Penthouse Prince(3)

Fuck, the food!

I shove the pan of burned eggs onto the counter and turn off the stove. My phone rings again, and I snatch it up, ready to bite Doug’s head off—then freeze. It’s not his number on my screen like I expect. It’s my mom’s.

“Hello?” I say, trying to restrain the claws of worry that are already grabbing at me.

Why would she call at this hour? We just had our weekly chat a few days ago, and she said she was feeling fine then. Calm down, maybe she just wants a favor.

“How are you, sweet pea?” Mom’s voice is mild and so tired, it makes my heart hurt.

Grier abruptly stops flailing. “Gamma?” she asks, looking up at me with a furrowed brow. She’s too perceptive sometimes.

Sitting down, I pull her close and stroke her soft curls, as much to soothe myself as her. She wiggles a little, but stays with me. “I’m fine. What about you? Are you doing okay today? Do you need something?”

“I just got done talking to my oncologist, and . . .”

“At six in the morning?”

“Yes?” She sounds confused. “Why not? I was right there in the hospital.”

A spike of panic shoots through me, followed quickly by guilt. I totally forgot it was time for her monthly chemo session.

“Anyway,” she says, “we had a long talk, and, well . . .”

My stomach has knotted into a tight, painful ball. “What’s wrong?”

“Well, there’s no easy way to say this . . .” She hesitates, and my stomach twists.

“Mom, just say it.”

She clears her throat. “He estimates about six months.”

The floor falls out from under me. I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

“We always knew this was coming,” she says gently, somehow able to sense my implosion from five hundred miles away. “He told me the prognosis a year ago.”

I take a deep breath and resume stroking Grier’s hair. “I know, but you— I didn’t—” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “You’re my mom.” The words sound ridiculous as soon as they’re out. But I don’t know how to say what I’m feeling.

Grier squirms in my grasp with a noise like an angry cat. “Want Gamma!”

“Do I hear the wild goober?” Mom’s smile is audible.

“Y . . . yeah. She wants to talk to you,” I manage to whisper.

I hand my daughter the phone before she can gear up into a full-blown tantrum.

She squeals in delight and starts babbling at top speed while I just stare past her, completely numb. I can’t process anything. I know this is real, this is happening, it’s not a nightmare, but I can’t make myself believe it. I don’t want to believe it. I can’t imagine losing my mom. What the hell do I do? My dad hasn’t been in the picture since he split when I was four. It’s always been just me and Mom.

As I process that, another thought pops into my head.

And what kind of a son am I?

Yes, I made sure she had all the money she needed for the best medical care possible, and I’ve visited her a couple of times since her diagnosis, but that’s not nearly enough. What the hell have I been doing here in New York? My business is here. My life. But now, none of that seems to matter anymore.

I let myself pretend that my hopes would come true, and Mom would defy the odds stacked against her and magically get better, and nothing about our world would have to change. She’d live forever. She’d get to watch my little girl become a woman and be there to offer advice when I consider making stupid decisions. But the universe seems to be set against us. Suddenly, I’m so pissed I can barely breathe—at myself, at the cancer, at the mess that’s been made of our lives. Everything is wrong because it was never meant to be like this. At the prospect of doing something instead of just sitting here feeling empty, I absently bounce Grier on my knee as my mind starts churning.

Action items. Make a list. What needs to get done and in what order?

Buy a place in North Carolina as close to Mom as possible, hire a moving company, handle all the paperwork that comes with changing addresses, sell my apartment here, find a new oncologist for Mom, and dozens of other details. It’s a lot, but still manageable.

When Grier pauses for breath, I say, “May I talk to Grandma again?”

She stares at me as if I just asked her to jump off a cliff.

“Just for a minute.” When her eyes narrow, I have a stroke of inspiration. “Is Flapflap hungry? Let’s give him some breakfast.”

Grier drops the phone in my lap—I grab it before it falls to the floor—and charges off at top speed to fetch her beloved stuffed bat. Tossing him in the washing machine later is a small price to pay for peace, even if I’ll have to figure out a way to distract her from his brief absence.

She does not like him put through the washing machine. I learned that the hard way.

Without preamble, I say to Mom, “We’re coming to North Carolina. I’m moving back.”

“What? When? Are you sure? But what about your job?” Mom’s voice is filled with disbelief.

Next to Grier, real estate is my biggest passion. I can’t imagine giving it up. Besides, I’m just not the stay-at-home type. I tried taking extended leave when she was born, and I got cabin fever and went back to work early. The thought of retirement makes me break out in hives. There’s no way I can give it up. I’ll run my company remotely but delegate more so I can focus on the big-picture stuff.