Page 54 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

Auntie Lena laughs, waving a hand as she hurries for the kitchen.

“Nothing a towel won’t fix,” she calls.

Pimento hops up to inspect, unhelpfully dipping his paw into the puddle. He flings droplets of lemonade onto my face as he shakes it out. The corner of the magazine I’m holding drips onto an open letter. I snag it as well, and in my attempt to shake the moisture off, it falls open.

I don’t mean to look at it, but the bold header catches my eye. It’s from Delta Regional Medical Group. The list of labs and procedure codes is long, and I don’t know what all of them mean, but I can clearly see they’re extensive. And expensive. This wasn’t from a run-of-the-mill appointment.

Auntie Lena rushes back in, scooping Pimento off the table as she tosses the towel onto the mess.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Oh, honey, don’t worry about it,” she says. “Most of this stuff needed to go anyway.”

“No, I mean this,” I say, holding the water-stained bill out to her.

Her expression goes temporarily shocked before she casually takes it, adding it to the mass of ruined coupon offers and car warranty reminders with a flutter of her hand, as if she could wave the thought away. She starts tittering about junk mail and insurance mistakes. My heart is thudding in my chest.

“Are you sick?”

“Do I look sick?” she laughs, patting her pixie cut. “No. I’m fine.”

She cleans the table and dumps the soaked materials into the trash. When she returns, she’s got a fresh glass for me. She sets it down and assumes her previous position in her favorite floral armchair, running a hand along Pimento’s arched spine as if nothing happened.

“You’re being weird,” I say, narrowing my eyes at her.

“You’re starting to sound like your mother,” she teases.

“Objection, your honor: unfair opinion,” I say, mock offended. “I don’t mean it like that. That just looked like a lot of tests. You would tell me, right? If you were sick?”

“Maybe,” she shrugs. “What? Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m elderly. Like you’re about to start driving me to my doctor’s appointments, because I can’t be trusted to safely operate a motor vehicle or make decisions about my own health.”

“That is not how I’m looking at you,” I argue. (Full disclosure: that’s definitely how I’m looking at her.) “This is a look of concern. Loving concern.”

“There is no need for concern. I just walked up a million flights of stairs, same as you,” she says. “I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m not even old enough to qualify for most of those fancy retirement resorts, you know. ”

I want her to be honest with me. I want to dig the letter out of the trash and research all the codes. I want to find her doctor, demand a diagnosis, and find a treatment plan that will kick its ass, whatever it is. I give her another assessing stare and sink into one of the Heidi-sized divots on the pink couch.

“You can’t control if I worry or not,” I point out.

“Well, I’d still rather you wouldn’t,” she smirks. “I was just feeling a little run-down recently, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t something serious.”

“And it wasn’t?”

“It’s probably just menopause,” she says with a wave of her hand. I can tell this gesture is supposed to convince me.

“I like to think you’d tell me,” I say. “I don’t know why there would be a need for secrecy.”

“Everyone is entitled to her secrets,” she says demurely.

I eye her over the top of my fresh cup, semi-amused. “What else are you keeping from me?”

“Probably about as much as you’re keeping me from,” she smirks.

“You’ve been reading too many magazines,” I say, rolling my eyes for emphasis. “I just hope you know I’m always in your corner. You know that right? No matter what.”

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