Her Godbrother

Stacy

As soon as I arrive home from school, my mom, Claire, Tom, and Chase are sitting in the living room like they were waiting for me to walk through the door. What worries me the most is their expressions.

“Sit down, Stacy. We have to talk.” Mom says, voice faint.

As soon as I take a seat next to my mom, she coughs, and a slight cry escapes past her lips, “I have small-cell lung cancer, Stacy.” Mom gets straight to the point, speaks firmly as if she feels empty on the inside, void of all emotions.

Evidently, my mother had time to allow everything to sink in. I, however, didn’t.

As moms words rush through me, the realization sinks in. I shake my head as I mutter, “No, no, no—” I can’t lose my mother. I just can’t.

She’s all I have.

I need her.

Dad left. He died, so Mom has to stay here with me. She just has to because my dad left too soon. And, I wasn’t ready. I’ll never be capable of preparing myself to live in a world where neither of my parents exists.

Pain jolts throughout my entire body. My chest burns with defeat.

I’m paralyzed.

I’m afraid.

I can’t lose her too.

Helplessly, I allow the tears to slide down my cheeks as disbelief slowly becomes my new reality.

“Not my mom,” I voice so low I’m certain no one heard me.

God already took my father. He cannot take my mother. Please, God, I silently pray. Don’t take my mother from me as well. Cancer took my father, and now it will probably take my mother.

I stare at my mother with tears slipping from my eyes. “You have to fight this battle and win, Mom. I can’t lose you.” I take a deep breath. “You’re my mother and my best friend. How would I live without you?”

The thought alone hollows me out. She’s the ground beneath my feet — without her, I don’t know how to stand.

Losing dad broke something in our world. Mom was the one who pieced it back together, quietly and stubbornly. The way only she could. I have learned how to live without a father. I don’t have it in me to learn how to live without my mother.

Even in our darkest moments, she was the light we gathered around. A hand on my shoulder. A meal on the table. Love without condition or explanation. She was just there, the way air is there.

She’s my mother and my best friend. And she has to beat this.

But the truth I can’t say out loud is that I’m not ready. I wasn’t ready to lose Dad, and I’m not ready for this. I don’t know how to be who I am in a world without her in it.

No. No, she can’t leave. She’s my rock. My strength. My whole foundation.

I take her hand, and the words come out small and broken “I can’t live without you, Mom.”

I’m powerless to stop the tears. I just stare at her, this woman who has held my world together for as long as I can remember.

“Oh, honey.” She pulls me into her side, her hand moving in slow, gentle strokes along my arm. “I will fight every day for you and for me. But Stacy, if this takes a turn for the worse, I need you to know something. You will never be alone. You have Claire, Tom, and Chase.”

I nod, because I know she needs me to be strong. I know she’s right. Tom and Claire would never let me fall.

But knowing that doesn’t touch this particular ache. They love me. I don’t doubt that.

Nobody, though. Nobody takes her place.

Claire has been my mother’s best friend since high school. She is the sister my mother never had, given that mom grew up an only child.

The two of them are inseparable in the way that only decades of shared history can make people. If anyone understands what losing her would mean, it’s Claire.

And then there’s Chase. Our bond is something I have never quite been able to put into words. Chase doesn’t try to fix things or fill silences with noise. He just shows up.

Outside of my mother, he’s the only real friend I have. And some days, I think Chase knows me better than I know myself.

I slide one arm around her back and the other across her front, pulling her close. Holding on the way you hold something you’re terrified of losing. Too tight, and not tight enough.

“You’re irreplaceable, Mom.” The words crack on the way out. I weep into her side, not caring, not stopping.

Her hand moves slowly through my hair. “If anything happens to me, Stacy — promise me something. Promise me you’ll live your life. Promise me that you won’t stop being the happy, loving girl you are.”

I want to tell her nothing is going to happen. I want to mean it.

Her hand is still moving through my hair, soft and steady, the way it has since I was small. She’s trying to comfort me. It doesn’t work. But I let her try.

What I don’t tell her is that I already know what losing a parent looks like. I have carried that grief before. And somewhere deep in the place where I keep my truths, I feel it again. That same cold shadow, creeping in at the edges.

At the moment, all I can think about is never hugging my mother again.

Never hearing her laughter or having her by my side.

“I am who I am because of you, Mom. When dad died, you were all I had left. I need you to beat this because I can’t live without you.”

“I have already spoken to Claire and Tom, and they have promised to take care of you if—”

“Stop, Mom.” I bounce off the couch, my voice urgent and broken. “Stop talking like you’re going to die.” I whimper, breathing heavily, shaking my head as if I can shake the words away. “You are not going to die.” I cover my face with my hands. “You can’t die.”

Strong arms wrap around me, drawing me into a hug, holding me up when I feel like falling. “Everything will be okay, Stacy.”

I pound on Chase’s chest, releasing every bit of anger and hurt onto my best friend. “It won’t be okay, Chase.” I cry louder. “She’s my mother.” I sob as my knees give out beneath me, slipping from his hold and sinking to the floor. “If she dies, nothing will ever be okay again.”

“Hey.” Chase lowers himself beside me, places his fingers under my chin, and tilts my face up to meet his. “She’s still here. She’s still alive.” He presses his hand gently over my heart. “Your heart is still beating, and so is hers.” I notice a tear slip down his cheek. “We’re okay.” He reassures me as he pulls me into his arms, and I go willingly.

