Page 54 of Scarlet Chains
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head as if I can refuse the diagnosis, as if my rejection of reality can somehow change the facts. “No, that’s not… she can’t… I don’t understand.”
The doctor places a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I realize I’m shaking. My entire body is trembling like I’m in shock, which maybe I am. Maybe this is what shock feels like— the complete inability to process information that changes everything.
“I know this is difficult to hear,” Dr. Patel says, his voice professionally gentle but honest in a way that cuts through my denial. “Your mother has been incredibly brave. She’s been fighting this for a year.”
A year.
Which means she knew around the time I left Boston. She knew when I was making plans to move to Budapest, when I was talking about starting fresh and finding myself. She knew, and she let me go anyway, let me believe I was free to chase my own happiness while she faced the fight of her life alone.
“What…?” I have to clear my throat, force the words past the lump of grief and terror lodged there. “What does that mean? What are her options?”
Dr. Patel’s expression grows even more somber, if that’s possible. “Miss Katona, I wish I had better news to give you. At this stage, with the cancer having spread as extensively as it has, our focus has shifted from curative treatment to palliative care.”
Palliative care.
I know what that means, even though every cell in my body is screaming against the implication. Palliative care means comfort, not cure. It means managing symptoms, not fighting the disease. It means accepting that the war is already lost and focusing on making the surrender as peaceful as possible.
“Are you saying…?” I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t make my mouth form the words that will make this real.
“I’m saying we’re focusing on keeping her as comfortable as possible for the time she has remaining,” Dr. Patel says, his professional kindness never wavering even as he destroys my world with careful, clinical precision.
The time she has remaining.
Not “when she gets better.” Not “after her treatment.”
The time she has left before she dies.
My mother is dying.
The reality of it hits me so hard that I drop into the plastic chair beside the door before my legs can give out completely. The sterile hospital hallway spins around me, fluorescent lights too bright, the smell of disinfectant too strong, the steady beeping of medical equipment too loud.
“But what about chemotherapy?” I ask desperately, grasping for any thread of hope I can find. “Surgery? Radiation? There has to be something—?”
Dr. Patel shakes his head with the gentle finality of someone who’s had this conversation too many times before. “I’m afraid at this stage, aggressive treatment would cause more suffering than benefit. The cancer has progressed too far, and your mother’s body has already been through so much.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Can’t accept that modern medicine, with all its technology and drugs and machines, can’t save the woman who gave me life. There has to be something, some experimental treatment or clinical trial or miracle cure that he’s not telling me about.
“How long?” I whisper.
Dr. Patel’s expression grows even more gentle, more compassionate, which somehow makes everything worse.
“It’s hard to say with certainty,” he replies. “Every patient is different. But based on her current condition and the progression we’ve seen… I would estimate somewhere between two to three months.”
Two to three months!
The words hang in the air between us like a death sentence. Because they are one. I have months with my mother. Not years. Not even one year. Months. Weeks, really, when you break it down. A handful of days and nights and conversations and moments before she’s gone forever.
My vision blurs as tears I can’t control start flowing. Everything I thought I knew about my life, about my future,about my priorities, shifts and rearranges itself around this new reality. My mother is dying, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.
“I suggest you spend as much time with her as possible,” Dr. Patel continues, his voice growing softer, more personal. “Make sure she knows she’s loved. Help her with any arrangements she wants to make. And take care of yourself too— this kind of stress can be overwhelming.”
Take care of yourself.
The irony would be laughable if it weren’t so heartbreaking. I’m pregnant with the child of the man who murdered my father, living a lie that gets more complicated every day, and now my mother— the one person in the world who loves me unconditionally— is dying.
How exactly am I supposed to take care of myself in the middle of this nightmare?
But as Dr. Patel disappears back into the controlled chaos of the hospital, leaving me alone in the hallway with my new reality, I realize that taking care of myself isn’t really an option anymore. My mother needs me, maybe for the first time in my adult life, and everything else— including my own safety, my own happiness, my own future— has to take a backseat.
