Goodbye, Red Flag

I slipped my phone back into my pocket and hugged my mother.

"Safe trip," I said.

My eyes filled with tears as I leaned against her sharp collarbones. Her illness had already taken so much from her.

"Once I hand in my resignation letter, I'll take the first train back to you," I said. "We'll stay together until the end of our days, okay?"

She looked stunned. "What about Bastien? Aren't you two supposed to get married?"

Sebastian Ross was my boyfriend and one of the best internists at Annsberg General Hospital. We had been together for five years.

I was not from Annsberg. I had crossed several states in this vast land I called home so I could stay close to him.

Then my mother was diagnosed with Stage II stomach cancer. During all 20 days of her hospitalization, my boyfriend never showed up to see her once.

On the first day…

My mother secretly came to Annsberg and checked into the General Hospital without telling me. When Aunt Rosalind called to inform me, I was out of town for work.

I had no one to rely on except Sebastian. I called him and asked him to watch over her while I rushed back to Annsberg after my meeting.

Silence filled the line.

Then he spoke. "Suzy's moving today. I'm on leave. I can't."

His voice sounded cold, as though it might fracture at any moment. The call ended there.

I did everything I could to leave work early and went straight to the hospital. I learned that my mother had been sitting in the inpatient hall for five hours because she did not understand how to make an appointment.

…

The next day, the diagnosis came back. She had Stage II stomach cancer.

I could not bring myself to tell her. I sat alone on the emergency stairwell and cried until my chest hurt. When I felt completely overwhelmed, I called Sebastian and asked him to stay on the line with me.

He refused without hesitation. "I can't. Today is Suzy's first day as an intern at the hospital."

Then, as though he remembered how serious my situation was, he added a token of comfort. "Look, there's a 50% chance of a cure, okay? Plenty of people with stomach cancer live for at least two to five years. There's nothing to worry about."

I could not believe what I was hearing. My lips parted and trembled, but no words came out.

What did it matter if plenty of people survived or lived for another half decade? She was the only mother I had. If she was gone, she would be gone forever.

…

My mother tried to schedule her surgery on the third day. She managed to secure a date only on the tenth day.

The wait was unbearable. I begged Sebastian to help move things along, but he refused every time. He insisted on keeping his distance. He claimed professional ethics. We were too close, he said. A conflict of interest.

That evening, while I bought food at the cafeteria, I overheard an irritated nurse complaining to her friends.

"I swear that new intern slipped some kind of love potion into Dr. Ross' coffee. She recognized one patient as her elementary school classmate and told him about it. You know what he did?

"He forcibly delayed surgery for an older woman from the thirteenth floor to this Wednesday. That's Dr. Silva's day. His hands can barely hold a scalpel anymore. How is this—"

…

Tears streamed down my face and soaked into my mother's clothes. Her arms stiffened in confusion, then slowly relaxed around me.

She ran a hand through my hair. Her palm was rough with calluses, but it was warm. She put on a brave smile. "Stop crying, Pumpkin. You look awful when you cry."

She gently wiped my tears away. "I'll be fine."

Maybe we would be.

She had always had only me. Only then did I realize that I had always had only her.