Chapter 6
Denise returned to her team on a Monday.
The company had restored her title and pay. A senior leader corrected the earlier message, and the client accounts she wanted to keep were returned to her. Her manager no longer supervised her.
She chose a schedule with room for appointments and work she could do from home when she needed it. Her adviser reviewed the agreement before she accepted it.
I drove her to the office because she asked. We sat in the parking lot for several minutes.
“I’m nervous,” she admitted.
“You know your work.”
“I know. I hate that I have to walk in and see people who thought I left them.”
“They’ve read the correction.”
“I want them to hear it from me too.”
She kissed me, opened the door, and walked inside.
At lunchtime, she sent a picture of her desk. Someone had placed a small plant beside her keyboard with a note: GLAD YOU’RE BACK.
She sounded lighter when I picked her up.
“Three people asked how I was doing,” she said. “Nobody treated me as though I couldn’t answer a work question.”
“That sounds good.”
“It was.”
Jayden met us at home with dinner nearly ready. He had asked Aaliyah’s mother to show him how to make chicken soup. He was proud of the smell.
“It’s good,” Denise told him after one spoonful.
“I know,” he said, then caught himself. “I mean, I hoped it would be.”
“You can be proud of soup.”
He beamed.
The days still had hard edges. Denise tired more easily. We adjusted plans when she needed rest. Jayden sometimes worried when he heard her cough or saw her leave food unfinished.
One night, I found him searching the internet for stories about people with her diagnosis.
“Are those helping?” I asked.
“I can’t stop reading them.”
“Your mom’s doctor knows her case. Other people’s stories can’t tell us exactly what will happen to her.”
“I know.”
He closed the page, then opened it again.
“I keep thinking I’ll miss something important.”
I sat beside him.
“Let’s ask Mom what she wants us to know. Then we can write down questions for her next appointment. You don’t have to search alone at midnight.”
He turned the laptop off.
The next morning, Denise answered what she could. She told Jayden when she had appointments and what kind of help she expected to need afterward. She gave him permission to ask when he worried, and she reminded him that some answers would come only after more time.
“I’m not keeping a secret from you,” she said. “I’m learning along with you.”
Jayden wrote his questions on a card. He did not ask to go to every appointment. He asked whether he could join one call where the doctor explained the plan for the next stage. Denise agreed.
On that call, he listened and asked his questions. Afterward, he looked less burdened. He went to the tournament that weekend with Aaliyah and his friends.
He called home once at lunch.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Your mom is resting. How’s your team?”
“We lost the first round. We can still come back.”
“Then go help them.”
He did. He returned in the evening with a second-place ribbon and a box of cookies for Denise. She hung the ribbon on the refrigerator.
A week later, Denise received news about the next part of treatment. It would require more time than she had hoped. She sat on the sofa and read the plan twice.
“I thought I’d be further along by now,” she said.
I sat beside her.
“You’ve been doing a lot.”
“I know. I wanted there to be a finish line I could see.”
She let herself be disappointed. I had been too quick, sometimes, to point out every hopeful sign when she needed me to hear how tired she was.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“For trying to make every hard day sound easier.”
She rested her head on my shoulder.
“Just sit with me.”
We sat until Jayden came home. He saw our faces and put down his bag.
“What happened?”
Denise explained. He listened, then went into the kitchen and poured three glasses of water.
“Can we order dinner?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
May you like
We ate takeout at the coffee table. Jayden told us how Aaliyah had tried to draw a picture of their teacher and made his head too small. Denise laughed so hard she had to set down her fork.
I held on to that sound. It did not cancel the difficult news. It belonged to the same evening, and I was grateful for it.
