Читать книгу Undressing The Moon - T. Greenwood - Страница 21

“Let’s take a walk,” Becca says when she finds me buried under covers on my lumpy couch watching the fourth soap opera in a row.

I grumble and burrow deeper into my nest.

“Come on,” she says, gently tugging my hand.

Bog, who has been napping on the rug next to me, stands up and stretches his front legs. He is always ready for a walk. But when I don’t budge, he looks at me and then lies back down, covering his long snout with his paw.

“It’s sunny out,” she says. “It smells like fall.”

Reluctantly, I pull myself away from the beautiful couple on TV and stand up. I am dizzy and weak and everything aches today. On days like this I wish it were over with already. On days like this it’s hard to think I was ever well.

I groan a little with the pain that accompanies the first few movements after hours of stillness. “I don’t think I’m up for it today, Beck. My back is hurting.”

“You need fresh air,” she says, exasperated.

What she doesn’t understand is how little I really do need.

At first, I listened intently to the doctors as they prescribed everything that would be required to wage this war. It’s funny how they always use the language of soldiers. They said that first I would need surgery, but that I did not need to worry. The tumor was large, but did not appear to have spread. It was in situ. Contained. But they were wrong. They would need to extract my lymph nodes. I needed radiation, I needed chemotherapy. Every week, Becca drove me from Quimby to Burlington, where I received the treatment I needed to survive. I needed to keep my appetite up, I needed rest, I needed to fight. But even with every necessity fulfilled, I was losing. New growths blossomed like flowers on soldiers’ graves.

Now, I only need something sweet to eat after dinner. Warm pajamas. Music. Becca makes sure I have all these things.

It felt strange at first, when she reappeared. Shortly after my surgery, she moved home from New York, where she’d been since college, trying to make a career as an actress. She had been offered a job at the high school, teaching social studies and coaching drama. When she found out I was sick, she knocked on my door and said, “What can I do?”

I hadn’t seen her in so long, she was almost a stranger. So I shrugged and said, “I don’t really need much.”

Now, she brings me the eclairs I love, and big bags of Snickers bars that the doctors say I definitely do not need. Sometimes, she stays with me all night, just the way she did when we were kids, and we’ll listen to music until one of us falls asleep. Sometimes, I think the only thing I really need now is Becca.

“Fine,” I say, and take the wool sweater she is holding out to me. “Let’s go for a walk.”

She knows I’ve been thinking about my mother lately. And I think she knows I’ve been thinking about him, too.