The Truth of the Breeze

Mother and I sat together on boulders on the edge of the field. We grew wheat this year, covering the land, a canvas of wheat for acres and acres, the golden chaff blowing gently in the breeze. From where we sat, it looked like sand shifting in a desert. The wind raced across the crops toward us, caressing our cheeks, kissing our foreheads, invading our nostrils with the slightly sweet scent of wheat and a mild undercurrent of decay. The sun warmed our scalps and faces, and I took a hat from the bag Mother had brought with her. Mother drew her knees to her chin, wrapping her arms around her makeshift chin rest. She turned her head toward the sky as if she were looking there for the answer to a question she had asked of the heavens.

"Mother, is everything all right?" I asked quietly. We never came out to the fields anymore. We had been cash renting the farm to one of the neighbors ever since Daddy died. Neither she nor I had any interest in managing the farm ourselves. Daddy had loved everything about farming, from planting to harvesting and everything in between. He loved the business of agriculture. Mother and I had never been privy to the inner workings of how the farm operated or the business side of farming. I left home after college but came back to see my mother with somewhat regular frequency, but not as much as I did before Daddy died.

"I have something to tell you, Carly," she said, taking my hand in hers. "Please don't get mad or sad about what I have to tell you, okay?"

I looked over at her in alarm. "What is it?" I asked.

"You know how your father died of lung cancer, how he never smoked, yet his lungs were full of tumors?" she said, and her voice cracked as she said 'full.'

"Yeah," I said, drawing the word out for several seconds.

"I want to sell the farm house or rent it out or knock it down," she said. "I went ahead and scheduled an inspection, you know, to find out what we're going to have to repair if we sell it or even rent it. The house has been in your father's family for so long, and there's never been an inspection." She stopped speaking for a moment to gather her thoughts or her words or her courage to get to the heart of what she wanted to say.

"Anyway, many fields sit on natural uranium deposits. As the uranium decays, radon is released into the air, and it just goes, dissipates in the air, kind of like dreams upon waking. Poof." She took a break from telling her story. She pulled her bent knees into her body even more closely, one wrist held in a tight grip by the opposite hand. Whisps of Mother's hair escaped the clip that pulled her mane away from her face. The hairs danced above and her head like they were acting out the story she was telling. Really, though, they were doing some kind of modern dance smacking of violence.

"You know your father's workshop was in the basement," she mused as she stared into the distance. "He loved it so," she said, and I could tell she was thinking of him tinkering with the small wooden toys he liked to make. Figures just the perfect size to fit into a child's hands—small figures with articulating joints. Mother painted their faces and she sewed clothing for each. Every one of Daddy's toys was a snowflake—no two were alike. "I loved being down there with him and being part of making his visions a reality." She sighed.

"Mother, what are you telling me?" I asked.

"We have to get the radon fixed," she said matter-of-factly. "I'm certain the radon is what made your dad sick. My doctor is saying the same thing."

"Your doctor?" I asked. "Why would your doctor care about our basement, and why would your doctor be talking about Daddy?"

"I'm getting to it. Just bear with me for a minute," she said. She took in a deep breath and exhaled very slowly then coughed. She went on, "Basements trap a lot of radon, and we were basically bathing in it. For years."

We looked at each other, and I kept my eyes trained on her chin. I knew if I looked her in the eye, she'd be able to see inside my head and know I could guess what she was about to tell me, and she would know how scared I was.

"I have lung cancer, Carly."

We were quiet for a time. The air seemed to heat, carefully wrapping Mother and me in a breath from Heaven. I reached for her, and settled for putting my arms around her and laying my head on her shoulder.

"Oh, Mother, I'm so, so sorry," I said, which seemed like such an inadequate thing to say. I followed up with the equally lame, "How have you been feeling?" I tried so hard not to let my voice betray me and break or get too heavy with the emotions that always swelled just before tears. But my mind circled round and round. Without Daddy and Mother, who was I? I'd be orphaned. Sure, I'm an adult, but my identity has been an offshoot associated in both big and small ways with my parents. I felt unmoored thinking about a life without my mother.

