Page 2 of From Best Friend to Bride
There was no use trying to save my makeup.
I didn’t need a mirror to know there was no hope for my mascara now.
“I suppose that’s a very good point,” Nana said as she looked over her shoulder. “Where are my tacos?”
That’s right.
The woman who, not even an hour ago, heard her doctor tell her that she likely barely had months to live without moretreatment, was more concerned about how long this restaurant was taking to bring out her tacos than her impending death.
While I, her youngest granddaughter, had been crying ever since.
No wonder my crying face was like Kim Kardashian’s. I couldn’t stop the bloody tears, no matter how hard I tried.
Not even tortilla chips and queso were doing the trick, so this was a deadly situation.
“Why don’t you go and wash your face?” Mum said softly, handing me a small packet of face wipes.
I knew what that meant.
It was her universal sign for,‘Go and sort yourself out, Delilah.’
“Good idea,” I muttered, taking them from her. “Excuse me.”
I got up from the table with my bag and the face wipes in hand and made my way into the ladies’ restrooms. A quick glance in the mirror showed me exactly why my mother had sent me here.
I looked like I’d been dumped ten times over and smothered my face in stinging nettles.
“Good God,” I whispered, yanking two wipes out of the packet.
It was no wonder my cheeks were black from my mascara, though. My eyes were just watering at this point, even as I scrubbed aimlessly at the remaining makeup left coating my skin.
I was in a daze.
Like I was in a parallel universe, one where nothing would be okay, where my life would never be the same again. The words of Dr Anthony echoed in my mind, endlessly spiralling around my brain.
His apologies.
His assurance that Nana’s body could handle another go of radiation and chemo to give her another couple of years.
His regretful verdict that she likely only had three months left if she refused… if she was lucky.
His solemnity that she should go away and think about it.
I didn’t want to believe it.
I didn’t want to believe what he was telling us. Until today, there was always a chance that her cancer was curable. At one point, that had been reality, until it came back almost overnight, much more aggressively than before.
And now…
My heart was sliced cleanly in two with both sides warring. One side said there was no way Dr Anthony was right, that he was mistaken, that all the tests were wrong. Theyhadto be wrong.
The other said it was inevitable, we knew it was coming after the last round of tests, that he’d warned us, that I shouldn’t be surprised.
I wasn’t surprised.
I wasn’t anything.
There was just an aching numbness where hope had once bloomed.