“Love her while you still can,” he whispers.

Chase is hurting.

Tom and Claire are hurting.

Finding out my mother has cancer isn’t just tearing me apart. It’s tearing all of us apart.

I grip Chase’s shirt in my fists. “I don’t want to lose her.”

“I know.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “Neither do I.”

Chase and I have always considered ourselves lucky. We’re two kids who grew up with the best mothers in the world. Our families did everything together. Every holiday, every vacation, every birthday. I don’t have a single memory that doesn’t include Claire, Tom, or Chase somewhere in it.

My mother moves toward us and slowly lowers herself to her knees. “I’m not giving up, Stacy.” She takes a slow, steady breath. “I start my first round of chemo treatments tomorrow.”

I tip my head to the side, my cheek resting against Chase’s chest. “I’m going to be by your side every step of the way,” I promise quietly. And I mean it. That is one promise I will never break.

Claire and Tom lower themselves to the floor and fold us all into their arms.

“Tom and I will be right there fighting with you,” Claire tells my mother, her voice thick with emotion.

“You have always been my hero, Mom.” I wipe at my eyes. “You’re the strongest person I know. If anybody can beat cancer, it’s you.”

“Your daughter is right, Robin.” Claire sits back on the floor, her arms wrapped around her legs, eyes glistening as she stares at her best friend. At my mother. “You’re the strongest person I know.” Her voice breaks on the last word. “You better not leave us.”

My mother reaches out and takes Claire’s hand. “Claire, you and I have been best friends our entire lives. You are the only person I trust to take care of my daughter if something should happen to me.” She pauses, squeezing Claire’s hand tightly. “I know you’ll love her the way I do. If I don’t beat this, promise me—” Her voice gives out. She can’t finish.

Mom is hurting too. She’s terrified, and she’s trying with everything she has to stay strong for me.

Everything hits me all at once...

My mother is just as afraid of leaving me as I am of losing her.

Claire places her hand on my shoulder. My grip tightens around Chase. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to her.” She holds my mother’s gaze with fierce, unwavering eyes. “I’ve loved your daughter her whole life, Robin. That will never change. I promise I’ll love her extra harder for you.”

“Stop.” I press my face into Chase’s chest. “Stop talking like you’re going to die, Mom.” I let go of Chase and crawl into my mother’s arms.

She wraps herself around me without hesitation. “I need you to be prepared for the worst, Stacy.”

“I don’t want to,” I mumble, twisting in her arms until my head rests on her shoulder. “I won’t ever let you go.”

“We’re moving in.” Claire’s voice cuts through the room. My mother looks at her, startled. “I mean it, Robin. And don’t give me any lip.” Claire looks around at everyone. “We have always been family. Family sticks together.” It’s true because we practically live together already, spending every day at each other’s houses until the sun goes down.

But now it’s a declaration.

A promise.

Chase takes my hand. “She’s going to need you more than ever now. And you’re going to need all the support you can get.” He glances at my mother, sadness settling quietly across his face. “And so will you.”

Mom nods slowly. Then something shifts in her expression — a small, deliberate lifting. “Well, I have one more day before chemo begins. I don’t want to spend it crying on the floor.” She looks around at all of us. “I want to celebrate life.”

Tom pushes himself up off the floor, disappears for a moment, and returns with a bottle of champagne. The cork pops. Glasses are filled and passed around.

I raise mine. “To life.”

“To family,” Chase says.

We nod.

We sip.

We hold on to each other and hold on to the moment.

My mother pulls me into her arms one more time. “I love you, Stacy.”

I choke on a sob. “I love you too, Mom.” I run my hands slowly down her long, beautiful gray hair, memorizing the feel of it.

The doctors had thought it was pneumonia. Until recently, when mom coughed up blood. More tests followed, and now she faces the biggest fight of her life, with all of us beside her.

I look around at Claire, Tom, and Chase, all watching my mother and me. What scares me most is what I see on their faces. I see uncertainty, barely concealed behind steady eyes and soft smiles. They are holding it together for us. But they are barely holding on to themselves.

I have to be strong.

I have to hold onto my faith so that my mother doesn’t lose hers.

She will beat this.

She’ll do it for me.

For dad.

She has to.

Because I still need her here with me.

But we are not alone. Mom is not alone. She will always have me, Claire, Tom, and Chase. And somewhere beyond all of this, my father will always be her angel.

I’ll take care of her the way she took care of me for seventeen years. When dad died, she glued me back together with hands that were shaking from her own grief.

I never fully understood how she did it. How she held me up when her own heart was in pieces. But she did. Because that is who she is.

She surrounded me with love. She kept my father alive through every story, every memory, every time she said his name out loud. She promised she would always be there for me.

And she was.

So now it’s my turn.

I’ll help her fight. I’ll love her through every hard and uncertain day. I’ll be her strength in her weakest moments, the way she was mine.

I’ll carry her the way she carried me.

And I will never let her go.

Even when she doesn’t have the strength to fight — I’ll fight for her.

Although I pretend in the moment to be strong for my mother as she did for me all my life, I find myself wondering, if the worst comes, if I lose my mom the way I lost dad, will there be anything left of me worth saving?