Page 23 of Cruel Summer

FOURTEEN

Rented Kia Sorento and Ford Mustang

Family vacation —three years ago

“Yes. Okay, that’s good to know.” She kept her eyes focused on the road ahead. They were in Hawaii, dammit. It was her dream come true. It was tropical. There were palm trees. The water was clear.

Her mother was dead.

That thought kept occurring to her at random moments, and had constantly since that day. It surprised her every time.

My mom is dead. How weird is that?

She’s dead.

Patricia Kent is dead.

But the nurse on the phone had told her: Your ultrasound was normal. You don’t have the brCA gene. You aren’t at a significantly elevated risk for ovarian cancer.

This call was a follow-up to the exam and internal ultrasound she’d just gotten done while in a fog of sadness and anxiety. Just to see if they could see something, anything, in her own body that she needed to be aware of.

She knew she didn’t have the gene. She’d known it, but it didn’t take the fear away. It didn’t do anything to assuage the grief she felt.

“But what can I do?” she asked.

Because if she didn’t have the gene neither did her mother. She’d gotten cancer anyway so how did Sam keep herself safe?

Her husband was driving. The kids in the back seat were oddly quiet—a side effect of the six-hour flight, she supposed. It was rush hour. She hadn’t thought Hawaii would have a rush hour.

“Dr. Ross anticipated that you would have some questions. She did say that you are a good candidate for a salpingectomy. You get your fallopian tubes out, and then, when you’re actually in menopause, we take the rest. We know now that ninety percent of ovarian cancer starts in the tubes, so…”

“Yes. Schedule me for that.” She wasn’t using her tubes anyway.

She needed to feel like she was taking action. Like she was doing something.

“The surgery center will call with a date for the appointment.”

“Okay.”

“Sam… I’m sorry about your mother.” Did she know the nurse on the phone? Maybe she did. It was a small town. She must have missed it when she’d said her name.

Or she’d heard.

She just didn’t care.

It was so hard to care right now.

“Thanks.”

Suddenly the nurse sounded emotional. “She was just such a lovely woman.”

“She was. She was, but you know, she was very…very at peace.” She did this a lot when confronted with the grief of others. She had to make them feel better.

She hadn’t yet found the person who could make her feel better.

But life was relentless. It kept moving. The boys still had sports and homework and school. She still had all of her volunteer hours at the schools. She had articles to write. Lunches to make, dinners to make.

It was like she’d been shot in the stomach while running on a treadmill, and she couldn’t turn the damn thing off, so she just had to press her hands over the wound and keep on running.

“That’s good to hear.”

Oh good, I’m glad I could make you feel better.

“Yeah. Well. Thank you. I’ll…wait for that phone call. I’m on vacation so…you know, just have them call. Thanks. Bye.” She hung up and looked out the passenger window.

“Who was that?” Will asked.

“Doctor’s office. Everything looks normal.”

“Well, that’s great news,” Will said.

She didn’t feel like it was great news. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. “Yeah, she said I can get my tubes out.”

“Your… Oh.”

“Yeah, I guess most ovarian cancer starts there? I said to call and schedule me.”

“Do you really need to do that if you don’t have a genetic risk?”

Yes. I have to. I feel like I might have a ticking time bomb inside of me, and why don’t you just know that?

“It feels like it’ll…help. With anxiety and all of that. If nothing else.”

“Isn’t surgery its own risk?”

“I guess,” she said. “But I need to do it. I need to…”

“How long will recovery be?”

She didn’t understand why he couldn’t just support her. Why he had to question the decision. She liked to agree with Will. She liked being on the same page.

In all things, she tried to have harmony in their relationship.

But she really felt like this was important.

“I’ll have a consult before I actually get it done.”

“I just don’t want you doing anything crazy because you’re…” He looked back briefly, then lowered his voice. “Because you’re grieving.”

Even she, who valued peace in her house above all else, would have raised holy hell at that statement if she weren’t just so…so tired. So foggy. Such a mess.

On her vacation.

In Hawaii.

Patricia Kent is dead.

But you’re in Hawaii. So suck it up. Everyone else doesn’t have to be miserable just because you are.

They were unloading everything from the cars when she realized she forgot swimsuits.

What the hell mother forgot swimsuits on a trip to Hawaii.

She just sat there, staring into the void that was her brain, trying to go over how she’d packed.

