The world went white and silent for a moment. Then it came back in pieces.Treatment. Chemotherapy. Radiation. Numbers and statistics and the careful medical language doctors use when they’re trying not to break you with the truth.
I requested a leave of absence from Maplewood. Then I requested night shifts at a different facility so I could be with my mother during the day. My paycheck dropped by nearly twenty percent, but I didn’t care. This was my mother—not my obligation, not my duty, but my mother.
Marcus visited three times in two years.Three times.
Each visit was scheduled like a business appointment. He’d arrive in his Hugo Boss suit, kiss Mom’s forehead as if it were a contractual obligation, check his Rolex watch—he was obsessed with that watch—and leave within an hour. He had deals to close, he’d say. The market waits for no one.
His wife, Victoria, came once. She spent most of that visit photographing the house for Instagram, positioning herself in front of Mom’s lavender garden like she was the one tending it. She barely looked at my mother.
