I Belong to You (Inside Out #5)(11)

Four

Mark . . .

I hold on to a pole in the crowded subway car. I’ve had to take three trains to reach the hospital, all done in only fifteen minutes. It would have taken an hour on the city streets.

The train halts and as the crowd moves toward the doors, a flash goes off too close to me for comfort. I look for a camera or cell phone being directed my way but find nothing. Giving up, I exit and head for the stairs to the street, bothered by the flash that my gut tells me was directed at me.

I reach the hospital five minutes later and quickly arrange entry for Jacob through the secure entrance reserved for visitors of high-profile patients. It’s now just ten minutes until my mother’s treatment time. Rushing out of the elevator on her floor, I head toward the private room we’ve arranged for her to use before her treatments. Headed toward me, rolling an empty wheelchair, is my mother’s radiology nurse. Just seeing that chair, and thinking about seeing my mother in it again, rips a piece of my heart out, but Reba is still a sight for sore eyes. She’s close to my mother’s age and has a knack for challenging every stubborn word my mother speaks—of which there are many—while still making my mother love her.

“I’m so glad—” she begins as we meet outside the cracked door of my mother’s room.

I hold up a finger, stepping to her side. “She doesn’t know I’m here.”

She smiles warmly and pulls the door shut. “She’s going to be elated. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to see her, but we have a tight schedule, so make it quick. Your timing is perfect. Apparently she tried to refuse to come this morning.”

“Refused? That’s new. She’s been all about getting this behind her and getting back to work.”

“Even the strong feel weak at times, and believe me, cancer is the beast that can make that a truth. The blast of chemo your mother was given just before the mastectomy was a lot for most to handle, but yet she weathered both procedures well. But we just couldn’t give her as much time after that blood infection to get stronger as we would have liked to ensure she didn’t go backwards now. Considering everything, I’d say she has a right to feel beat up.”

I nod. “Hopefully I can help her get past this.”

“From what I understand, you were her rock during the blood infection. Having you here will be good for her. But be warned; she’s lost more weight since you left.”

“How much?” I ask, concerned. “She was too thin two weeks ago.”

“About five more pounds, but it looks like ten on her already frail frame.”

“Is that from the radiation?”

“Mostly the aftermath of the blood infection, but she says she’s too tired to eat. I think it’s depression. We can talk more while she’s in treatment, but I want to get a counselor to talk to her. We need to convince her it’s a good idea.”

“I’ll convince her,” I say forcefully, not about to let my mother stop fighting. She’s always been my unbreakable rock. I’ll be hers now. “Whatever she needs, we’ll make happen.”

“I know you will. I’ll be back in five minutes.” She motions to the wheelchair. “Maybe you can coax her into this?”

“Consider it done.” My fingers curl around the chair’s handles. She opens the door a crack again, then walks away. Steeling myself for what might wait for me inside, I nudge the door open a bit more and pause.

“If I skip this week then I’ll be stronger next week,” I hear my mother say, and even her voice is frail.

“Dana,” my father starts, his voice a reprimand usually reserved for the game of baseball.

“I need to be stronger this week, Steven,” she argues. “Mark just learned about Rebecca. He’s going to need the support you’ll have to give him. You can’t do that if I’m this weak.”

“Eat and you’ll be stronger,” he says.

My mother is actually worrying about me when she’s fighting for her life, and it triggers two words in my mind: “Control” and “Master.” That’s what my family needs me to be now. I have to be their pillar.

I find the mental armor I’ve put on at will for ten years now and roll the chair forward, calling, “I hear you need a driver.” And as I take in the sight before me, I’ve never been as thankful for that armor as I am now.

In this mode I’m able to slow down my mind, processing what I see in a controlled fashion despite only seconds passing. My father hovers beside my mother’s greenish blue hospital chair, his gaze fixed on her, his normally muscular body looking gaunt, the streaks of gray in his light brown hair more predominant than just two weeks before.

My mother in the chair, her blond hair now thin and cut to her chin, her face gaunt, her body no more than a hundred pounds under her hospital robe. A wave of pure fear overcomes me and says the control I’d shackled is faltering, as it has often these past two weeks. I’m going to lose her, too. I’m going to lose my mother as I did Rebecca, and I swear I feel the darkness of hell begin to swallow me right there in that room.

I tear my gaze from my mother to give myself a moment to breathe, and my gaze lands on Ms. Smith, kneeling on the floor beside my mother, her hand covering my mother’s thinner one.

Her long blond hair is a striking contrast to her red silk blouse, which I know she wore for the same “good luck” reason I wore my tie. Our eyes collide and our combative conversation from last night fades away. Effortlessly, she is in every crack I haven’t sealed in the armor, her strength supporting mine.