make tomorrow afternoon work.” She hung up her phone and looked up to see Dez watching her. She shook her head and pushed herself off the desk. Walked into the ladies’ room and leaned over the sink, peering into the mirror above it. Did she look sick? Could she see the cancer that had been hiding in her body? Her eyes burned, and she closed them. Took a few deep breaths then left the restroom.
Dez waited for her in the hallway. “Bad news?”
He always knew without her telling him. Was he psychic or something? He had told her before it was more like her thoughts telegraphed onto her face, and he knew how to interpret its messages. “The doctor is going to go over the test results with me tomorrow.”
Dez ducked his head and stared at the floor. He muttered a curse under his breath. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“No offense, Dez, but it’s not something I want a guy to overhear about me.” She shook her head. “No, it’s time that I told my mom. I should take her.”
He looked up at her and put a hand on her shoulder. “If you change your mind, you know I’m here.”
She was tempted to step into his arms and have him hold her until she could feel close to normal again, but didn’t want to cross that line yet. She might need him later. Instead, she stepped away from Dez and walked down the hall to call her mom. “I’ll be coming over tonight after work, if that’s okay.”
“You never have to ask for permission.” Her mom paused on the other end. “I tell you what. I make your favorite enchiladas for dinner.”
“You really don’t need to. I wanted to see you and Dad.” But she knew that telling her mom not to cook was like asking the ocean not to wave. “Thanks, Mama.”
“Anytime, mija.”
Sherri hung up the phone and walked back to her desk. Took a seat and stared at her computer monitor. She should do some work. Keep herself distracted from the thoughts in her head that threatened to pull her down into a dark place. One that she feared would spread its cold fingers around her throat and choke her.
But work had little appeal, and she ended up staring at the screen and watching the clock until she could justify leaving. She waved to Dez and left the office before he could send her any more looks of pity.
Traffic from the office to the old neighborhood distracted her enough from thinking, and she soon pulled up to her parents’ house and parked on the street. She sat in the driver’s seat and looked up at the home she’d lived in since she was six. Thirty years later, her parents still stayed despite offers from her and her brothers to help them move into a condo or a smaller house that wouldn’t require as much upkeep. They turned them down, assuring them that they weren’t that old yet. Sherri doubted that they’d ever admit when things became too much.
A rap on the passenger-side window startled her. She pressed the button for it to lower and her baby brother Hugo stuck his head inside. “Mom wants to know if you’re coming in or if you plan on eating your dinner out here.”
Sarcasm from her little brother? It must be a normal day in the Lopez household. “Ha-ha. I’ll be right in.”
Hugo peered at her, frowning. “You okay?”
She nodded and got out on the driver’s side. She looked at him over the roof of her car. “Yep. How’s college?”
“Don’t remind me right now. Final exams next week. I’ve been studying so much, this is the first time I’ve been outdoors in the last three days.”
“And graduation a week after that, don’t forget.” She walked around and put her left arm around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug. “We’re so proud of you. Our baby is finally growing up.”
She ruffled his hair, and he pushed her away. “Knock it off.” He ran the rest of the short walk up to the house and opened the front door. “She’s finally here. Can we eat now? I’m starving.”
Mama walked into the living room and waved with her spatula to Sherri as she entered the house. “Hi, mija. Can you see if Abuela is ready for dinner? She’s watching her stories in her bedroom.”
“Sure.” Sherri walked down the hallway to the room that had once belonged to her until she’d moved out at eighteen and joined the army. She knocked softly on the door then opened it. “Abuela, dinner is ready.”
“Mi joya, you’re home.” Abuela groaned as she pushed off her rocking chair and approached her. She pulled Sherri’s face down to her level and gave her a loud, smacking kiss. “Tu madre tells me you got shot.”
“It was nothing.” She held up her right arm and showed off the padding under the blouse she wore. “I’ll be healed in no time.”
Abuela nodded then put her arm through Sherri’s. “If you say it is true, it is. Now tell me more about your young man.”
Sherri wanted to roll her eyes. Her grandmother never gave up on this idea that she should be married. “I don’t have one, Abuela, and you know that. I’m free as a bird.”
“Even birds make nests with their mates.”
They slowly walked down the hall and into the living room, where Sherri’s father stared at the television screen. He muttered a curse in Spanish at the baseball players then looked up at Sherri. “Those Tigers are going to put me in an early grave.”
Sherri laughed and kissed her father on his cheek. “They lose just to annoy you.”
“Bah.” He flipped the television off with the remote. “Let’s go to the table before your madre chases at me with her spatula.”
Dinner seemed quieter than their usual family dinners, but without her other two brothers and their families, less than half were present. Or maybe it was because Sherri stayed silent, lost in her thoughts. She looked up several times from her dinner plate to find Mama watching her, and she smiled as if to tell her that everything was okay.
After dinner Sherri volunteered to wash the dishes with Mama. Thirty years, and they still hadn’t bought a dishwasher. Maybe she’d buy it as a Christmas gift and save her hands from early wrinkles. She thrust her hands into the sudsy water and pulled out a plate then swiped it with a cloth before handing it to Mama.
“Something on your mind, mija? I figured you wanted to talk to me when you volunteered to wash dishes.”
Sherri nodded and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Now that she was ready to tell her mother what was going on, the words got stuck and wouldn’t come out. She took a deep breath and washed a glass, wiping it several times before she could turn and face her mother. “Would you come with me to the doctor tomorrow?”
Mama put the plate in the cupboard. “Of course. Are you sick?”
“I don’t know.” She dropped her head and let it hang while she tried to say words without turning them into sobs. “They found a lump, and they tested it, and now this doctor wants to tell me the news in person.” She raised her eyes to her mother’s tearful ones. “I’m scared, Mama. What if he says it’s cancer? What am I gonna do?”
Mama opened her arms, and Sherri fell into them. She rubbed her back in slow circles as Sherri held on tight. “It’ll be okay, mija. No matter what it is, you’ll be fine.”
Somehow with her mother saying it, Sherri felt slightly better. Maybe it would be okay.
* * *
DEZ PLACED THE cardboard cup of coffee from the diner down the street in front of Sherri, who kept her gaze on her computer monitor. “You look like hell.”
She glanced up at him then snatched the coffee. “Thanks. I couldn’t sleep last night, so I used my time to look at the drug raid from several angles.” She turned the screen so that he could see her notes. She pointed to a list. “These are the people who knew the details about the raid. One of them had to spill the beans to someone in the drug ring.”