Page 5 of Heart Strings
My phone vibrates with an incoming text.
I raise a brow at Oisín. “See? People love me.”
When I pick it up, there’s a message from my mom:
You need to schedule your checkup.
A groan escapes my mouth. “Okay, maybe someone loves me a little too much.”
“Clingy Tinder date?” Oisín asks.
“My mom, actually.”
“Yikes.” Things are rocky between him and his parents, too. He digs out his phone and scrolls through videos in between bites as I consider my reply.
Although my mom is a petite white woman, her contact photo in my phone is Godzilla. She has no idea. Before I can tell my mom that I called the cancer center this morning, she follows up with another text.
I called the oncologist to schedule for you, but they wouldn’t let me
Twenty-five, with a biology degree from UT Austin, in med school on the other side of the world, and she still treats me like a child. I shove a few Skittles into my mouth, concentrating on the sweetness instead of typing out a flurry of annoyance. My mom’s never much respected American medical privacy laws like HIPAA, so it’s no wonder she’s trying to take over my care here in Ireland. But this is embarrassing.
Just got off the phone with them! Scheduled for next week, I reply. My checkup has been carefully timed for me to give her the all clear in person when she comes next week for Lark’s wedding.
It’s not on the family calendar
Another Skittle crunches under my molars. I’d tagged it in my personal schedule and not the shared one. With a few strokes, I open the calendar app to correct the tag to our two-person family calendar that she insists on to keep tabs on me. It’s populated mostly by my clinical rounds and study groups, with a few of her hair appointments and oil changes sprinkled in. There’s also a standing Monday slot for when my mom and I give each other a full rundown of our week over video chat. If I skipped it, she’d probably hop on a plane immediately. The two-hour allotment for catching a show at the Hare’s Breath tonight is tagged in my personal calendar, under a reminder to pick up Lark’s dress from the bridal salon after clinicals today. Her bachelorette party is in there, too—a booze cruise I planned for the end of the week.
After a moment, another bubble pops up.I see it now.
Ten minutes remain on my break. The bag of candy crinkles as I stash it in my pocket. Mom stressing me out is nothing new. She keeps a close eye on my health. There’s always a chance of recurrence with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which my mother makes sure to remind me of frequently.
When I was diagnosed in middle school, she pulled me out of competitive swimming and public school to put me into a homeschool bubble. Then Dad became a traveling consultant for a tech company, leaving me home alone with a mom who became more and more protective. As I got sicker, our family broke apart. She clung on to any shred of control. It got worse during the divorce, especially for a teen ripped away from her social life and tethered to an IV half the time.
When I left for UT Austin a year after I went into remission, my mom insisted on having a spare key for my off-campus apartment in case of emergencies. She would let herself in when I was in class and raid my kitchen, tossing out the emotional-support junk food and replacing it with large containers of organic kale and vegetables, then stick articles to the fridge touting their antioxidant properties. I couldn’t even gain the “freshman fifteen” in peace.
I could have enrolled in a med school out of state instead of across the Atlantic if I’d just wanted to cut down on my mom’s unannounced visits. But then I vacationed with Lark in Galway and fell in love with the seaside city, too. I applied for the Atlantic Bridge Program and shocked my mom by announcing I’d study medicine in Ireland. Moving to another country felt like the closest thing I could get to rebellion, while still staying on track with my goals.
“Everything okay?” Oisín asks, glancing up from his phone, which is faintly playing “Come Here to Me.” It was Ireland’s unofficial song of the summer. I may have blocked Aidan O’Toole on Spotify, as well as the hashtag of his name on socials, but that hasn’t kept me from hearing his music playing in boutiques and cafés, and as the background music to every other social media video, it seems.
Belatedly, he realizes who is playing and shoots me an apologetic look as the song cuts off mid-chorus.
“Yeah, it’s fine. You don’t have to do that.”
“Listen, hearing my ex-boyfriend sing love songs would piss me off, too. I count myself lucky that at least mine is a talentless gobshite.”
“Honestly? It still fills me with molten rage every time.” It’s only a slight exaggeration. How dare Aidan get famous for singing about how much he loves me, when I was so easily thrown away for the sake of that fame.
Oisín’s laugh bubbles up over the din of the cafeteria. “I swear fealty to you—”
“Didn’t you just call me your enemy?”
“—but it’s criminally catchy!”
“Traitor.”
“We all have problematic favorites.” Oisín throws up both palms in a placating gesture. “Please don’t pelt me with more sweets.”
“I can’t believe I’m gonna have to spend three days with my exandmy mom,” I grumble, brushing my bob off my shoulder and watching a few dark strands stick to my white coat. “Look, I’m already stress-shedding and it’s two weeks away.”
