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It’s not until we are settled into our comfortable seats that I bring up one of the elephants in the room. I finally ask, “How is Papa?”
She doesn’t answer for a while, just sits contemplatively across from me looking out of the glass windows that make up the entire wall and ceiling of two sides of the room. Then she finally turns to me, taking a cookie and a sip of tea too before she answers.
“He has cancer, late-stage leukemia. They can prolong his life, make him comfortable, but even with all the money in the world, they can’t save him.” There’s a defeated sound in her voice that I don’t think I’ve ever heard before.
I frown. “Maman, I… I don’t know.”
I shake my head and for once she smiles, a soft one. A look that says she understands, there’s nothing to say to make it better. There’s this ache in my chest that only seems to be growing. Even though I’ve been distanced from them for so long that doesn’t mean they are any less important to me. I’ve struggled with my relationship with my parents since my teens. Living across the ocean doesn’t mean I struggle any less or love them any less. It’s that last part that’s hitting me in full force; how much I love them. How much I’ve missed them.
Adrian was right. My heart squeezes more when I think of him. I reach out and touch my mother’s hand, something I haven’t done in over a decade. Her smile wobbles and that heavy sigh leaves her again.
“I just…” she says softly, replacing the air that left her with a deep, shaky inhale. “I just wish our money was good for something right now.”
I smile sadly back at her and scoot my chair closer “It’s always when we need it that it can’t help.”
“I’m glad you came,” she murmurs. “He was the one who wanted to reach out. He’s wanted to reach out for years. But… he’s felt so guilty.”
I huff out a breath. “To be honest, if you had contacted me without something like this happening, I wouldn’t have come. Despite how bad that sounds.”
“No,” her hands tremble and she sets the tea down. “No, I knew that would happen. He did too, which is why he gave you so much space. It took some time, but we both…” She gathers herself. “We both know how wrong we were. To put so much pressure on you.”
I look at her and frown. “It’s not just one side in this, Maman. I screwed up too.”
She tilts her head. “Well it’s all in the past, now it’s about time to visit your father.”
“Like right now?” I ask.
“No, no. I mean today. We won’t visit for a few hours, it’s teatime after all. Please have a macaron. The new chef is amazing,” she says, putting one of them in my hand.
I can’t remember ever having a better conversation with my mother in my life. We both laugh and smile more times than I can count. We spend an hour or so just talking and enjoying tea together. It should feel strange speaking in French again, not having had a full conversation in my native language in nearly ten years, but it isn’t. It’s coming home in the literal and metaphorical sense; a muscle memory that never went away.
I learn that my mother now has a cat that wanders the property that she’s trying to convince to come into the house. The thought of her trying to get on a cat’s good side makes me think that perhaps she has gone crazy in my absence. My mother has never had an affinity for animals.
When Maman finally encourages me to stand, I follow her to climb into a shiny black sedan waiting outside the front of the house. The ride to the hospital is near silent, with only the occasional question from my mother to the driver about when to expect to be picked up.
When the car pulls up in front of the hospital’s front doors to let us out, I can’t deny my stomach quivers anxiously. I never necessarily got along with my mother, but I definitely always argued with my father. So, the thought of just walking into a situation where things might blow up, where I might make him stressed and therefore his condition worse, terrifies me.
I freeze in front of the automatic doors until my mother scoffs beside me and grabs my bicep in her delicate but firm hand. She leads me through the lobby with her quick strides nearly outrunning me despite me being taller than her.
She walks with purpose, as she always does, she doesn’t have time to waste after all, and I follow beside her. I finally manage to wrench my arm from her grasp once we reach the elevator and I shoot her a mild glare. She meets it with a roll of her eyes, something I would once get in trouble for, and she would never once endorse the thought of doing. My, how time changes us.
The ride up in the elevator is oppressive, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who feels that way. I’m not ready to see the man I always considered unbelievably strong, and a bit of a monster, weak and bedridden. And like a child, I’m scared to be scorned for being away for so long.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I admit with a shaky voice.
“You can and you will,” Maman corrects. She doesn’t meet my eyes when I look at her, but I know she is just as scared.
But she has been coming here, alone, for at least a month if not longer. If she can do it, if she can visit the man she loves alone and scared, then I can visit my own father with my mother by my side.
My hand awkwardly finds hers even though neither one of us is looking at the other, and she clasps both of her hands around mine.
“It will be okay,” she murmurs, even though we both know it won’t be.
When the doors slide open her hands drop mine and my fingers feel unbearably cold. We walk down the mostly empty corridor, save for the occasional cart. She stops abruptly in front of a room, and I scurry to a halt at her heels. I watch as she takes a deep breath and then enters through the door. I swallow and follow her.
I’m not prepared for what’s on the other side. My father leaning back against the raised back of his bed, an oxygen cannula up his nose while IVs are attached to his arm. He has things to monitor his pulse beeping away and he looks so pale, so sickly. They’ve already started treatment and I was not aware how much it would affect him already.
His eyes open just a crack, first landing on my mother because she’s the first in the room, and to be honest my father is always looking for her. Even this many years into their relationship, he still loves her despite all their quarrels. Then he sees me, and his eyes widen, He starts to cough violently.
