Page 79 of With a Cherry On Top

I let out a quiet scoff, and she flicks me a look.

The doctor doesn’t seem convinced either. He steps closer, flipping through his notes. “We ran your tests, and while everything looks stable, I want to go over a few things.” He pauses. “Any dizziness? Loss of balance?”

She hesitates. “Maybe a little.”

“Any stiffness or trouble with coordination?”

Her fingers twitch where they rest on the blanket, just barely. It’s small, almost nothing. But it’snotnothing.

The doctor notices too. “Mrs. Coleman, I’ll need you to be more forthcoming about your symptoms moving forward. Who’s treating you for your condition?”

“Herwhat?” I cut in.

Silence.

Did he say her “condition”? Mom doesn’t have a condition—the woman is healthier than me and Logan put together. But she doesn’t look at me when I stare at her, waiting for an explanation, and once I direct my panicked gaze at the doctor, he clears his throat.

“I’ll give you both a moment,” he says. “Be back shortly.”

The door clicks shut and I stare at her, waiting, while my heart pounds in my ears. She’s supposed to say something, to explain, to tell me this is a misunderstanding.

But she doesn’t.

“What the hell was that?” My voice is rough, my chest tight. “What ‘condition’?”

“Aaron, it’s nothing. I have some vertigo, and?—”

“No.” I press my fingers against my eyelids. “No, enough bullshit. Enough lying—enough.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them, something in her face shifts, like she’s finally giving up the fight. “I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.”

For a second, I can’t move. Can’tthink. Her words echo in my thoughts but make no sense.

Parkinson’s? I scramble for every piece of information I know about it. It’s a degenerative disease. No cure. It starts with tremors, stiffness, trouble with movement, and gets worse over time. I think of Michael J. Fox and the therapist from that showShrinkingI binged this past winter. Medication can help, but it doesn’t stop it from chipping away at a person’s independence. There’s physical therapy, lifestyle changes, ways to manage symptoms, but in the end...it only goes in one direction.

And she’s been dealing with this alone.

“How long?” I croak.

Her throat bobs. “A little over a year.”

A year.

A whole fuckingyear.

I push to my feet, pacing a tight line next to the bed. “And you didn’t think totell me?”

“You have enough on your plate, Aaron.”

I let out a bitter laugh, dragging my hands through my hair. “Are you kidding me? Mom, you’ve been—what? Just pretending everything’s fine? Letting me think this was nothing?” I scrape my teeth over my bottom lip. “What about Darren? Does he know? And Logan—did you tell him about this?”

Tears well in her eyes, but she doesn’t look away. “I didn’t want all of you to look at me like that.”

Holy crap, she hasn’t told a single soul.

“Look at you like what?” I shout.

“Like I’m slipping away. Like I’m not me anymore,” she says in a small voice.

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