Dirty Secret

Dirty Secret

I take an early flight and arrive in Minneapolis in the late morning. That afternoon my stepmom Sandy and I are meeting my mother at the lawyer’s office so I can sign the papers about the house. My dad and Sandy normally have limited contact with my mother, but before I left New York, Sandy called me and offered to help in any way she could; she even agreed to let my mother sign power of attorney over to her, since I live so far away. I wish I could call my brother so he
could help, but that’s not an option.

When my mom arrives, Sandy and I are waiting for her in
the parking lot in front of the lawyer’s office. My mom gets out of her giant rusty car and I try to ignore the fact that the backseat is piled to the ceiling with garbage bags, clothes, shoes, and God only knows what else. It’s April, and warm for a Minneapolis spring. My mother’s in one of her signature knee-length sweater-coats, the baggy black leggings she’s taken to wearing in the last few years, and a roomy pale blue T-shirt, or as she says
in her lingering Boston accent, “a jersey.” Her keys hang on an orange plastic coil around her neck. Her curly hair is completely gray now—sometimes she dyes it brown or auburn—and cut in a chin-length bob, with bangs. It looks pretty decent for cutting it herself.

“You look good, Mom,” I say, leaning down to hug her. At
under five feet, she’s the only adult I know that I have to lean down to hug. “How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad,” my mom says and takes a sip of what I’m sure
is coffee from her ever-present travel mug. Right after she called me with the news about her cancer I went online and found out that the statistics for colon cancer are good. Really good. And now, seeing how plump and healthy she looks, I’m even less worried. Then again, both of her parents died of cancer. So I’m worried, but not panicked.

“Thanks for coming, Sandy,” my mother says, sounding shy.

“Of course,” Sandy says and squeezes my mom’s shoulder.

Inside the small office, the lawyer: blond, pretty, and hugely pregnant, is waiting for us at the reception desk.

“Right this way,” she says, her Minnesotan vowels elongated
as she adds, “How’re you guys doing?”

“Good, okay, fine,” we say, and take our seats around a conference table in a windowless room. A small stack of papers sits in front of each of us.

“Does anyone want coffee?” the lawyer asks, and my mother
accepts, topping off the contents of her travel mug. My mom
drinks two or three pots of coffee a day and nothing else. She hates water, which I’ve been trying to get her to drink for years. She won’t touch it. Just like the vitamins I’ve bought her, just like the leafy green vegetables I nag her about. And she’s the one who’s a nurse. She picks up her travel mug by wrapping both her tiny hands around it and takes a big sip.

Dirty Secret by Jessie Sholl. Copyright © 2011 by Jessie Sholl. Reprinted by permission of Pocket Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., NY