pictures. She lost her hair and a lot of weight. Most of what I knew about that time came from clues I’ve picked up from my parents. They didn’t really talk to me about it much, but there would be these moments filled with tension and fear. It was always there, even after she went into remission. And then,” the emotions slammed through me. I swallowed hard, pushing them down. “In eighth grade, they told me it had come back.”
The weight of those four years she fought her cancer crushed me again. It was like that sometimes. There were days, weeks even when I didn’t consciously think about it. But then there were other times when it was all I could think about, no matter how hard I tried. She was my mom. I loved her more than anyone.
“It sucked.”
Mara put her head on my shoulder and moved her arm around my back. She held me tight like she knew I might fly apart any second.
Hot tears stung my eyes. I tried to blink them away, but it wasn’t going to work. I knew it wouldn’t. I’d tried to prepare myself to cry in front of her. Mom always told me not to fear my emotions or repress them, but it wasn’t easy being vulnerable.
“She was so sick. And we couldn’t do anything.” Her boys. That’s what she called us. Her men. “One night, I came out of my room. Mom was in the hospital, and Dad had been with her all day. He was there most days. But he’d come home to sleep. But he couldn’t sleep.” He was broken. “He told me she would always ask him to do different things for her, things she couldn’t do herself,” I smiled wryly, “or didn’t want to. Open the pickle jar, change her flat tire, take out the trash. But he couldn’t make this go away. He couldn’t fix it, and it was killing him almost as much as it was killing her.”
I sniffed.
“Taggish,” Mara murmured.
I noticed my shoulder was wet where her cheek rested against it. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make you sad. There’s a reason I’m telling you all this.” I sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. “We had good days, too. Even at the end, when there was nothing more they could do for her and she came home, there were good times. I started skipping school. I guess it wasn’t really skipping. But I refused to go, refused to leave her. Dad was getting worried I’d have to repeat my sophomore year. I heard them arguing about it one day. And Mom told him it was all we had left. She wouldn’t make me go to school when it was all we had left.”
She’d noticed me in the hall outside their room and called me in. She was right. I couldn’t go to school when I knew in my heart, I only had days left to spend with my mom before I’d never see her again. Who cared about math or science or any of it? I didn’t.
“She told me something I’ve never forgotten because she didn’t want me to. She told me we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, so we have to live for today, this minute. We have to love now, live now.” I shifted to look into Mara’s face and took it into my hands. Tears streaked down her cheeks. Her green eyes shone with emotion. “This is deep stuff, I know. But that day in your backyard, I saw it, the weight, the heaviness, the pressure. It’s holding you back, Mara. It’s keeping you from living. You could have gone to school today and done your work. It could have been a day just like all the rest, but you would have missed this.” I motioned around us. “I don’t know about you, but I would risk just about anything for this.”
13
Mara
I’d never felt so many emotions all at once. His fingers still framed my face as tears streamed over my cheeks. It wasn’t easy to separate my sorrow for what he’d gone through to get to the why—why he’d told me such a deeply personal thing.
Taggish’s warm brown eyes stared down into mine. “I’d give anything to hear her laugh. She would have loved to hear about wrapping Mrs. Gentry’s house and how you almost got us caught by being too loud. She would have loved to know about today, how we breathed deep, played hard, and sat