both tried, but…”

“It’s okay. I was wrong to do that to you. I felt desperate, though. Being sick made me have some pretty strange thoughts, and one of them was that I didn’t want to die without having grandchildren.”

I wiped my eyes with my forearm. “Ma, I was wrong too. About a lot of things. I was so bitter and so angry all the time. And I was afraid. Afraid to let myself be happy. I want to have babies. I’m sure of that now.”

“It’s okay, even if you never do. I’ll always love you,” she said, a tear rolling down her cheek.

I wiped it off. “I feel like I should thank you, Ma, for giving me the contract.”

“Why?”

“Because through this crazy time of trying to find someone to have a baby with, I fell in love. And so did Danny.”

Upon hearing both her children had fallen in love, Ma, Miss Dramatic, began to cry, which made me cry again. We both sobbed until Rose came back with a tray with three cups of tea on it. She served us and then served herself. And then she sat on a chair next to the bed and demanded to know what was going on.

Ma began telling her about the night she gave us the contract. What was so funny was that Rose began to laugh. Actually, she was howling. For some reason, she found our situation hysterically funny, which made me realize how right I was to believe it would make a great movie.

The three of us sat there talking and laughing about it for a long time, and I told them all about Danny’s and my quest for fertility. And even though lots of the stories were extremely entertaining, what we did made me sad because we used people. And I was truly ashamed of that.

“I want to hear about the man you love,” Ma exclaimed.

I put my head down because I couldn’t even look at my mother. As if she didn’t have enough going on, now she had to hear about my broken heart? By telling her that both Danny and I were in love, I’d teased her. Ma was probably expecting to hear wedding bells. Now I’d have to tell her how the people we loved currently hated our guts.

“What is it?” she asked, lifting up my chin to get a look at my eyes.

“Ma, I do love him. It’s just…”

“Oh my God, he’s married!”

I giggled. It was good to see Miss Drama Queen getting back to normal. “No Ma, he’s not married.”

“What then?” she urged.

“He doesn’t love me anymore. I told him the truth about the contract, and how I began the relationship under false pretenses, and he just doesn’t believe I actually fell in love with him. He told me I was evil.”

“That bastard!” shouted Rose.

Ma gave me a big grin. “You, evil?” she giggled, “You, my sweet girl, are anything but evil. You’re filled with so much good, and you have so much love to give. And you’re finally sharing it with someone. I can tell by the look on your face. It’s the same enthusiastic, warmhearted expression I see when I talk about your father and I. You’ve finally let someone love you the way you should be loved.”

“I know, but my heart’s breaking. He won’t even look at me.”

Frankie sat up in bed and said with determination, “If you tell him how you really feel, you can get him back.”

“I don’t know. He’s pretty angry.”

“He’s also a man,” Rose piped in.

“Go get him back,” Ma said.

“Hey, Ma?” I said with apprehension in my voice.

“Yeah?”

“He’s not Jewish.”

“Huh,” said Frankie with a smile, “Any chance he would convert?”

I cracked up and then I hugged my mother tight.

A few minutes later, she was ready for another nap. She told Rose to fill me in on more of the details of her condition, so the two of us went into the living room and sat on the couch, and Rose educated me on Frankie’s illness. She had stage two cancer, and the doctors were very optimistic that with the radiation, the surgery, and future chemotherapy she would fully recover. Rose gave me the names and phone numbers of all of Ma’s doctors so I could call them with the hundreds of questions I had.

Frankie had been so stubborn, so hard-headed in not wanting us to know she was sick, that she had carried the burden all by herself. I wondered how she must have felt telling me she was going on a vacation and seeing the world, when in reality she was having radiation treatments and then a mastectomy. She had told me she had a limousine picking her up to take her to the airport, when in truth, the limo was taking her to the hospital.

It all began to make sense. I now knew exactly why she put the demands she did on Danny and I. I wondered how I could have doubted my own mother’s character. Shouldn’t I have realized something was really wrong? All this time, I’d kept saying how selfish Ma was, how she wanted grand-children just because all her friends had them. Now I realized it was because Frankie felt like she was running out of time.

