Free You Take It From Here by Pamela Ribon Page A

I don’t think you’ve ever been through cancer before. I think that might be true. Is that true?”
    The carpeting in the hotel room was beige with navy squares. I focused on counting how many squares my bare toes were touching at that moment as Smidge continued.
    “Well, since I’m thinking you might not know what having cancer is like, I’m going to tell you a little something. People think having cancer immediately makes you some kind of hero. ‘Oh, you’re so brave,’ they say. ‘Oh, bless your heart,’ they’re always wailing. From afar. Way afar. They’re not coming over to make food for your kid when the smell from a can of tomato sauce makes you vomit for half an hour. Nobody’s rushing over to help you wash your sheets after you find your scattered pubes in them one morning. No. Just words of encouragement, like I’m walking a tightrope and they would love to come up there and help, but darnit , I’m just so far away!”
    I quickly count twenty-six squares touching my toes because I know there’s a chance Smidge is referring to me. “What about Millie Mains? Didn’t she wash your laundry every day?”
    “Oh my God, are you really going to make me feel guilty about Millie Mains right now?”
    “No, I’m just saying—”
    Smidge shook her head. “You’re talking about the girl who was hoping I’d die so she’d get into my husband’s pants, but I’m the ungrateful bitch? I get it.”
    “Is that true?”
    “I need a glass.”
    I knew it wasn’t true. Smidge just liked her story better if she had gotten through her cancer all by herself.
    Finding a glass from the faux marble wet bar, she poured herself an inch, leaning against the counter with her free hand like a weary bartender. She was still shaking her head, lips pursed, like I was this thing she had to deal with, a fool in her face.
    She talked into her drink, staring at the liquid like only it understood. “Surgery, chemo, radiation,” she said. “I wasn’t being ‘brave’ or ‘strong.’ That’s bullshit. I didn’t have a choice. I was too scared to do anything other than what the doctors said. It’s brave when you opt to do the hard part. So this time I’m opting hard.”
    I could tell these words were rehearsed, but I didn’t know if this speech was prepared for me, or if this is what she’d been telling herself. She didn’t seem to notice me there anymore. She faced the window, the lights inside the room kept her from being able to see anything other than her own reflection. I watched her stare herself down.
    “It’s stage four,” she said. “It’s spread already. In my ribs, other places. They didn’t want to tell me how long I have, but I pinched the doctor under her arm until I got her to admitit’s probably less than a year. Do you know they stage cancer in Roman numerals?”
    There were thirty squares along the left side of my foot, fifteen squares along the right side of my foot, and too many things I didn’t want to hear bouncing around in my head. Every time I thought it couldn’t get any worse, more words came out, hitting me like fists.
    “What did the doctors say you should do?”
    “Some bullshit I ain’t doing.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean I’m not going through chemo again. No surgery. Nothing. This is it. I’m not going to lose my hair again. Last time I looked like one of those just-born kangaroo inchworms, all wet and pathetic, blind and helpless.”
    “Smidge!” I grabbed the comforter in my hand and gripped it to keep me from shaking her. I was seconds from taking her by the shoulders, turning her upside down, and treating her like a human Etch A Sketch. I’d rattle her until all the cancer fell right out. Then we could stare at that pile of unwanted, parasitic, life-robbing mass and watch it lose all its power, writhing and suffocating on the floor between us.
    “There’s nothing to do, Dans,” she said. “They told me I could try surgery that’ll remove a few ribs