CHAPTER TWO
BRENDA

“Mom, please stop hovering,” I sighed as Mom pulled at the pillow behind me on the couch. They’d bought this couch when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer at the tender age of 18, six long years ago. Mom had insisted that I needed a comfortable couch to rest on. Her hovering and helicopter parenting was her way of coping, even if it drove me crazy sometimes.

I’d been in remission for over a year now, but still, habits are hard to break. That’s why I’m at their house on a Friday night, for our weekly meal together, rather than out with my best friend Stacey. That’s, also, why I put up with my mother’s relentless questioning and prodding.

“Have you taken your vitamins today?” Mom asked, instead of listening to me. She was very good at ignoring what she didn’t want to hear.

“Mom, please. I’m a grown woman, I can remember to take my medicine on my own, you know? I’m also getting plenty of rest and eating well. I’m fine. I promise.” I took Mom’s hands as she moved to plump up the pillow one last time. “Mom. I’m fine. Sit down, please.”

I used my best teacher to a naughty student voice and felt a small, guilty, twinge of satisfaction when it worked to make my mother breathe a sigh of relief. When you’re a first grade teacher you learn to deal with unruly, stubborn personalities and Mom might just be the most stubborn person I’d ever met.

“Well, you need to take care of yourself, you know,” she said, brushing a strand of gray-streaked blond hair behind her ear. She might insist I take care of myself, but the gray roots showing at the top of her head, and the dry skin on her forehead told me she wasn’t taking her own advice.

Most of this was all because I’d insisted on getting my own apartment when I first took on my teaching job. Having me a few miles down the road, instead of in her home, made my mother nervous. She couldn’t watch me like a hawk anymore. She’d never been this way with my brother, Sam, but then, he’d never been diagnosed with cancer either.

“Millie, leave Brenda alone, honey. You’re going to make her run screaming from the house if you keep on and we haven’t even had dinner yet.” My father, James, said with visible annoyance. He tried, bless him, but even he lost patience with her fluttering around me all the time.

“Oh, my chicken!” Mom squeaked, then ran out of the living room into the kitchen. Dad smiled over at me apologetically and shook his head.

“She means well, honey,” he said, by way of an apology.

“I know, Dad, it’s just hard to deal with some days. And today was a whopper. One of my kids decided to smear watercolor paint all over himself while another one came to school with stomach flu. I think you can guess how that went,” I gave a heavy sigh, but it was tempered with a tired smile.

“You make me proud, even on the days when you have to clean up after sick kids. You’re teaching tomorrow’s leaders.” Dad said, though he’d said it dozens of times since I first got my teaching license, after a grueling study course and a state exam I’d been certain I’d fail. My student teacher days were far behind me, though, and I was on my way to earning teacher of the year at the school.

I’d earned that nomination, which made me very proud. The nomination wasn’t mine simply because I was a cancer survivor, either, it was because I’d made a mark in my school. Even if I didn’t win the honor, I was still nominated, and that meant a lot to me.

“Thanks, Dad. At least I have the next two days off,” I replied, even if I’d spend the weekend going over my lesson plan for the next week. “Is it the usual roast chicken with vegetables?”

“It is. But it’s all organic and free of all those harmful chemicals that battery-raised chickens are fed. Hormones or whatever. That chicken is so organic she got it from a local farmer ten miles down the road. She drove down there this morning to pick it up.” Dad frowned a little, but then chased away the darkness with a smile. “She only wants what’s best for you.”

“I know, Dad.” I answered, just as Mom came back in. I felt I should try to calm her down a little bit. “Mom, um, Dad says you went out of your way to buy an organic chicken for dinner. You know store-bought chickens are fine, right?”

“No, those are awful, honey. I read an article online about how they’re fed growth hormones and there’s all those chemicals. It’s all that nonsense that’s causing people to have all these different kinds of cancers now, all the pollution in the air and the food they eat.” Mom nodded as she spoke, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She’d been in those fringe chat rooms online again.

All I could do was give a heavy sigh. Cancer had been around long before chickens were ever given growth hormones, but I knew Mom wouldn’t see sense, even if I tried to argue with her. I wanted to have a pleasant evening, so I let it go.

Dad, acting as the buffer he’d always been between Mom and I, suggested that he pour us all a nice glass of apple cider, leftovers from his harvest last fall. “Has it turned to pure booze now?”

Dad turned back to catch my grin and gave a wheeze of a laugh before he brushed the blond hair that matched my mom’s out of my face. “This batch isn’t so strong. You’ll be alright with it.”

“Alright, I’d love a glass.” I said, but Dad paused, his blue eyes going somewhere far away as he looked at my hair, down past my shoulders, finally. I knew what he was seeing, me three years ago with no hair at all, still fighting for my life. “My little trooper.”

I squeezed at the hand he’d held out to me, and we all went to the kitchen. I set the table while Dad poured the drinks and Mom put the food into serving bowls. Dad had always been the one that treated me like I was normal, even when I wasn’t, and I loved him dearly for it.

“So, how are the other kids in your class, Bren?” Dad asked, just as Mom was about to speak up about something, no doubt another lecture about cancer-causing foods.

“Oh, they’re all great, Dad. Amazing, actually. You remember me telling you about Mikey? He painted me a picture with a beautiful rainbow and some flowers now that spring has arrived. It’s on my fridge at home.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet, Bren,” Mom said and I breathed a sigh of relief. Dad had done his job well. “And how is little Mary? Has her arm healed up after that fall she had at the park?”

“No, she’s still got her cast on Mom, but I think it comes off next week. I caught her using the cast as a hammer last Tuesday, out on the playground, so it must not hurt anymore.” I gave a slight eye roll as Mom handed me a bowl of roasted vegetables. “She’s something else, I tell you.”

“All of your kids sound so lovely, Bren, I’m so happy about that.” Mom handed me the roast chicken she’d sliced onto a serving platter and I put some on my plate. I hummed in response and popped a roasted carrot into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to respond.

Her joy at my ‘easy’ classroom could be hard work to maintain. I hadn’t told her about the little boy that kept kicking the other students in the leg, or about how I was worried one of my students was going to electrocute herself if she kept sticking things in the plug sockets around the classroom. Things like paintbrushes and the ends of the safety scissors. It wouldn’t do for Mom to worry about that stuff.

Later, after I’d helped Mom wash up the dishes and said goodbye, Dad walked me out to my car.

“I’m trying to work on your mom being a little less, overbearing, shall we say?” Dad said with a wince and a look over his shoulder to make sure Mom hadn’t snuck up behind him. “She’s just scared, you know? We nearly lost you.”

“I know, Dad,” I said, going in for a hug. “But they got all of my cancer. The doctor said I’m in full remission and it’s been over a year. I’ve got my maintenance medicine and I take it every day. I’m good to go, I just need to be careful and aware in the future. I’m one of the lucky ones.”

I didn’t say that luck came with a whole lot of survivor’s guilt that I would never talk about with them.

“I know, honey,” Dad said, holding me tight in his arms. It was only in Dad’s hugs that he really showed just how terrified he’d been for me. Normally, he put on a brave face and stood ready for battle, but in those hugs, I felt how desperately he’d wanted me to hang on.

The problem is, I had. I’d hung on, I’d beaten cancer. Now, I owed it to all of those that didn’t make it, to have the best life I possibly could for myself.

“I’m working on it with her, she’ll get over it one day.”

“I know, Dad, thanks,” I said and pulled away. “I’ll see you soon.”

I stepped into the car then and waved as I pulled away. Dad had said Mom would get over her need to protect me one day. I wasn’t so sure about that, but a girl can live in hope, right?