“Hi, honey,” she calls out once I’m within earshot.
Her curly hair, which is usually kempt in its work bun, is a tangled mess, and her eyes are bloodshot as if she’s been crying.
“Mom?” I croak, unable to form any other comprehensible words with the way my heart is pounding violently in my throat.
Gina must realize how she looks because she quickly shakes her head. “Don’t worry, she’s fine?—”
“She didn’tlookfine,” I retort, my fear evident in my quavering voice. That image in my head—the one of my mom on the floor, unmoving—is something I don’t think I’ll ever shake for as long as I live. Though I can’t bring myself to say the words aloud, there was a moment when I thought she was dead.
That’s the opposite offine.
“I know,” Gina murmurs, giving my arm a consoling rub. “Butshe is going to be okay.”
Guilt claws at my insides. While I was out throwing a hissy fit and getting drunk alone, then waking up hungover in my friends’ room, my mom was suffering. She could havedied. She very well might have if I didn’t arrive home when I did.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ronnie asks when I don’t respond to Gina, and I jolt at her sudden appearance at my side. When I glance at her, she reaches out and takes hold of my hand when she catches me trying to touch my glasses, and proceeds to give it a gentle squeeze. With a tremulous breath, I squeeze hers back.
My aunt, who adores my best friend, gives Ronnie a grateful smile, and I know she’s relieved that I didn’t have to face not only finding my mom but this last hour alone.
“The simple answer?” Gina says after a pause. “Anemia. The medical explanation: her hemoglobin levels were critically low. It’s not uncommon for them to fluctuate after infusions, especially this far into treatment, and especially with a cancer like CLL, which can suppress bone marrow function.”
“But she seemed fine yesterday,” I protest. “Better than normal, even.” While I was busy worrying about Damian, I should have been more focused onthat. I should have been concerned that she was different instead of elated at the prospect of gorging myself on fucking chow mein. “And this has never happened after an infusion before,” I add. While that may be true, it’s also an excuse—a way to sidestep the guilt now threatening to tear me in two.
Gina looks at me like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. “I know, but the longer you go through something as grueling as chemo, the more fragile your body becomes. Your mom’s bone marrow is less resilient than it was when she first started treatment, so it’s possible her hemoglobin levels were alreadydeclining and just hadn’t reached a critically low point to cause such a severe reaction. Monoclonal antibody treatments can also cause a decrease in white blood cell counts, further worsening that suppression.”
I swallow hard, my eyes blurring. My aunt steps forward, pulling me into a crushing embrace that suffocates the breath from my lungs, but also offers the weight I need to keep my brain focused. To keep me from falling apart. Ronnie releases her hold on my hand so I can hug my aunt back, and I hear her retreating footsteps as she returns to where Andie remains in one of the waiting room seats, the two of them giving us space.
“I know you, sweetheart,” Gina breathes into my hair once we’re alone. “I know you’re blaming yourself for not being there, but you can’t. Hell, I’ve been a nurse for over a decade, and evenIdidn’t see any cause for concern before I left for work this morning.”
I sniff as she pulls away and takes a step back.
“I know it was scary”—her cadence is soothing as she reaches out and brushes away the single traitorous tear that slides down my cheek—“but this can happen sometimes after an infusion, even if it never happened before. And in cases like your mom’s, delayed effects of anemia like this aren’t that unusual. It’s just unfortunate that, when it does hit, it hits hard.”
“Okay,” I say, drawing out the word as I try to wrap my head around her explanation, “so, what are they doing for her? What’s the plan?”
Gina exhales a heavy breath. “For now, we’re going to keep her overnight and see how she responds to fluids. If her hemoglobin levels start to improve, and she’s feeling stronger tomorrow, the doctor will probably discharge her. But if she’s still weak or her numbers don’t come up enough, they might keep her an extra night and consider a transfusion.”
I can practicallyfeelmy face go pale as the same fear that overwhelmed me the day we got those fateful letters from the insurance company once again rises to the surface. My mom’s health and well-being will always come first, but now that I know she’s going to be all right, I can’t help panicking about the cost of all this. I had run the figures back in September, when I needed a ballpark estimate of how much money I’d need to keep my mom’s treatment going, and the numbers running through my head were scribbled plainly across the “worst case scenario” page of my notebook. Those same figures build up before me again now in those taunting blocks of color that seem as physical and real as the chairs surrounding me. The fee for the ambulance. The emergency room visit. The IV fluids. The overnight stay. The potential need for a blood transfusion. The numbers skyrocket into the five-figure range and keep climbing as my anxiety ratchets to an all-time high.
Sure, I have the money from Damian that we’ve been saving, and there should be more than enough to cover this in the event our insurance tries to fuck us again, or to pay the difference between what theywillcover and what they won’t, but that money is supposed to pay our deductible and for Mom’s prescription when our policy changes in January. At best, the total sum I’ll receive for the nine months of our agreement will only cover eight months of her pills. If I start chipping away at it now, who knows how long it’ll last.
“How much—” My voice comes out as little more than a rasp. I clear my throat and try again, clamping my hands into tight fists at my sides, resisting the urge to touch my glasses and to hopefully hide how badly they’re trembling. My nails bite into my palms to the point I think I might have drawn blood. “How much will this cost?” I breathe.
Gina hesitates. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
I blink, then stare at her hard for a moment. Her word choice was oddly deliberate. Not “You don’t have to worry about thatright now,” but “You don’t have to worry about that,” period.
“What do you mean?” I counter. “Of course, I have to?—”
She interrupts me with a hand on my arm. “Lex.” She says my name slowly. Pointedly. “It’s already taken care of.”
Taken care of?
I narrow my eyes, and I’m about to ask her to clarify—to fucking insist on it—when her gaze drifts over my shoulder to something I can’t see behind me. She jerks her chin, gesturing for me to look.
My heart plummets into my feet as I turn in place, following my aunt’s line of sight, and that’s when I see him: Damian at the opposite side of the room holding a ridiculously large bouquet of flowers.
I blink the sudden onslaught of tears from my eyes, and my knees knock together as the ground threatens to rush up to meet them. Damian begins to cross the room, navigating the maze of chairs, and the only thing I can think beside the incessant, repeated beating ofhe’s herein my ears is that, if what Gina just implied is true, thenhewas the one who covered my mom’s hospital bill. Which can only mean…
