Chapter Ten
We pull up to my house a few hours later. I don’t immediately get out of the car as I take a few deep breaths, preparing for the fight that’s about to go down.
“Layken, call me later. I wanna know everything. Good luck,” Eddie says.
“Thanks, I will.” I get out of the car and walk up to the door as they drive away. When I walk inside, my mom is lying on the couch. She hears the door close and jumps up. I expect her to continue yelling but she runs to me and throws her arms around my neck. I stand stiff.
“Lake, I’m so sorry, I should have told you. I’m so sorry.” She’s crying.
I back apart from her and go sit on the couch. There’s tissue paper all over both end tables. She’s been crying a lot. Good, she should feel bad. Awful, even.
“Dad and I were going to tell you before he-”
“Dad? You were seeing him before dad even died?” I stand up and pace the floor. “Mom! How long has this been going on?” I’m yelling now. And crying again.
I look at her, waiting for her to defend her repulsive behavior but she is staring at the table in front of her.
She leans forward and cocks her head at me. “Seeing who? What do you think’s going on?”
“I don’t know who! Whoever wrote you that poem in your nightstand! Whoever you’ve been going to see every time you run errands. Whoever you’ve been saying I love you to on the phone. I don’t know who and I really don’t care who.”
She walks to me and places her hands on my shoulders.
“Lake, I’m not seeing anyone. You’ve misunderstood everything. All of it.”
I can tell she’s being honest, but I still don’t have any answers.
“What about the note? And the bank statements? We aren’t broke, Mom. And you never even sold the house! You lied to us to drag us up here. If it wasn’t for some guy, then why? Why are we here?”
“Oh god, Lake. I thought you knew. I thought you figured it out.” She sits back down on the couch.
“Apparently not," I say. I'm frustrated. I don't understand what could possibly be so important about Michigan that she would drag us away from our entire lives.
"So tell me,” I say.
“Sit down. Please, sit down.”
I sit back down on the couch and wait for her to explain everything. She pauses for a long time as she gathers her thoughts.
“The note, it’s just something your dad wrote. He was being silly. He drew on my face one night and left the note on my pillow. I kept it. I loved your dad, Lake. I miss him so much. I would never do anything like that to him. There’s no one else.”
She's being sincere.
“Then why did we move here, Mom? Why did you make us move here?”
She takes a deep breath and grabs my hands. The look in her eyes makes my heart sink. It’s the same look she had in the hallway earlier this year when she came to tell me the news about my dad. She takes another deep breath and squeezes my hands.
“Lake, I have cancer.”
***
Denial. I’m definitely in denial. And anger. Bargaining? Yes, that too. I’m in all three. All five, maybe. I can’t breathe.
“Your father and I were going to tell you. After he died, y’all were so devastated. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to you about it. When I started getting worse, I wanted to move back here. Brenda begged me to, said she’d help take care of me. She’s the one I’ve been talking to on the phone. There’s a doctor in Detroit that specializes in lung cancer. That’s where I’ve been going.”
Lung cancer. It has a name. That makes it even more real.
“I was going to tell you and Kel tomorrow. It’s time you guys know, so we can all prepare.”
I pull my hands away from her.
“Prepare...for what, Mom?”
She wraps her arms around me and starts crying again. I push her back.
“Prepare for what, Mom?”
Just like plump Principal Bass, she can’t look me in the eyes. She feels sorry for me.
I don’t remember walking out of the house, and I don’t remember going across the street. The only thing I know is that it’s midnight and I’m beating on Will’s door.
When he opens it he doesn’t ask any questions. He can see on my face that I just need him to be Will. Just for a little while. He puts his arm around me shoulders and ushers me inside as he shuts the door behind him.
“Lake, what’s wrong?”
I can’t respond. I can’t breathe. Will wraps his arms around me just as I start to collapse to the floor and cry. And just like in the school hallway with my mother, he melts to the floor with me. He puts my head under his chin as he rubs my hair and lets me cry.
“Tell me what happened,” he finally whispers.
I don’t want to say it. If I say it out loud, that means it’s real. It is real.
“She’s dying, Will,” I say between sobs. “She has cancer.” He squeezes me tighter, then picks me up and carries me to his bedroom. He lays me on the bed and pulls the covers over me when the doorbell rings. He kisses me on the forehead as he leaves the room.
I can hear her speak when he answers the door, but I can’t hear what she says. His voice is low but I'm able to make out what Will says.
“Let her stay, Julia. She needs me right now.”
A few more things are spoken that I can’t make out. I hear him eventually shut the door and he comes back to the bedroom. He crawls into the bed, puts his arms around me and holds me while I cry.
Part Two
11.
“Who cares about tomorrow?
What more is tomorrow,
Than another Day?”
-The Avett Brothers, Swept Away