Page 64 of Give Me a Shot

“I’m gonna take a shower,” she said to him. “I’m gross from today. Plus, it’ll help with the aches.”

After turning on the water to let it warm up, she started getting undressed. Steinem hopped on the counter and watched, squinting a little. She smiled at him.

“Thank you, Sty Sty,” she said, scratching behind his ear. “I promise I’m okay.”

But maybe she was lying to her cat. Her doctor’s office had called on Friday afternoon, and she still hadn’t checked the voicemail. Once she was out of the shower, she decided to be a grown-up about it and stop hiding. After a deep sigh, she grabbed her phone to listen to the message.

“Hello, Ms. Anderson, this is Dr. Williams’s office. Your blood work has come back, and she’d like to schedule an appointment with you to discuss the results and further tests. Please call us back at your earliest convenience.”

Sitting on her bed, still wrapped in a towel with her hair dripping, Jess hung up the phone. That was not information she’d wanted to hear. She didn’t want to be on an examining table again, did not want to talk about any test results, didn’t want to hear anything that could be…scary. She gulped, willing her heart to slow down. The instinct to message Alice and Stephanie croppedup. They could help her relax, to get perspective. But she didn’t want to worry them; they were so far away.

Mo is close by.

She could call him. She could even ask him to go with her to the appointment so she would feel less alone. But she didn’t want to put that on him. While things were going quite well, she didn’t…that would be a very deep form of vulnerability and Jess couldn’t show that. Even though she doubted that he would see her being vulnerable with him as a weakness.

He might appreciate it.

Tossing her phone on the bed, she stood, shaking her head hard.

No. I’m an adult. I can handle this on my own.

—

Hair dried and fresh pajamas on, she settled at her dining table to do some work for the coming week. She was in the middle of grading a fourth paper when her focus was shattered by her phone buzzing loudly with an incoming call. She reached to pick it up but knocked over the stack of papers she’d left near the edge of the table. Cursing, she tried to pick them up and answer at the same time. She did so without looking at the caller ID.

“Hi, Jess,” her mom said softly. “I…I was hoping we could talk.”

Jess stiffened at the sound of her mom’s voice but decided to stay polite. “What about?” she asked cautiously.

Her mom hesitated for a moment. “Um…it was wonderful seeing you when you came back. But that was months ago. We missed you so much while you were in England and were so happy that you’d be close by again,” she said before clearing her throat. “We’d love for you to come home for a visit.”

Jess was quiet at first. As usual, her mother was ignoring something that she didn’t want to see. Her last visit to pick up some things had not beenwonderful. Her father’s habitual coldness had hardened into veiled hostility, and her mother’s clinginess had been suffocating. Jess hadn’t been able to breathe the whole timeshe was in the house. Alice had said that their behavior might have been due to grief, but Jess would not take responsibility for fixing that. They hadn’t even taken responsibility for ignoring the warning signs in Cassie’s relationship and for ignoring Jess’s concerns about it. Just that February, Jess had called their mother, worried because she was having more and more trouble reaching Cassie. Her mom had said she’d make the drive from Rockford to Detroit to see Cassie herself, since she wasn’t answering her calls, either. But she hadn’t. Then April rolled around, and it had been too late. Her parents had done nothing, and her sister was gone.

But bringing any of that up at the moment would just lead to an argument, one Jess simply did not have the energy for. Alice’s and Stephanie’s latest encouragements to see her parents came back to her. They’d said that doing so might help her. Jess wanted to brush aside the idea that it would, but her friends were wise. Jess seriously doubted that she was ready.

She sighed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said, trying to sound kind.

Her mom sighed, too, and tried again, pleadingly. “I know you’re mad at your dad,” she said. “But I can make sure he doesn’t get angry when you come home.”

Jess tensed up. There was no way her mother could keep him from getting angry. A dull ache blossomed in her shoulders and neck; her jaw felt locked shut. She forced herself to speak.

“He has no reason to be angry with me,” Jess spat out before taking another deep breath. Alice popped into her head again. “But I’ll think about it.”

Jess ended the call before any more could be said. Once she placed her phone on the table, her hands began visibly shaking, her chest got tight, and a headache slammed into her temples. But she wasn’t going to cry.

The thought of reaching out to Mo whispered across her mind, but she couldn’t. She was too raw; she couldn’t show that weakness. Her parents needed to stay in their box in her mind and feelings, Mo in his.

She pulled a file folder of student tests in front of her.Grabbing her pen, one tear tumbled onto her cheek. She swatted it away and opened the folder.

—

A wave of guilt was waiting for Jess when she crawled under the covers that night. She’d been fighting hard against guilt for months. Most of the time she won, but now, seeing how everything was moving on—life, the rest of the world, moving forward even though Cassie was gone—the guilt of living her life in a world without her sister was overtaking her. She was back here, in the States, in the city Cassie had moved to with her husband and that Jess had chosen so she could be with Cassie again. But her sister was no longer here, and time was forcing Jess to live each day getting further and further away from Cassie’s presence. Maybe she had gone to the restaurant Jess and Mo had, but now there was no way for Jess to know that, to know if her footsteps were falling in the same places Cassie’s had. Jess was going to participate in a Ren Faire. Be a Rennie. Something Cassie had apparently been but that Jess hadn’t known about. It was like she was taking the place Cassie had been torn from. Jess rolled onto her side, grabbing a pillow to press against her aching stomach. And it sounded like her parents were trying to move on, too, if they wanted to have a visit and play happy family with Jess as though Cassie’s sweet, conciliating temperament hadn’t been the only reason that Jess and her father had ever been able to sit down at a table together.

Think of something else. Or the crying will start and never stop.

She snatched her phone off the nightstand. Unlocking it, she saw the preview of a message from Mo. The tears burned her nose. How could she even think about having a relationship when her sister no longer had the possibility of experiencing a good one? She tried to whisk the notifications away but clicked on one instead. A Google photos reminder of This Day one year ago. She felt like she was being strangled. She and Cassie, when Jess had come home for a quick visit. She swiped fast at a tear that had fallen. It didn’t make sense; there had to be some mistake. A yearcouldn’t have already passed since the last day she and Cassie sat together, in the same place. They were both smiling, making silly faces. Jess wanted to stop breathing. Stop breathing and escape from the pain. Then she remembered that Cassie had teased her about starting a relationship that day. About Jess always restricting her emotions and not having fun in life. She’d told Jess that she wanted to see her happy with someone. Cassie needed to see it. Jess swallowed. She’d completely forgotten. Steinem came walking up her leg, onto her hip. He stretched himself out on top of her. She could hear and feel him purring.

My sister, my first friend, told me she needed to see me happy with someone. Maybe…

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