And Here's To You - Chapter 3

I wake up again without an alarm around 9:00am to the smell of sweet dough frying downstairs. Whenever my mother is trying to distract herself, we find her making something in the kitchen. Thank goodness she’s a spectacular cook, so I get myself ready for the day and head downstairs.

My brother has a plate stacked high with brown-sugar donuts in front of him, and crumbs surrounding him showing that he’s already helped himself to a few. I grab a plate from the cabinet and sit down next to him. “Morning,” I say, and he grunts back a reply.

“Is it really too hard to say good morning,” My mother questions. She comes over to the table with four more donuts and kisses my forehead before sitting down. She was a strong woman, an optimist through and through.

“I’m not big into seeing the future” I retort sarcastically. Secretly I enjoy the positive spin my mother can seemingly put on any situation, but it never kept the realist in me from coming out. “If it turns out into a bad morning, my good morning wish will have been in vain. But if it turns out to be a good morning, then it’s a happy surprise.” I take a bite of donut and a bout of sweetness takes over my mouth. I’m certainly glad she’s a fantastic cook.

“Smartass” my brother mumbled.

“Language!” My mother was roller her eyes when she said it. “Is it really that hard to keep your mouth clean around your mother?”

My brother didn’t reply. In fact, I had noticed now that he had become much quieter in the past year than ever before. We used to get into wicked fights growing up for no other reason than we could. These days he kept more to himself or at least tried to get out of the house and away from family as much as possible. Since I was basically doing the same thing, I couldn’t say that I blamed him. However, it hadn’t stopped me from socializing with family when the peace allowed it.

He got up from the table and put his plate in the sink. “The JV team is scrimmaging today. A couple buddies and me were gonna watch if that’s ok?” He phrased it like a question even though both my mother and I knew it didn’t matter if we opposed or not.

My mother sighed. “Just be back in time for supper, please. Your father is coming over.” Eli nodded and grabbed his truck keys hanging by the garage door. He gave us both a final glance as he walked out slamming the door behind him.

Wearily, my mother smiled. “He certainly has an acquired taste for showing his love for his family.” She started clearing the table. Despite everything that was happening in our family, she still found it easy enough to make a light-hearted comment and continue her life as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

For a moment I was just watching my mother busy herself in the kitchen. I was thinking about everything she had been dealing with the past couple of months, and couldn’t help but marvel her strength through all of this. She truly believed that things would work out for the better in every situation.

I admired this about her, but I still felt it was foolish. If something didn’t work out, how would she react? How would Eli react? How would our family change?

My thoughts got interrupted when I heard our front door open. I see Cameron and Shawna walking through the foyer towards the kitchen. My mother turned around and smiled. “Good morning” she exclaimed. I couldn’t help but feel she was emphasizing the good for my sake.

“Hey” he said. “I could smell breakfast all the way from my bedroom. Parents are at the hospital, care if Shawna and I crash?”

“Not at all” my mother replies. “And here, let me whip you guys up something to take home for food later. I’m sure your parents haven’t been grocery shopping properly in a minute, oh and I just got this new recipe…”

She trailed off as she started busying herself making more food. Shawna sat next to me as Cam took the seat Eli was before, each grabbing a donut and some orange juice still out on the table.

My mother always had an open door policy when it came to family friends. Once more her strength put everyone else’s needs before her own, and any worry she possibly had of her own life had completely disappeared into concern for her best friends and their family. I put my plate in the sink and kissed my mom on the cheek, saying I was going to get ready for work.

I went up to my room to grab my uniform when I felt the presence of someone behind me. I turned around and Cam was leaning on my doorframe watching me. “Can I help you?” I inquired.

He didn’t answer but continued to look at me. Cam was only silent when he didn’t know how to phrase what he wanted to say. He was always careful about his word choice, making sure the meaning he intended was the one he obtained. “Lilly is being released today.”

“Wow!” I reply. “That’s good, right?”

He was silent again. “She’s getting ready to go through chemo. I know it’s going to be hard on her. And my mom.”

I thought back to his mom. Sharron was an interesting character. She got her “MRS.” Degree right out of high school with Cam’s dad, not really bothering with any further schooling. She was perfectly content funding her beauty budget with her husband’s money. His dad Eric was a lawyer in a firm in Atlanta where he commuted a half hour each day to and from Carrollton. His parents had always been friends with mine, but their personalities could not be more different. Sharron’s emphasis on beauty and Eric’s emphasis on a successful law career would not make the next couple of months easy for Lilly.

“How’s Shawna taking it?” Shawna had been their family’s biggest cheerleader throughout everything. She refused to let people know when she was upset by anything; it’s just the type of person she was. She was studying to be a speech therapist with only one more year to go. She believed in helping people through their own struggles in order to find inner peace…or something along those lines.

“Shawna offered to shave her head with Lilly.” Cam explained. “My mother just about burst into tears on the spot”

I laughed. Typical; Sharron caring about the physical aspects of chemo rather than the chemical ones. I rolled my eyes and finished getting ready for work. “Well I’m having a family dinner tonight so I’ll make sure to tell you how that goes.”

“Ah yes. Tell Edward I said hello.”

“Edvard,” I mocked a Dutch accent, how his mother—my grandmother—addresses him. “That’s just what I need; my father to stop complaining about how my mother was raised and knock into how I’m throwing my life away going to community college instead of his Alma Mater to be with—“ I was about to say to be with him. That was an argument I’ve had too many times with my parents that I didn’t feel like bringing up currently. “Anyway, I have to get going.”

Cam nods and lets me through the doorway. “Your room tonight?”

“Nah,” I reply casually. “Parents will be fighting all night.”

“Mmkay. Just tap on the window when you can’t resist me anymore” he winked and headed down the stairs with me, but as I went out the front door he went back to the kitchen with his sister and my mother.

As I closed the door once again I already can feel the start to a hot and humid day. Heading to my car, I try and forget my father’s voice already in my head, lecturing me about my most recent choices.