It's been a week since Alejandro found out it might be cancer,
that they might need to operate. Slice his abdomen and pluck out lymph nodes
like splinters from a foot. And I haven't once mentioned it to anyone. He doesn't
want to worry anyone until it's for sure; our own private worry.
The thing that kills him is having to call his mom, telephone
her in Spain. Tell her, "Mamá, tengo cancer." He cried
about it yesterday, hugging me in the scratchy, brown lazy boy, his eyebrows
turning up their ends in sadness.
I imagine the worst: I lose him. The walls fall in on me, heavy quilts of panic.
I suffocate in the warmth of the car heater on the way to the grocery store.
I think, But we just bought a dishwasher. Our first one. And I cling to the
permanence of it, the hot, porcelain plates-- so clean-- that burn my
palms as I stack them in the cupboard.
I imagine the drive to the doctor's tomorrow, a doctor we have no relationship
with. A man in a glue-white coat. We pray to him in our heads, afraid to say
it out loud. We're not religious, and we pray. We ask for help, begging a God
we don't even believe in.
I imagine the ride home. Maybe the Beatles or old school Bruce Springsteen,
and plans to eat at the expensive restaurant in town with the amazing tiramisu.
Or maybe silence. Maybe the sound of gravel under the tires as we turn into
the driveway. The sound of the wipers, whirring rhythmically. Rain sliding down
the windshield, droplets running into each other, like cells that don't know
boundaries.
Alexis Wiggins' work has appeared in Rivet, Dimsum,
Flashquake, and Writer Online. She was recently nominated
for the upcoming Pushcart Prize. Alexis is completing her M.F.A. at the University
of New Orleans and is currently at work on her first novel. She lives in Madrid
with her husband, Diego, where she works as an editor and teacher.
