I sat in the parking lot with a cup of coffee and a muffin while I waited, praying once again for this to work. If anything made her better it would be this.
“What are you doing?” Janie asked when I met her at her car door.
I kissed her, “Remember I told you that we were going to have our baby, mine and yours?”
“Blake?” she questioned, looking at me like I was up to something. I was.
“Come on. Just follow my lead. I know what I’m doing.”
“Come where?”
“Let’s go make a baby.”
“Are you out of your mind? Blake!”
“Trust me. You’re going to love me when we leave here.”
“I loved you before we got here.”
“You’re going to love me more. Trust me.”
“That’s scary.”
Janie couldn’t believe I pulled it off. Nobody even asked questions. The doctor was horrible and I loved it. She was too busy to ask too many questions, she had a few more thousand dollars to make before she went home for the day. Her bedside manners sucked and she talked to us like we were the two most unimportant people on earth. But…She did assure us of her success and she thought our short five weeks would be long enough to extract a few eggs before Janie started treatment. That was what I cared about. Janie’s eyes never returned to their normal size. Not the entire visit. They may have widened even more when I wrote a ten thousand dollar check out of my own account. My mom was going to kill me but I didn’t care. As long as Janie was happy, I didn’t care what happened to me.
“You’re crazy. You know that, right?” Janie questioned and jumped in my arms. I held her ass and walked us to the car while she kissed me and told me how crazy I was.
“I’m crazy about you. And guess what?”
“What?”
“You’re going to get your London.”
“We are, aren’t we? What if it’s a boy though?”
“So, I think London fits for a boy too.”
“Me too. I love you and guess what?”
“What?”
“There is nothing that says I can’t sit in your lap and pretend like we’re making our baby the old fashion way.”
“Really? You’re okay for that?”
“Yes. I feel fine today. I don’t feel sick at all.”
“Then you’re on. Let’s go to my house. It’s a mess, but my mom’s not home.”
I dropped Janie to the ground and she took my hand. “She’s really going to do it? She’s really going to move to Tennessee?”
“Yeah, but I don’t blame her. I’m getting ready to start school. Her whole family is there and mine is here,” I explained smiling at her.
“That makes me happy. Let’s never break up again. And if you want to get drunk and rub your junk all over some other chick, it better be me.”
“I swear there will never be another one. Just get better for me. We have a London baby to love.”
***
I didn’t care what Blake said. That was the perfect love story. A beautiful tragic love story. “You did all of that?”
“Yes, we had to come up with an extra week to have the procedure done. Holden and Sarah were livid. They wanted her to get things rolling, figure out a plan. They didn’t understand the need for another week. Janie was taking medications for all kinds of stuff her parents or cancer doctor didn’t know about. We skipped school more times that month than we ever did; not just going back and forth to the fertility doctor, but for fun too. Our fake identifications let us do a lot of things we weren’t allowed to.”
“Like drinking in a bar?” I questioned.
Blake closed his hand over mine and brought my fingers to his lips, “No, we didn’t drink. We didn’t want to do anything to mess up the procedure. We were only getting one shot.”
“I’m glad it worked.”
“Me too.”
“So Ryan knew? He knew the entire time?”
“Yeah, but don’t let it fool you, he used it to his advantage. I mean he helped us and I am grateful for that, but there was always that cloud. I couldn’t wait until Farrah was pregnant and we could finally tell them what we did, where the money went, and why her blood tests were totally whacked when we finally made it to the specialist appointment.”
“I can’t believe Holden waited for a month, let alone let you talk him into more time. I would have Pea on the doorstep, demanding treatment now.”
“You know how it is. The cancer team needs time for a plan, they need to run tests and figure out the best strategy to hit it.” Blake laughed, remembering that time. “Do you know how she got that extra week?”
“How?”
“She wanted to have one more period. It was going to be the last one she was ever going to have.”
“And that worked. I’d love not to have one again.”
“And so would she. She bitched the entire four days.”
“I’m glad you told me, Blake. You don’t have to tell me the bad parts, I already know them, I’m okay with you telling me about the good ones.”
“Until the end, right? And then what, Makayla?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. I can sell the car. It’s no big deal.”
“Blake, stop doing that. Just put it out there, I hate this.”
“You put it out there, Makayla. The floors yours.” Blake’s tone wasn’t angry, it was quiet and defeated. Like he knew what I was going to say.
“Let’s go to bed.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Blake stood and pulled me up by my hands. We stood with his arms around my back and mine around his neck and made out. I was trying my best to read him, to figure out what the hell he was feeling. I couldn’t. I felt desperation, but I didn’t know why.
“Regardless, I love you,” Blake confirmed in a whisper to my lips.
“Regardless of what?”
“Let’s go to bed.”
GAH! “What about these basketball shorts?” I asked, “you can’t kiss me like that and then leave me hanging.”
“Go to the bathroom. I’ll bend you over the sink.”
