Cancer

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Bleak gray slants of early morning light filtered in through the crack between the drawn curtains, illuminating a sliver of our dissheveled hotel room. It was dark and cool and my body ached with a deep weariness, so I shut my eyes and let my mind drift towards unconsciousness for a while. I was nearly asleep again when the phone rang shrilly.

I waited through a good four rings for Mom to answer it, but she never did. Too sleepy to wonder why she wasn't answering the phone, I was merely annoyed that the ringing persisted. I waited another two or three rings and then got irritated enough to drag myself to the other side of the bed and pick up the phone myself.

"Hello?" I barked angrily into the phone.

"Kelsey, hey." Ryan's voice was warm and comforting, soothing away my former aggravation instantaneously. "I just wanted to make sure you got back to your room okay and everything last night."

"Yeah--" My voice cracked, so I cleared my voice and tried again. "Yeah, I'm--I'm fine..."

"Are you sure?" he asked concernedly. "You sound...hoarse or something."

"Oh, yeah." My eyes were drooping closed even as I kept talking to him. I was too tired to follow a rational train of thought that would explain why he sounded suspicious of me; it didn't occur to me at all that he probably thought I'd been crying. "I just woke up."

He laughed, and I started a little at the sudden, unexpected sound. "You just woke up? Kelsey, it's four in the afternoon."

My eyes shot open again with surprise. "Oh, shit--seriously?!"

"Yeah," he chuckled.

Struggling to escape from my tangled sheets, I stumbled out of bed and jerked the digital clock on the bedside table around so that it was facing me. The little red digits said 4:09 PM.

"Damn," I muttered.

"You were tired," he said consolingly.

I laughed. "Yeah. Really fucking tired."

Something suddenly occurred to me--a missing piece that had been nagging at me ever since my rude awakening.

"So, uh," said Ryan casually, "since you just woke up and everything, do you want to go grab a really late lunch or something? 'Cause I slept in pretty late too, and I haven't eaten yet, and I--"

I barely heard him.

"Um, that sounds great, Ryan, but, actually, I think I'm just gonna hang out here today." I was fully alert now; my words tumbled out on top of each other as I rushed over to the drawn curtains, throwing them open with careless haste.

"...Oh. Um. Okay. That's fine too," he said quietly. He sounded sort of crestfallen, and I felt bad for turning him down--he had never refused my company before, and maybe he needed it just as badly as I had needed his.

"We can go to lunch tomorrow," I promised him hurriedly.

"Oh, okay then." His voice brightened dramatically, and he went on excitedly, "There's this great little place down by--"

"Okay, wherever you want. I really have to go now, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Oka--"

"Bye." Again, I felt sort of guilty for ending the phone call so abruptly, but it was neccessary. My mother was missing.

-----

I had no idea where Mom was. She hadn't told me goodbye before she left or even left a note with any sort of explanation. That was why the phone had kept on ringing; that was why I had slept until four o'clock in the afternoon, with the huge hotel curtains drawn. Mom was gone, and I had no idea where to look for her.

I had no idea what to do, even. After I hung up on Ryan, I called her cell phone and got no answer--the call went straight to the answering machine, which meant that either she had turned it off or it had died. Then I threw on the closest clothes I could find and scoured the hotel for her, asking everyone I asked if they had seen her. No one had any answers for me.

Then I called a cab and directed the driver around every street and back way in the surrounding area while I scanned the crowds of people out and about for her face. No luck.

So I gave the cabby Ryan's address. At least Ryan had his own car to drive me in, and he knew the city well and could help me look for Mom. And he would understand--he wouldn't think I was a crazy tourist on some kind of illegal drugs, like the cab driver did.

We were about a block away from Ryan's apartment when I spotted a familiar blue blouse perched on a rickety park bench on the edge of the sidewalk.

"Stop!" I ordered frantically. "Stop the car!"

The cab driver slammed on the brakes and pulled over onto the shoulder crookedly. I stumbled out of the car, hysterical with relief--I probably would have forgotten to pay the driver if he hadn't complained loudly as soon as I unbuckled my seatbelt.

"Mom!" I shrieked.

She sat strangely upright on the wooden bench, facing a small vacant lot that had been turned into some sort of tiny fenced-in park. Her back was turned to me, and she gave a start of shock as I called out to her.

She twisted around in her seat, the surprise fading into a neutral expression as she recognized me. "Hi, honey," she said sweetly.

"I--I--Mom!" I shouted at her again. I was standing right beside her now, about a foot away, and practically panting from the fear and exhilliration of relief. "How could you--what--where were you?!"

She just stared back at me calmly. "Here," she said finally, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, I--I didn't know...where you were!" I said angrily. "I've been looking for you everywhere! Why didn't you answer your phone?!"

She smiled fondly at me, as if my ignorance was amusing. "Oh, honey, my phone's been turned off for days, weeks! Since your father died."

Her eyes tightened just the tiniest bit as she added this last part. The reaction seemed out of place enough to me that I noticed.

"Well, why didn't you wake me up this morning?"

"You were sleeping like the dead. An explosion couldn't have woken you up!" she laughed, her eyes sparkling with humor.

"Sure," I muttered. I couldn't manage to sound as upset as I had a moment ago--I was just too happy to have finally found her--but I was still irritated with her.

She turned back to staring at the huge fountain in the middle of the spruced-up vacant lot, and we sat there in silence for a while. I tried to read her expression, but the look on her face wasn't one I had ever seen there before. It ran deeper than the emotions Mom usually deemed safe enough to show.

"Mom," I said softly, laying my hand atop hers, "what are you doing out here, anyway?"

She didn't say anything or even turn to look at me for the longest time, but merely stroked the back of my hand on hers with her thumb. Then, just when I had decided she wasn't going to answer, she said, "There used to be a restaurant here. That's where I met your father."
I bit my lip in silence.

"Apparently, it burned down a few years ago, and the former owners decided to just put that little garden park there instead of rebuilding. There's too much concrete in Vegas anyway."

But the scorn for the city I expected to hear in her voice then was nowhere to be found.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

She turned to look at me, then, and I finally understood Brendon's obsession with my eyes: she had my eyes, and they were so blue--blue like the bluest of blue skies, sparkling, infinite. She smiled and somehow it was the most genuine smile I have ever seen, ever. There was a sincerity about her in that moment that was impossible to deny, impossible to ignore, impossible not to fall in love with. I would have forgiven her for anything, for everything, in that moment--and I did.

She smiled, and she wasn't sad. I could see that she wasn't sad. But the obnoxious gloating quality her happiness usually had attached to it was gone now; she was merely content, at peace.

"Yeah," I breathed. "It's beautiful, Mom."

We sat there in silence together, both staring in awed wonder at the gorgeous green spray of life that had risen from the ashes of a gutted and discarded memory.