Free Something Noble by William Kowalski

CHAPTER ONE
    I just want to tell you straight up that this story has no happy ending.
    But it doesn’t have a sad ending either. It’s a story about being a mom, so it has a lot of happy and sad in it. Like motherhood itself, it has no ending at all.
    That’s because you never stop being a mom. You don’t stop when your kids go to sleep at night. You don’t stop when they grow up and move away. Being a mom is not just a job. It’s an identity. Maybe you already know what I’m talking about. If not, you will by the time you’re done hearing my story.
    My life has never been boring. I’m not an important or exciting person, but sometimes some pretty wild things happen to me. Usually they don’t come right on top of each other like this though.
    This is the story of one remarkable year that was full of one wild thing after another. It was a year that changed my life and the lives of everyone I cared about. And it starts in my least favorite place of all: a doctor’s office.
    Let me take you back to that doctor’s office right now.
    * * *
    My son, Dre, is sixteen years old. He’s been feeling sick for a while. We’ve been having a lot of tests done. Now we’re sitting and waiting for the doctor to come talk to us.
    Dre feels too sick to be nervous, so I’m nervous for both of us. He lies on the exam table with his arm over his eyes. He’s so tall that his feet hang way down off the end of the table. I still can’t believe how big my baby is. I carried him on my hip for so long sometimes I can still feel him there. Now look at him. He’s a giant with dreadlocks. So handsome the girls can’t take their eyes off him.
    I was only sixteen myself when I had Dre. I try to imagine him becoming a father at this age. It’s a horrible thought. I didn’t know a damn thing when I was sixteen. For the millionth time, I think about how amazing it is that we even survived. I was so stupid when I was that age. So young and stupid.
    But here we are. We made it through a lot of bad times. Only now my baby is sick, and I have this horrible feeling that more bad times are around the corner.
    When I get nervous, I talk. So I keep on chattering away to Dre, even though he isn’t answering me.
    After a while he says, “Mama, give it a rest. I’m too sick for small talk.”
    So we sit and wait in silence.
    Finally the door opens. A new doctor walks in. He stops and looks at Dre, then at me. Then he looks at his chart, like he’s making sure he has the right people. We get that a lot. That’s what it’s like when your kid’s skin is a different color from yours. I guess people wonder if you’re just borrowing him or something.
    â€œSeñora Gonzalez,” says the doctor. “ Buenos días. Me llamo Doctor Wendell.”
    I get that a lot too. People think I don’t speak English just because I look Latina. I don’t even get mad anymore. I don’t have the energy.
    â€œHi,” I say. “How you doing, Doctor Wendell.”
    â€œFine,” says the doctor, without missing a beat. And I realize he wasn’t being rude. We live in a big city. He must meet a lot of people who don’t speak English. So maybe he’s not so bad after all. He closes the door.
    â€œLet’s talk about Dre,” he says. He pronounces it Dree .
    â€œIt’s pronounced Dray ,” I say.
    â€œSorry,” says the doctor. “I know you weren’t expecting to meet a new doctor today. So let me tell you about myself. I’m a kidney specialist. I was called in because of the results of Dre’s tests. I think the reason Dre feels so sick all the time is because he might have kidney problems.”
    I nod. I knew it was going to be something serious.
    â€œWhat kind of problems?” I ask.
    â€œWell, the job of your kidneys is to clean the impurities out of your blood. If they can’t do that, your