She had lists. She had checked them off. She couldn’t even remember.

She never did stuff like this. Ever.

There was an ABC Store across the street, and there was a high likelihood she’d find board shorts there, and she’d just have to go as quickly as possible, before the boys wanted to go down to the beach or get in the pool.

“Shit shit shit,” she said into the emptiness of the living room.

“You okay?”

She turned around and saw Logan standing there in the doorway.

“No,” she said. “But we’re in Hawaii, so I’m going to get okay real quick.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I forgot the boys’ swimsuits.” She kept digging through the suitcase. “Oh, and sunblock. For God’s sake. This is like mom-of-the-year status.”

“There are stores,” he said. “Also, your kids are grown up enough to pack their own swimsuits.”

“They won’t, though, and you know that.”

He took three steps across the room and reached out, putting his hand on her shoulder.

She wanted, very suddenly, to lean on him.

To sink into him. She had no right to do that.

For one, she shouldn’t be wanting to lean against Logan when she was married to Will. For another, Logan had lost his wife.

It might have been seven years, but it was… There was an order to things. A time frame. You were supposed to lose your parents. Maybe not when you were thirty-seven. But it wasn’t like she was a child either.

She was done being…parented.

She blinked back sudden tears.

The problem was, she hadn’t felt finished being mothered.

Who was going to take care of her after her surgery?

No one took care of you like your mother did.

She wanted to sit down and cry like a motherless child, because she was motherless and she hated it, but she had to go buy sunblock and swimsuits.

“Let’s go to the store. We can get whatever you need.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to go.”

“How about just I go, and you sit for a minute.”

She thought about that. She wouldn’t sit, though. That was the thing. She would end up doing other things. “You don’t have to come.”

“Let me go with you. We might need some things too. I’m not the organizational mastermind you are. Chloe might not even have shoes.”

“She had shoes to get on the plane. Also, she’s sixteen, not six.”

He smiled, and it felt soothing in some way. “Don’t remind me.”

“Yeah, I feel your pain.”

“Come on, we’ll go to the store. You’ll see that you can get everything you need, and it doesn’t matter if you got everything packed just right.”

“I should tell Will.”

“He’s messing around with the grill. The kids are in the game room downstairs. I know, with Hawaii outside the door. Let’s go.”

There was something about the gentle authority that made her want to go right with him. She was buried beneath the weight of all of these decisions all the time. Of everything she had to do always.

Of all the organization. She wasn’t able to keep track of it right now. She didn’t even know what she didn’t know.

They walked out of the vacation rental, three floors of glory with a wide deck overlooking Waikiki, and walked from the gravel driveway across the street to the store.

It was more than just a convenience store—though it was very convenient. It had everything. From clothes to sushi to tourist-trap-level merch and everything in between. They got a cart, and she put four masks and snorkels into it. “Just in case,” she said.

Suddenly she felt the need to stockpile any and everything she might need. Just in case.

She grabbed three pairs of board shorts. Kukui nut necklaces. Food for the barbecue.

Logan didn’t say much of anything. He just pushed the cart. But there was something steady about him being there. Like he was anchoring her.

Not expecting anything from her, just being there. It was sort of a radical experience. To walk and breathe for a second and just look mindlessly at the rows of Oahu-specific bottle openers and hula girls.

He took over at a certain point, getting all the food they needed, and remembering sunblock when she’d nearly forgotten it. He put everything on the belt when they went to check out, and he paid, which she didn’t need him to do.

“You planned the whole vacation,” he said. “Like you always do.”

They stepped outside, all of their items in reusable bags, Logan holding every bag.

“You don’t have to be okay,” he said.

She stopped there on the sidewalk, the warm, fragrant breeze wrapping itself around her, a stark contrast to the moment. To what he’d just said.

“I do,” she said. “If I’m not okay, then who am I?”

“You’re still you. But you’re a you who’s been through a really shitty thing.”

She looked at him, and in spite of herself, she smiled. “You know, that really does help. It’s been shitty. I don’t know what to do about it. There’s nothing to do but keep going.”

“You can stop sometimes. Catch your breath.”

“I can’t. If I don’t keep on… The boys lost their grandmother. I can’t abandon them too. I can’t destabilize their lives more than they already have been. I…”

“Sam. Breathe.”

So she did. The air was different here, and so was she.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Let’s go barbecue.”

***

“Honey.”