Page 63 of Love me, Maddie Mendoza

I let it hang over us. Cancer. I didn’t want to say it and Nick loved Maddie enough to not want to hear it.

“Shit.” He cursed.

I nodded to myself. Shit didn’t cover it.

“Maddie can’t be doing ok with uncertainty.” He was right. Living in limbo wasn’t for Maddie. Sure, if it was the worst case scenario, she’d be devastated. But she also would research the top cancer facilities in the country. She’d write letters to specialists regardless of the insurance they had. Maddie was a doer, she couldn’t sit idle. But right now, all she could do was wait.

“I don’t know what to do, man…” I confessed. Day one and I was already out of my depth.

“You’ll sit with her. Whatever may come.” His voice full of authority.

His words hit my chest, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Nick lost his mother to cancer when he was still in school. How could I have forgotten? Nick talked freely about it. He was a reserved person, but he was never embarrassed by the tragedies of his life.

I hissed, dropping my head and rubbing my fingers on my brows. “Sorry man, I forgot.”

He didn’t give my apology a second glance. “When will we know for sure?”

“Her surgery is in…” I bounced my eyes around the room, the air splitting my chest in two. “Two days. And then we have to wait for the biopsy to…”

Again, the word hung in the air. Nick knew the procedure more than me. After surgery, the answers would come. If they remove it all, if it was cancerous.

It was never like that in fiction. They never tell you about the wait. The seconds dragging by, the feel of being worthless.

“Tell her to worry when it’s time to worry,” Nick said wisely, and I found myself nodding. There was little point in being tortured by the what ifs.

How much yarn was needed to distract Maddie? I wondered, making plans to keep my best friend sane.

“Can you update everyone?” I wasn’t sure if Maddie was in the mood to talk. I sure as hell wasn’t. “Aisha too.”

Usually, Nick took the talking with Aisha to a minimum. His attention perked every time she was in the room, but he never sought her. Surprisingly, he didn’t huff and puff at my request.

“Of course.”

Silence rang in our ears for a moment too long, but neither of us minded. I nodded to myself, the phone still glued to my ear. “I will let you know when…”

It was a conversation of open sentences.

“Yeah, sure.” Nick understood.

After the call, I decided to get dressed and venture downstairs for coffee. I gave one look at the orange tree, and I knew it was stupid to try my luck by jumping over it first thing in the morning. In yesterday clothes, I tracked downstairs. By the kitchen counter, Xiomara turned to me when she heard my steps approaching. She looked at me head-to-toe, her head shaking with disapproval, even when a smile tugged the side of her lips.

“Of course…”

I smiled, taking her to my chest for a monster hug. Her arms circled my midsection, and I dropped my cheek on the top of her head.

She tsked. “Don’t start you, too. I had to deal with your mother already.”

I laughed. Many things distinguished the two Xiomaras. For one, stature, my mother was tall and lean, while Xiomara was short and plump. My mother had wavy caramel colored hair, a shade very similar to mine, while this Xiomara had unruly tight curls like her daughter. And while the woman on number thirty-three was an endless faucet of crying, the one in front of me would prefer death than be called soft.

“Coffee?” She offered.

“I can make my own.”

She watched me with an arch on her brow. I laughed and put my palms up in surrender, “Ok, ok… tough lady.” I stepped backwards and sat on one of the stools behind the counter. Xiomara chuckled softly as she turned for the coffeemaker, the coffee already brewed.

Xiomara, just like her daughter, was the queen of knick-knacks. They were all over the shelves and consoles. The ornaments spilled off side tables, and even on the breakfast nook. The house was bold, colorful. Full of orange, magenta, and all the colors that didn’t seem to go together.

She served the coffee the way I liked; black with two spoons of sugar. Bringing her arms to cross in front of her, she leaned on the counter and glanced toward the stairs. “How’s she?”

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