Like most transplants, I have come to dread odd hour phone calls. Most of my friends are aware that I also have a deep dislike of the telephone stemming from two decades of retail so have learned to find another form of communication. It's rare when we get a call that we actualy want to take, so when the phone rings- particularly late in the evening- we start mentally packing.
Last night Tony's co-worker called asking a question. I explained that Tony had only stepped out to get a pizza (literally across the street from us) and would be back within ten minutes, but the guy was adamant Tony had all weekend to return the call. Fine, whatever, I hung up the phone and went back to the couch. Five minutes later, Tony returns from the hunt just as the phone rings again. I shout it's probably his friend and pick up the phone.
It's my mother. [Grandma's dead]
I look at the clock on the microwave, it's past 9PM- after midnight in Ohio. [How much time do I have to get back for the funeral?]
"Steph, please don't be upset..." [Mentally making flight plans]
"But that cough I had that you made me promise to get looked at when I was out to visit?" [Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit!]
"I have a tumor in my lung and another on my spine. I'm getting a biopsy on Tuesday." [Suddenly there's no air in my dining room.]
You can hear the apology in her voice. As my mother mellowed, it became her life's work never to cause any conflict again. I think she's more upset that she has to be the one to tell me this than she is that the doctor said it's likely malignant. She made my father promise to tell my sister-in-law in order to pass the news to my brother, who lives ten miles from her.
I try to be the good little soldier and get all the information calmly. But mom doesn't know much because she couldn't think of anything at the time and was probably afraid she might make the doctor uncomfortable by asking anyway. I never really was good at the repression the rest of my family exibits, so mostly I just squeak out all the proper things that need to be said. All the time I'm pissed because nobody there thought to force the issue of her cough before, because she's still trying to gloss over the situation as if she could just ignore it away, and because the whole thing is just so damn cliched. If this had been in a book I was reading, I'd have tossed it into the Goodwill box without even finishing the chapter. This sort of crap doesn't happen in real life.
Tony's still holding the pizza. He finally puts it on the ottoman and stands a few feet from me while I finish the call. I hang up and he goes to hold me but I brush past him, alternatively hyperventilating and stalking between the living room and kitchen while I try to get my bearings. The last thing I need right now is any softness. Finally I yell at him that my mother at least had hers until she was 41, because at some level I blame her for failing me in that. At that moment I truly believe it's over. It sounds like she'd described stage IV.
Tony nods quietly, eyes me a few more minutes, and finally serves himself a slice of pizza. The pragmatism grounds me and I calm down. We finish the evening and I try not to think about it, even as I'm mentally compiling the list. I know nothing can be done in the middle of the night on a weekend. I know there's nothing to do until the results of the biopsy come in and that won't be for a while. So in the end, I have a slice of pizza and we watch Firefly reruns for the humor.
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