Page 116

“You don’t need to be,” she replied. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right from the start. I just didn’t want to worry you, and you had so much going on. I just wanted you to be happy. To fulfill your potential. To have an amazing life even if I might not be in it.”

“Mom, please don’t talk like that. I don’t care what’s happening in my life; you should always tell me this stuff.Always.” I shook my head. “But don’t worry about that now. How are you feeling?”

“I’m good,” she said. “The symptoms from the treatment have been mild. I probably wouldn’t even know I was sick if the doctor hadn’t noticed the lump on my throat at a regular checkup.”

I stared into my hands. “I can’t believe you went through all of this without me. That you reunited me with my father after all this time because you were scared you were going to die.”

Mom didn’t look the least bit guilty, and I got the feeling she’d do the same all over again if she had to.

“So, what is this trial? What are the drugs he’s got you on?”

“Look, why don’t we talk about this tomorrow,” Mom said. “You’ve had a really big day of travel, you broke up with your boyfriend, and nowthis. Matthew is getting here in the morning. It might help if he’s here to answer your questions too.”

I did feel exhausted, but I wasn’t sure if I could sleep. Not when I’d just learned my mom had been keeping a cancer diagnosis from me for months. If I went to bed right now, I knew I’d be up all night googling her symptoms and probably scaring the hell out of myself with whatever I found.

“Or we could watch moreDownton Abbeytogether…” I suggested.

Mom wrapped an arm around my shoulder and guided me toward the couch. “That sounds perfect.”

Downton might not have the answers I was looking for, but it provided one relief: sweet distraction.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE

Iwoke to the distant buzzing of an alarm. I didn’t think I’d set one seeing as I was on winter break, so I thought it was probably the clock in my mom’s bedroom. I was still half asleep, and the beeping sound seemed like something out of a dream. I could feel the lulling pull of slumber trying to lure me back under, and I probably would have fallen straight back to sleep, but the alarm was persistent and annoying and refused to let up.

I’d passed out on the couch with my mom during our Downton marathon, so my legs were stiff, and my neck had an uncomfortable crook in it from sleeping at a funny angle. It probably made sense to get up and relocate to the bedroom, but my body felt exhausted, and I didn’t want to move.

I let out a cough as I tried to take in a breath. The air felt hot and dry, and as I dragged in another breath, I coughed again. Ever so slowly, I blinked my eyes open. The room was dark and it took me a few moments for my sleep-addled mind to notice everything seemed hazy.

Something wasn’t right, and I tried to push myself upright. My body felt like it was weighed down by leaden weights, and sitting up straight was far harder than it should have been. I was just so tired. And even though the world didn’t look right, even though my breaths felt labored, all I wanted to do was lay my head back down on the pillow and sleep.

My ears honed in on the alarm once again. Why was it so piercing? Had my mom’s clock always been so loud? It was only as I coughed once more that I finally realized what had woken me up—it was a fire alarm.

I was suddenly more alert, and as I glanced around the room, panic slowly began to set in. All the lights were out, and the TV was off, so the only source of light was a streetlamp outside that sent a dim glow through the thin curtains covering the window. The haze in the room gave everything a blurred appearance, and as I searched for the source of the smoke, I realized it was gathering thickly around the door that led from the apartment.

My chest already felt constricted, and I gagged on a cough as I gasped. This wasn’t just a case of some burnt toast setting off the smoke alarm. This was serious.

“Mom.” I coughed as I crawled over to her. She’d been snuggled on the couch beside me and was somehow still asleep. “Mom, wake up!” Couldn’t she hear the alarm blaring? Couldn’t she smell the smoke?

“Please, wake up!” I tried to rouse her, but no matter how much I shook her, she wouldn’t open her eyes. “Mom!” I screamed before coughing once again. I couldn’t see any sign of a fire, but the smoke was thick, and I felt like I was choking on it.

I rushed for the window and attempted to push it open, but it refused to move. I remembered how the wood in our apartment had warped in the heat last summer meaning most of the windows jammed occasionally. I knew it was no use trying the window in the bathroom as that barely opened wide enough to fit a hand through. And the ones in our bedrooms were even worse than the window out here. Mom had been saying for months she needed to get someone to come out and look at them, but it had fallen to the bottom of the list of things that needed fixing around here.

I considered trying them anyway, but as I choked on another cough, I decided otherwise. Even if I could get them open, how was I supposed to get myself and my mom down to the ground from an upstairs window. The only thing I knew for sure was that I needed to get us out of here as soon as possible. I was already struggling to breathe, and I was sure I’d learned somewhere that smoke inhalation was more likely to kill you in a fire than the flames themselves.

There was only one way out of our apartment. I had to get across the room, down a flight of stairs, and then out through the café. I couldn’t even be sure if that exit was safe. What if it was already engulfed in flames? I couldn’t think about that though. I just had to concentrate on one thing at a time.

I rushed back to my mom and tried to draw her arm over my shoulder and pick her up. She was so small, but she was an absolute dead weight, and I wasn’t strong enough to lift her. Tears stung my eyes as I tried to think of a way to get her out, and I rolled her to the floor so I could attempt to drag her from the room.

I felt so weak, and each breath of smoke I inhaled made me feel weaker still. My body felt so slow as I inched my mom closer and closer to the door. I was somehow going to have to manage the stairs when I reached them, but I had to get there first. I drew in another breath and collapsed to my knees.

I tried to shake my mom once more. “Mom?” I croaked. “Please wake up.”

I could feel myself fading fast, but I refused to leave my mom behind. I couldn’t seem to stand. How was I supposed to drag my mom from the smoke-filled room when I couldn’t even drag myself?

“Isobel?” I heard someone shouting. “Isobel?”

I wanted to call back. To yell that I was here. But my lips couldn’t seem to form the words. I was just so damn tired.