Quinn: Not too bad. I’m exhausted but can’t complain. I’m headed into a meeting, but I’ll call tonight so you can complain. Sound good?
I smile because she knows I won’t complain. She’s visited a few times but has been so busy herself it’s hard to get up here.
Me: Sure. Whatever you say. How’s the book coming?
Quinn: Ugh. You just don’t let up EVER, huh?
Me: LOL! This is not a new development. Answer the question.
Quinn: What book? I’m not a writer.
Me: No, you’re a LIVE-er. You’re a how-to manual on surviving hell. People will be inspired by your story. Write it so I can sell it. I have a short list of literary agents I think we should meet with.
Quinn: Of course you do. I’ll think about it. Gotta go. Give Zo my best and hang in there. I love you.
I blink at the tears that would spill over if I’d let them. I miss our talks. I miss having dinner with my friend and laughing about trivial stuff and all the things I took for granted when I thought I had a lot on my plate.
Me: Love you, too.
I’m just setting the phone down to get some work done when it rings.
Madre.
“Mama, hola.” I pop in my earphones and switch to Bluetooth so I can multi-task.
“Hola,” Mama says. “How is he?”
I bite my lip before I answer. I hate worrying her. She sees Zo as a second son and flew up from San Diego when we first moved in to help me set up the house. She’s been back a few times—but not since Zo’s gotten so thin.
“He’s good, Mama.” I pull up Hakeem’s shoe contract, scrolling to the section I need to modify.
“His hair? Has he lost his beautiful hair yet?”
“Uh, no.” I cut and paste from a similar contract into Hakeem’s. “I actually found these cold caps he wears to reduce hair loss. They seem to be working pretty well. It’s minimal, but he went ahead and cut it close anyway.”
“Did he get the rosary I sent?” Mama asks. “You know I used that rosary when your Aunt Valentina had breast cancer.”
“I know, Mama. You told us.”
“Every day I prayed. She ran a marathon last year,” Mama says with supernatural satisfaction. “That’s twenty-six miles, Bannini.”
“I . . . yeah, I know how long a marathon is, Ma.”
“Remission.” She says the word in triplicate, the three syllables like a prayer.
“There is no remission with amyloidosis,” I remind her. “It’s incurable. When Zo’s clear of the proteins, he’ll be in what they call response until they come back. And they will always come back.”
“Not always.”
“Yes, always, Mama. It’s the nature of the disease.”
“We’ll see about that,” Mama says with confidence. “And what about his sperm?”
I stop mid-type.
What the . . .?
“What about his sperm?” I laugh, a little taken off guard by the question.
“You will want to have children later, Banner,” Mama says like she’s talking to the village idiot. “Did he not put the sperm on ice?”
It hadn’t occurred to me. It should have. I can’t think of everything, but anything I miss gouges me with guilt. Even though Zo and I won’t have children together, I should have thought to ask. Maybe he and the doctor discussed it privately, though Zo has so little privacy from me these days.
“I’ll check on it.” I dig back into the contract.
“Those are my grandbabies, Bannini,” Mama says, her voice sorrowful. “Don’t let them fry.”
“Zo doesn’t get radiology,” I say absently. I don’t add that his sperm are not her grandbabies. That would be as hard for her to process as Zo’s illness. By tactic agreement, Zo and I don’t discuss our relationship with each other or with anyone else. The media have basically dubbed him a martyred saint, and I’m the little woman standing by her man. He knows I’ve honored his request not to move forward with Jared, even though he doesn’t know it was Jared.
Is Jared?
I haven’t seen Jared in six weeks. I’m not sure if our tense is past or present anymore, but I miss him. I dream about him often. Conversations we had, jokes we shared in the laundromat years ago, and yes, I dream about us making love. All the time. It’s so real, I almost expect my sheets to smell like him, expect to find golden hairs on my pillow. But my bed is cold and lonely. I can only hope his is, too. I know Jared’s sexual appetite firsthand. I trust him when he says he’ll wait for me, but I wouldn’t blame him if he couldn’t. It would gut me, but I wouldn’t fault him, especially not when the woman you think of as “yours” everyone else celebrates as someone else’s.
“So you will be back in time for the quincea?era?” Mama asks.
“Uhhh, yeah.” I email the revised contract for Hakeem to look over. “We should be done with this round of chemo and back in LA by then, but I doubt Zo will be able to attend, Mama. After this, he has stem cell replacement. That’ll strip his immune system and he probably won’t be out much for a long time.”
The other end goes silent, which my mother never is.
“Ma?” I ask, closing my laptop and focusing on her completely. “Did you hear me?”
A muffled sob stabs me through the heart.
“When does it end?” Mama cries softly. “He’s such a good man. For him to bear so much . . . Dios ten piedad.”
I can’t do this. I can’t be the one to comfort her, to listen to her pain. I have my own pain. And it is not time to indulge tears. There is too much road ahead of us for me to submit to tears right now. They’re corked, and like a bottle of champagne, when that cork pops, they’ll overflow.
“Mama, I have to go.”
The silence again. This one stiff. Hurt.
“Banner, I know this is a lot for you, but you must talk to someone. You cannot be strong all the time. You will break.”
Not yet, I won’t. She didn’t see his face creased with agony after the bone marrow biopsy. She hasn’t caught him staring blankly at the stranger in the mirror with the shrunken frame or witnessed his helpless anger when the diarrhea is so bad he has to wear adult diapers just to leave the house. A man so proud, so regal, brought so low. I’ve seen Zo’s cracks and know how close he is to breaking.
No, it’s not time for me to cry. I don’t get to break yet.