Page 68 of Becoming Super

PART TWO

CHAPTER 1 – Chloe

I remember Dr. Stokessitting down in his office, having just closed the door behind him. I had been in for more testing; something just wasn’t right. On my last appointment, he had asked me if I have family history of any bowel diseases.

I always hated being asked questions like that. I was adopted, it was a closed adoption. I was told that my mother was of Asian descent and she wasn’t sure who the father was. My adoptive parents were the typical middle-class American household. Mom was a nurse practitioner and dad a professor at the university teaching med students.

They had wanted children desperately, but God had another plan for them. At least that is what mom used to tell me when she would tuck me in at night. I can still hear that funny raspy voice of hers whispering that I was a precious angel that was meant to be in their family.

I had every opportunity as a child. I danced, sang, swam, played tennis, whatever my heart desired.

And then it all disappeared.

My parents were on a medical relief mission when I was in high school. I had gone with them the summer before. It was amazing to see the poverty and complete devastation that plagued a lot of our world. It opened my eyes in a way, that truly changed the person that I was becoming.

The orphanages affected me the most. There were literally hundreds of children in need of medical care. We worked long hours in the heat, with sweat, bugs, and disease all around us.

I don’t know why, but I still felt for some reason that we were invincible. Our little family unit, Janice, Ray, and Chloe, nothing could touch us.

Until it did.

The next summer I was seventeen and I had convinced mom and dad to let me stay behind so that I could go to tennis camp. It was imperative that I do well so that I could get first singles my senior year. I had worked long hours with my tennis coach, and I was good, really good.

Mom and dad had kissed me on the forehead and promised that they would see me in a week. Mrs. Lewis was just next door if there were any emergencies.

I felt guilty for the small party I had thrown the first night. It was only three friends, but my parents had trusted me. It ate at me until I was resigned that I would just tell them the truth when they got back.

Only, they didn’t come back. There was a flood, the dam near the village they were working in failed and half the city was washed away. News reporters called my parents heroes. A tragedy, they reported, and then something new came along and my parents were forgotten.

Mrs. Lewis kept me until I turned eighteen. I knew that she really hadn’t wanted to. But the paycheck the state gave her helped buy her cigarettes, so she conceded.

From there I went into what she liked to say was my rebellious phase. I painted my nails, lips, and eyes charcoal black. My nose and belly button were decorated with jewelry and my heart, well, it stopped.

Not literally, metaphorically.

I no longer cared, about anything. I started getting into fights when I was eighteen and Mrs. Lewis kicked me out. I didn’t care.

I slept in my parents four-door sedan, and when that was stolen I slept on the streets. I didn’t care.

Got caught lifting a cheap bottle of wine at the grocery, I didn’t care.

Nothing anyone ever said or did mattered to me.

Until I got sick, really sick and Razor hauled my sorry ass to the emergency room and left me there. He wasn’t being nice, he was fucking scared to have a dead body at his place. And according to him, I was three steps away from the grave.

In the emergency room, they took bloodwork and began running tests. I was numb through most of it. I didn’t fear death. That crazy bitch had taken the two things that had been the most important to me.

I welcomed it.

Three days later they had me see a surgeon, Dr. Stokes. I had been admitted to the hospital and they continued to monitor my situation. I can still see his eyes in my mind. They held compassion and sympathy.

And then the words, I don’t remember the specific ones, only snippets of the conversation.

“Stage four colon cancer...”

“Sometimes as long as a year...”

“Maybe six months in your case.”

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