"I'm tired. I get light-headed a lot. It hurts when I breathe. I have a lot of shortness of breath," she said, smiling sadly. "Carly, can I ask you something? It's been something I've wondered about in the years since Daddy died."

I bristled just a bit and felt like her question might paint me into a corner, but I knew I would answer any question she had. "Ask away," I said. "Sky's the limit."

"Okay. I don't know how to talk about this. Remember when Daddy was sick? Back then you called me 'Mom' and 'Mama.' On the day we signed the hospice paperwork, I quit being 'Mom' or 'Mama.' You switched to 'Mother,' and I've been 'Mother' ever since. Why? What happened?"

"I can't talk about it," I said. "I have my reasons, right or wrong--probably wrong. For now, though, this next little while, I think I need to keep my own counsel." I knew she was sad, dismayed by my refusal to give an answer to her question. I took my head off her shoulder, stood, and hopped off the boulder. I was neck deep in wheat.

"Carly. Hold still for just a moment." I turned and looked up at my mother. She held her phone away from her body and took my photo. "I want to remember you just like this. I want to remember this day. I want to hold this feeling of the two of us—out here on these rocks, in our field—close to me. In my heart, mind, and my phone, too. When I'm slogging through having chemo brain, I will need this visual to bring me back to myself." She tapped at the screen a time or two to smile at the image. "My beautiful girl," she whispered. "You are the most perfect and important thing your father and I ever did."

She put her phone in the canvas bag that held hats, sunscreen, and bottles of water. The front of the bag featured Garfield with a speech bubble over his head saying, "I hate Mondays." I sure hated how this day had turned out. Mother followed me back to the farm house. We didn't talk, but I heard her humming, "You Were Always On My Mind." It wasn't her and Daddy's song, but it was sort of sweet and melancholy and full of apology. Was it for me, for her, for Daddy, the house, the farm? I could only guess. With her diagnosis, uncertainty was all we had.

When we reached the porch, she said, "Don't go inside. I'm moving everything out."

"You are?" I asked, stunned.

"I bought a bungalow in town. It's a Cape Cod. It's perfect for me. The only things left in the house are the things from your old bedroom. I went ahead and boxed everything. Maybe I'm going off the deep end, but I don't want you spending one second longer than necessary in a radon-filled house," she shared, and her voice seemed to catch just the tiniest bit.

The cat stole my tongue in this moment. When I arrived earlier in the day, she waited outside on the porch swing. I didn't go in the house. And now I knew. This place, full of love, memories, this cat, that dog, those fish, all the holidays, cuts, bruises, kisses, hugs, and dreams—it had become a cocked pistol, something to fear, to inspire running away.

"In the end, we all run away," I said softly. "You're just doing what you'd be doing eventually."

"The doctor says we caught it early," she said with hope brimming in her voice. "Very treatable at this stage."

I didn't know how to comfort her, and I didn't think platitudes were what she wanted to hear.

"Can I tell you something?" I asked.

"Anything, honey. Anything at all," she answered.

"When Daddy was sick, when we knew there was nothing more Daddy could tolerate, when his quality of life was so bad, I needed a wall between you and me. I couldn't be as close to the devastation if something were to happen to you. I watched him shrink and fade a little more every day. He became grey, and his body became too small to hold his big personality, and then his personality flickered in and out as his pain ratcheted up. I saw the moment he wanted to quit it all, and I didn't think I could bear to see that ever again. You became 'Mother.' It was dumb, but somehow I thought it would make us more remote. 'Mother' would be a buffer from pain," I said, and felt my face flaring with the heat of embarrassment and shame.

"You did what you thought you needed to do at the time," she said. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course," I said, looking her dead in the eye. "What is it?"

"I'm scared," she said, her voice shaking. And as she began to cry, her body hitched.

"Oh, Mama, don't cry," I said, taking my mother into my arms and holding her tightly to me. She curled into me, her head under my chin, and I looked out over our golden fields, swaying in the easy, late-summer breeze.