While Ma slept and Rose watched the news, I decided it was time to call my brother.

Chapter 38

I answered my cell, “Hey, I’m really glad you called. I need your help. I’m in a flower shop. What color roses should I send? All red or half red half pink?”

“Uh…I think half and half,” she answered.

“Okay, cool,” I said, “hold on.” I then told the florist that I wanted to send someone a dozen roses, half red half pink.

“Um, Danny…” said my sister, “I need to talk to you.”

“Sure, what’s up?” Before she could get another word in, I said, “Screw it. I’m going all red. Hold on.” Then I changed my order while she waited.

“Danny…” she said again.

“Yeah, sorry, Jamie. Go ahead. I’m listening. Hope you don’t mind, though, if I fill out this form for the flowers while we talk.”

“Look, it’s Ma.”

“What about her?”

“She wasn’t on a trip like she said. She…” My sister then broke down crying.

“What? Tell me!” I urged.

Through tears she managed, “Look, finish ordering the flowers and then come over here, to HER place.”

“Ma’s place?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong? Is Ma there?”

“Yes. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”

“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said. I snapped my cell shut and twelve minutes later I was knocking on my mother’s door.

Jamie answered and the first thing she did was put her arms around me and start crying again.

“I’ll go make some more tea,” I heard a woman say. I looked up and saw some older lady in a nurse’s outfit.

Jamie pulled away from me, composed herself and said to the woman, “Thank you. You’re really thoughtful, Rose.” Then the woman walked into the kitchen.

“Who the hell is Rose and where’s Ma?” I asked.

“Asleep in her bedroom.”

Now I started to shake. “Is Ma sick?”

“Yeah,” answered Jamie, “Come in and sit down.”

I followed my sister to our mother’s brand new couch. On the way, I had a quick flashback to the day we sat on the floor waiting for all the new furniture to be delivered. Ma was so happy, so excited about all her new stuff, and her new outfit and new hair. I resented her that day. And now, not knowing what was wrong with her yet, already I felt guilty.

“Ma has breast cancer,” Jamie said.

“What? When did she find out? Did something happen on her trip?”

“There was no trip, Danny. It was a lie. She didn’t want us to know about the cancer, so she pretended she was going on a cruise. She’s been having radiation treatments and last week she had surgery. And now she has to have chemotherapy.”

As she gave me more details about Ma’s prognosis and condition, I sat and listened, still trying to absorb the shock of it all and probably retaining thirty percent of the information. I asked a few questions, some of which were answered by Rose, who had come out of the kitchen and introduced herself. Rose seemed cool, and I immediately liked her and felt comfortable with her. Still, I was so stunned by learning the truth that I could barely focus on most of what they were telling me.

When Rose went to check on Ma, Jamie told me the story about how she found out the truth. As I listened, the guilt compounded. I’d been so angry with Frankie. I’d thought she was selfish and superficial and pretty much nuts for asking us to have babies for money.

“I couldn’t feel worse,” I said to my sister, “I’m a horrible son.”

“No,” she responded, “You didn’t know. Neither did I.”

“It all makes sense now. Ma wanted us to have babies because she thought she was going to die.”

Jamie nodded in agreement. I put my head down in sadness and in shame. Just then Rose appeared in the doorway. “Your mother’s up.” Instantly, I got up and went into her bedroom. The sight of her was shocking. My ordinarily loud, gregarious, happy mother seemed like a quiet, frail, old woman now. It took my breath away.

“Hi, Ma,” I managed, my voice almost a whisper.

“Hi, my sweet boy,” Ma replied softly, “Come sit with me.”

I sat down on the edge of her bed and took her hand. It felt really small, and I realized that the size of it was no different than it had always been, but how I viewed my mother had changed in an instant. She was no longer the strong, self-sufficient woman I knew. She needed me now. And that made me sad but proud of her, too. Proud because I realized that her whole life, Frankie had been a survivor. She was a single mother who raised us and gave us a good life. And I’d never appreciated that.

“I don’t know what to say, Ma. I’m sorry this happened to you and I’m sorry for acting like I did.”