Page 100 of Lighting the Lamp
“What’s your plan, Beau?” she asks, not unkind, but not letting me off the hook. “Just suffer through it and hope no one notices?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” I whisper, my voice barely audible over the pounding in my ears. “And if I say it out loud…”
The rest sticks in my throat like splinters. My lungs seize. The air feels too sharp, too thick, like trying to breathe through cotton soaked in ice water. My vision blurs at the edges, black creeping in like the threat of something I can’t undo. My body knows panic before my brain can name it because once I say it—once the words leave my mouth—it becomes real.
I’ll have to look it in the eye. Name it. Admit that something inside me has changed, maybe for good. Tell the world that this isn’t just exhaustion or stress or an awful week. My chest constricts, tight with the pressure of everything I’ve been holding back.
Momma reaches for my hand slowly, like she’s approaching a wounded animal. Her fingers are warm, steady as they slip between mine. She doesn’t even flinch when she feels the tremor in my palm.
“Then we find out together.”
My eyes burn, vision swimming again, but for a different reason this time. I close them and try to breathe around theshame clawing at my insides for not being stronger. For not being able to protect her from this broken version of me, but she doesn’t pull away or ask more from me than I can give. And in that stillness, something cracks open. Not all the way, but enough to let in her warmth and allow the first threads of relief to wrap around the terror tightening in my chest. And for the first time in three days, I don’t feel like I’m breaking alone.
I don’t know how long we sit there with Momma’s hand wrapped around mine, her thumb brushing slow, steady circles across my knuckles like it’s the only way to keep me from disappearing. My jaw hurts from clenching against the truth, but I know this isn’t going away. None of this is, so I breathe in, letting it rattle out of me before I say the words I have yet to tell another soul. “I have lupus.”
Her thumb stops moving, but she doesn’t gasp or ask what that means. She just gives me a soft, tear-filled smile like she already knew what I was going to say, but that’s not possible.
“You’re not surprised.”
“No.” She lowers her gaze, and when she speaks, her voice is calm.
“You knew?” My voice cracks like dry ice. “You knew and said nothing?”
“I suspected it, but not about you specifically. About your father.”
“What?” My stomach turns to stone as I stare at her like she’s just spoken in a language I’ve never heard before. Momma just detonated a bomb and expects me to pretend I’m not bleeding. Her fingers squeeze mine, and suddenly, she looks so much older. It’s like this secret has been pressing on her for years, unable to tell another soul.
“Although lupus isn’t hereditary, people can inherit genes that increase their risk of developing lupus, but they don’t inherit the disease itself. My father had signs of the disease whenI was younger,” she says, voice going quiet, almost reverent. “And so did my grandfather. It’s passed down from first-degree relatives, so although I don’t have it, I’m pretty sure your father did.”
There it is. The confirmation I didn’t want. The bloodline I didn’t ask to be part of. Momma reaches for me again, like that might soften the blow, but I pull back, needing the space between us to process what is happening.
“Beau,” she whispers, tears sliding freely down her cheeks now. “I didn’t know it would be you.”
“I know it’s not your fault, but Jesus, Momma. Do you know what it’s like to look in the mirror and wonder what else is hiding under your skin? What else your body is planning without your permission?”
She doesn’t speak, just presses her lips together like she’s physically holding back an apology. Momma has always done everything she can to fix whatever is wrong with us and chase the demons away, but there’s nothing she can do to fix this. Not this time. There is nothing she can say that will fix this, but she still needs to say it.
“I’m so sorry this is happening to you.”
Fuck, I believe her, but it changes nothing. It doesn’t pull the disease out of my body. It doesn’t erase the last few days of spiraling terror. Her eyes glisten with tears, but she doesn’t look away as she braces for the storm she knows is coming.
“There were signs, Beau. Before your dad’s heart attack. The joint pain. The unexplained fevers. The rashes. They didn’t test for it back then, not the way they do now, but when you got sick and now that rash on your cheeks, I knew there was nothing else it could be.”
I yank my hand away, the sudden movement sending a white-hot jolt from my shoulder to my wrist. Pain blooms sharp and fast through the joint, stealing my breath as I push to myfeet. I stand so fast, my head spins, and I almost lose my balance. My knees buckle beneath the sudden weight shift, and I have to plant a hand on the back of the couch just to keep from collapsing.
“Jesus.” I stagger, a fresh throb radiating down my spine, everything tight and inflamed. “So, what? You didn’t think I needed to know that my father probably died from the same thing I’ve got crawling through my bloodstream?”
My voice ricochets off the walls, too loud and raw, but I can’t pull it back. Honestly, I don’t know if I want to. The pain is fire now, radiating from the base of my neck and licking down my spine like it’s trying to gut me from the inside out. I shift my weight and grit my teeth as a shockwave shoots through my hips and thighs.
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Right. God forbid I be scared.” A sharp, bitter laugh cuts my throat on its way out. “Better I just end up here, barely able to stand, thinking I’m falling apart because of a fluke.”
My chest heaves, lungs burning from the effort, like each breath is rasping through rusted pipes. My body’s screaming, but it’s nothing compared to the fury clawing its way up my throat.
“You should’ve told me. It might not be hereditary, but now it’s a goddamn pattern. First grandpa, then Dad, then me?” I choke out a bitter scoff. “Guess I really won the genetic lottery, huh? If there weren’t bad luck in this family, I wouldn’t have any at all.”
She flinches, but I don’t stop. I can’t. Fury is the only thing keeping me upright right now.