My white shorts were on the floor in one swift move. This was way better than talking about the inevitable. Way better. It was supposed to be a quickie but Blake made it so much more, and I was okay with that. His mouth brought me to bliss the first time, and then there were three more, all in different positions. The second one may have made a mess, but Blake loved it and I loved the look on his face when he made me do that. He finished with my legs around his waist and my ass on the sink. We took what frustrations we’d worked up out on each other to a whole new realm; both transferring emotions from our circumstance into this. Into this magical place that I could only feel with Blake.
And once again we slept without going there. I couldn’t do it yet, and Blake was obviously going to keep brushing it under the rug. If I could distract him with sex for a little while longer I would. I had to.
My mind wouldn’t stop thinking about my mother’s medical records long enough to close my eyes. I lay on Blake’s bare chest, listening to him growl a steady, peaceful breath while he slept. My eyes popped open when I remembered what Blake said.
“Blake?” I called, shaking him.
“Hmm?”
“You said Janie thought her cancer started in her liver. Did it? Was that where it started?”
“What?”
“You said that. Did it start in her liver?”
“Why?”
“I need to know.”
“No. It started in her lungs. Can we not talk about this anymore tonight? Go to sleep.”
Adrenalin pumped rapidly through my veins. “I’ll be right back, I have to pee.”
Blake mumbled, and rolled to his side. I went to my empty bedroom and straight to the closet. It wasn’t a pen I was after this time; it was my long lost belongings. I took my mother’s scrapbook and flipped the pages to my mom, Janie, and the dusty room. The dust mask should have been
a dead giveaway. It wasn’t great news, but it was something. Maybe I wasn’t doomed from the start. Maybe what I had was treatable. Maybe it wasn’t a curse handed down from generation to generation. Maybe those times my mother complained to Grandma Rhonda about all the tanning bed visits had nothing to do with me at all.
I opened my mother’s laptop and waited for the slower than molasses machine to power on. My fingers tapped on the keys, waiting while I told myself over and over that I didn’t need a pen. I remembered that day like it was yesterday, but I wasn’t scared, not once was I scared. My mom assured me she was going to be okay, even when I questioned what was going on she assured me she was fine. I never knew the details of what she was being treated for because she didn’t want me to know that stuff.
I checked every file there was to check. Nothing. Damn it. I needed her records. Why couldn’t Charlie give me something I could use? Wait a minute…Maybe he did. I moved the laptop and began looking through the last box; the one I hadn’t fully gone through. The one I was saving for another day.
I did get a little sidetracked when I watched myself grow up. I was blessed. I was blessed with a beautiful mother that loved me more than life itself. I didn’t need Barry, I never needed a dad, and this photo album proved that. My mom taught me to ride a bike. My mom put together that swing-set with a million bolts. My mom read those stories to me. My mom taught me to play that piano. My mom jumped on that trampoline with me. I never needed a dad. Ever. She was enough, she was always enough.
I pulled a picture of me as a toothless little girl from the plastic and laid it aside. I spent another twenty minutes looking at all of my mother’s success. Photos of her playing piano and fulfilling her dream, I was so proud of her. She achieved more goals in her short thirty-nine years than most people do in eighty.
I found one paper. That was it. It was a folded yellow copy from the emergency room. I remembered that night, I was barely thirteen. My mom was sick with pneumonia, well she told me it was pneumonia. “Metastasis?” I questioned to my empty closet. My finger opened my phone without looking. I typed the word into Google and read the definition aloud.
“The transference of disease-producing organisms or of malignant or cancerous cells to other parts of the body by way of the blood or lymphatic vessels or membranous surfaces.”
What did that mean? She knew that day that it had spread already? What did she tell me? What was it? “Liver cancer,” I spoke to the empty room again. Was this possible? Was I being crazy? No. I wasn’t. I wasn’t crazy.
“What are you doing?”
One eye squinted to the bright light behind Blake. I sat up and wiped a little dribble from the corner of my lip.
“Um, yeah. I don’t know, but I love you. Can you stick around here with Pea for a little while? There’s something I need to do,” I asked, coming to my knees and gathering the mess I’d created around me. I stacked everything messily back in the box and held the things I placed in the envelope.
“Makayla?”
“I’ll be back in one hour.”
“But where are you going? The furniture’s coming.”
“I need to talk to someone. I’ll explain later.”
“Makayla!” Blake called after me, hot on my heels.
I stepped outside where I found Pea sitting on the bottom step, “What’s wrong, Pea?” I asked, as I sat beside her and pulled her to my lap. She cried into my chest. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“Daddy said we have to take the tent down. I like it.”
“Don’t you want our new furniture? Don’t you want to be able to sit on the couch and watch television and read books?”
“I like doing that in the tent.”
“Look at me,” I coaxed holding her little face. “I have an idea. You know the guest bedroom at the end of the hall? How about we set the tent up in there instead of a bed? We can’t do it all the time, but maybe we can camp out in there sometimes. I have to go out for a little bit, but I bet you could help daddy get it moved in there before the delivery trucks come.”
Pea’s little lip quivered and her head tilted up the stairs, “Can we daddy?”
