Page 17 of Not That Into You

“Have you been eating?”

“Yes, Ma. I made pancit.”

“Pork?”

“Chicken.”

“Pork is better.”

I take a deep breath. “Did you need anything else?”

“Yes. Your father wanted me to tell you he liked your tiger drawing.”

My father is not a talkative man, instead preferring to relay messages through my mother. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve talked to him alone on the phone. And each call was punctuated with long, awkward silences. He does better with text messages; although, even those are brief and few and far between.

“Tell Dad I said thank you.”

The tiger drawing was a sketch I did for a client for an upper arm tattoo. Every once in a while, when I think my dad will be interested, I text him a photo of a drawing I’m working on.

My dad’s an auto mechanic, but he spends his free time drawing. He’s a self-taught artist who does pencil drawings of people and things he sees throughout his day. Growing up, I spent many hours sitting next to him, working on my own drawings. He’s the reason I majored in graphic design in college, even though my mother pushed me to pursue nursing.

Glancing at my clock, I remember it’s Wednesday. “Mom, did you go to the doctor yesterday?”

She owns her own cleaning business, and years of standing on her feet and lugging heavy vacuum cleaners around haven’t been kind to her body. She’s been struggling with back pain for a while, and lately, she’s also had pain along the backs of her legs.

She finally agreed to see a doctor when she’d been forced to take a day off because the pain was too much. The doctor had diagnosed her with a herniated disc and told her to rest and take ibuprofen. Sound advice my mother promptly ignored. “I have to work, Nica. I don’t have time to rest,” she’d told me at the time.

Unsurprisingly, the pain hadn’t dissipated, and the doctor then prescribed physical therapy. But my mom refused to take time off work to visit a physical therapist.

Recently, the pain has gotten even worse.

There’s a pause before my mom answers, “Yes, I went to the doctor.”

“Did Dad go with you?” During one of our rare phone conversations, I’d asked my dad to accompany my mom to her doctor’s appointment because we were both concerned she wasn’t giving us the full story and that the situation may be worse than she’s let on.

“He came with me.”

“And what did the doctor say?”

She sighs. “Nothing helpful.”

“Mama. What did she say?”

She sighs again. “It doesn’t matter, Nica. I’ll have Theresa cover more of my work and take it slow.”

“Mama. What did the doctor say?”

There’s another long pause. “The doctor said I needed surgery.”

I sit up straight. “Surgery? Is that... is that safe?”

“It’s fine, Nica. I’m not getting surgery.”

“But, Ma, the doctor said you need it.”

“Pfft. It was only a suggestion.”

I clench my jaw. “Mom, you’re in pain.”

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