The Flood of Perfect Elusion

I sat frozen.  Tears were filling my eyes to the brim, but not spilling over.  Everything became blurry.  From tears flooding my vision.  From thoughts flooding my mind.  From pain flooding my heart.  My hands became clammy, sticking to the table.  Everything became a haze and I slowly turned my head to look at Tom.  I looked at him just in time to see him jump up and storm out of the room.  Perfect elusion.

I wanted to flee after him.  Not to convince him to come back.  Not to console him.  But to run away.  To go back to laughing and wrestling.  To pretend like this whole conversation hadn't existed.

I felt sick.  The delicious morsels that had just quenched my hunger, now were causing me to feel ill.  I felt sick in a way that I never had.  The flu and drunkenly throwing up combined couldn't have touched this feeling.  And I much rather would have preferred that combination.

I snapped back to reality as I focused for the first time in what felt like hours, to my mom lightly rubbing my back.  And my dad was looking at me concerned.  He was looking at me(!), when I should have been the one embracing him and looking upon him with concern.  I also noticed, looking down at my lap, that the light blue cloth napkins we were using for dinner-that was placed in my lap-had two massive wet marks from the tears that must have spilled over and run down my cheeks. 

"No," I whispered.  That's all I could say.  I slowly stood up, feeling as if I were fighting a dense barrier holding me back from moving.  I took the few strides to my dad and wrapped my arms around him.  Again, I whispered, "No."

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I woke up in between my parents on the couch, my head resting on my dad's shoulder, my mom on the other side of me, knitting.  I blinked, feeling groggy, my eyes burning from the salt of crying.  My throat hurt and I felt like someone had taken a jackhammer to my head.

After sitting there at the table, holding my dad while I cried for a long while, we had moved to the living room.  We hadn't spoken, yet.  I think my parents were strong enough and smart enough to let Tom and I grieve in our own ways, and handle the initial shock how we needed to.  I had fallen asleep sitting between my parents as I cried.  Waking up, aside from my body feeling the sobbing-hangover, it appeared like that bombshell had never been dropped.  With my mom knitting, and my dad watching ESPN, it seemed like a normal Sunday afternoon.

I sat up then, excusing myself to go to the bathroom.  I splashed water on my face and took some to my mouth, slurping the drops out of my hand.  I went back into the living room and saw my mom had gotten a glass of water for me.  I weakly smiled at her, to show my appreciation and sat down in a recliner chair so I could look at them as I built up to approaching the subject I now dreaded most.

"Where's Tom?"

"Oh, he's out on Clover," my mom responded casually, continuing to look at the blanket she was knitting.  Clover is one of the family horses.  Since we grew up on land, we had always had a plethora of animals.  Although, admittedly, that was mainly due to me, being an avid animal lover.  Hearing that, I was jealous, as it had been since the previous summer that I'd last been riding.  I also wasn't surprised that's where Tom was, as that had been one common stress reliever he and I had both shared.  I frowned slightly, wishing that I had taken that escape.  I think that was more the cause of my current jealousy.

"How long was I asleep?"

"A couple of hours, honey," my dad smiled sweetly at me, offering me sympathy.  I still couldn't fathom how he was offering me sympathy when he was the one who had it.  I couldn't bring myself to think the word.  It made it too real if I did.

I finally looked outside and saw the sun was setting.  I sighed heavily, unmotivated to ask the next question; dreading the answer.  "What's going to happen?"

My mom kept knitting, alerting me to the fact that this conversation they had already had, and she seemed comfortable enough to not preemptively start offering me comfort.  I allowed my body to relax slightly;  I allowed myself to feel hope, even before hearing the response.

My dad looked at me directly.  "Although the tumor is decent sized, about the size of an almond, they are happy with how early they caught it.  Doctors want to start aggressive treatment immediately, so as to shrink or completely eliminate it.  They want to avoid surgery if at all possible right now, as surgery is so intrusive and there's always the risk of having to remove small parts of the brain in connection with it.  I'm beginning chemotherapy and radiation co-treatment May 5.  I will be temporarily living in Rochester for 6 weeks while this round of treatment commences."

"May 5?  Why so long?"

"Well, because I wanted school to mainly be over for you, and within a month of finishing for your brother.  I didn't want to have added stress, which is why we waited so long to tell you both, as well.  However, I also didn't want to disappear for 6 weeks and come back with no hair!  That would've really been traumatic."  He smiled at me, trying to half joke.

I managed, at best, a grimace back to him.  I slowly spoke my next question, scared to not only hear the answer, but also not sure what the most appropriate way to ask it is.  "So, what are the odds of... the cancer being completely gone?"

At this my dad leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, and clasping his hands.  He smiled confidently at me and said, "Pretty damn good."

I smiled back at him, letting him know I appreciated that prognosis and his confidence, but beneath our smiles, we both could see the fear scrawled across each others faces, and the the worry of the unknown in our tense, faux relaxed postures.

After helping my mom clean the kitchen, I headed back to school:  driving the half hour in complete silence, consumed by my plaguing fears and thoughts.  As I drove east back towards Lincoln headfirst into the darkness, I could see the remnants of light fading behind me.