“You cheated,” Theo said.
“I did not.”
“You took money from the bank.”
“The bank has insurance.”
“That’s not how insurance works!”
“It is if you’re the bank.”
I stood in the doorway, watching them argue as though nothing terrible had happened.
For a few minutes, the hospital room felt like our house again.
I wanted to preserve those moments forever.
But cancer doesn’t care what a mother wants.
Jack lost his hair. His weight dropped. His energy disappeared. There were days when he couldn’t walk from his bed to the bathroom without help.
Yet he kept asking about college.
He wanted to study engineering, travel, and eventually buy a house with a kitchen large enough to hold a ridiculous refrigerator.
He had opinions about everything, including the kind of car he would drive and the city where he would live.
I clung to every plan.
When he spoke about the future, I heard a promise that he would reach it.