“Sure, baby. Go drag our sleeping bags in there.”
“Okay.” And just like that, Pea was happy.
“Will you tell me what is going on?”
“Yes. I love you, I love that little girl, and I love this house. I’m going to be back in an hour and then I will tell you everything.”
“Should I be scared? Where are you going?”
“No. Don’t be scared. I’ll be back.”
“I have work.” Blake called to my back. My hand in the air was my only response.
Sixteen
Sarah didn’t even act surprised to see me. She opened the door and smiled a sad smile, “Come in. I just made coffee.”
“I don’t have a lot of time. We’re getting furniture today.”
“Barry told me that you found an email.”
“Yes, but that’s not what this is about.”
“I need to say this, Mikki; I’ve been trying to say it since I met you.”
“I’m not mad at you, not anymore. I don’t know where you were at that time in your life; I can’t judge you for something I’ve never experienced. I still need to forgive you for knowing about me, but it will come. I don’t want to fill any part of me with regret.”
“Regret?”
“Yeah, like if I held this grudge for something that I should thank you for.”
“I’m so confused, you’re supposed to be angry with me. Now you’re thanking me?”
“It’s silly. My mom always told me everything has a purpose and a reason. If you would have told Barry about the email, I probably would have grown up with Janie as my sister.”
The disordered look on Sarah’s face showed her confusion. “Yeah?” she questioned, waiting for me to continue. She still didn’t get it. Ugh.
“Sarah…Seriously? You’re going to make me spell it out? I am one hundred percent sure that I would not be sleeping with Blake had I known that beforehand. It’s part of the purpose and the plan. Don’t you see?”
“I’m trying, Mikki, I really am. I wasn’t expecting you to be so understanding. You’re supposed to be furious with me. I deserve it.”
“You don’t deserve it. Karma doesn’t work that way, if that’s what you think. Karma isn’t going to take your mistakes out on someone else. Nothing set out to get you, Blake or Barry. It’s not about you. It’s not about any of you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Forget it. I don’t know how to make it make sense like it does in my head.”
“And your heart,” Barry said from the door. “She’s talking about Pea. We have all spent so much time being bitter about what happened that we never moved on. We didn’t meet Mikki and Pea by accident. That’s what she’s saying.”
“Yes,” I quietly spoke, “but wait, that’s not why I’m here,” I said, getting back to what I’d come there for.
I really was okay with everything. It might take some time to process what I hadn’t given myself time to think about, but I was okay with that. One quiet night and a pen would take care of that later. I knew with everything in me that Sarah didn’t keep that information from Barry because of a vendetta. I also know that my mother falling in love with her husband was also far from a crusade against Sarah. Things sometimes have to fall apart in order fall together. And I truly believed that.
“I need to know what happened to Janie, where did her cancer start, and how it all went down.”
“Why?”
“I just need to know. I’ll explain in a minute.”
“Do you want coffee?” Sarah asked, pouring a cup for Barry.
“Sure.”
Barry pulled out a chair for me and I sat. He was the one who started the conversation. “I thought my world was crashing in around me. She was so young and had her entire life ahead of her; I never once thought she would lose.
Janie was a fighter, and when she got better and went to school and did all the things she did with Blake, I changed. We all changed. We appreciated each other more, we didn’t take anything for granted, and we loved hard.”
“Look at this,” I said, taking the photo from the envelope.
Sarah smiled, “I swear they were in there the entire time we were there,” she informed me.
“But look at it. Look at the dust everywhere. Blake said Janie’s cancer started in her liver. Is that true?”
“They thought that at first, but after more tests decided the spot on her lungs was the beginning. Why?” Sarah, questioned.
“My mom’s cancer started in her lungs too, and then it spread. I don’t think that is a coincidence. I think they were exposed to something.” I showed them a few more pictures where one day the piano was dust free and the next it was covered. They were breathing in poisonous dust mites and didn’t even know it.
“Okay, that makes perfect sense, but it’s been years. I mean, why does it matter now? I know for a fact that there is no asbestos or formaldehyde floating around that hotel now.” Barry assured me.
“No, no, I know. I just needed to know. Don’t you see? Mine and Pea’s fate isn’t mapped out, it’s not a genetic defect cloud that will always hang over our heads.”
“Okay?” Barry said in question.
“Oh, geesh. I guess I didn’t think this through all the way. This is way harder than I thought it was going to be. I have a lump; I felt it the day before we left New York.”
“Where?” Sarah asked.
My fingers touched the outside of my breast, “Here.”
“You had it checked out right?” Sarah asked, sitting to a stiff, straight posture.
“No. I was afraid. I knew my fate and I wasn’t going to let Blake go through it again. I was going to leave because I wasn’t going to go through it either. I know what my mom went through; I know how much cancer hurts, but this sort of changes things. I don’t want to leave. What if it’s nothing? What if it’s curable and I waited too long?”
Sarah stood in utter disbelief, “Good God. Get Grace on the phone. We’re going to the doctor.”
“What? No wait. I will, just not today. I have furniture coming.”