I tell myself these things to keep from worrying about her. Not that they work. My first full day back in New York I’m only half-present as I clean our apartment, take the dog for walks, teach my class, and make dinner. The other half of my mind is on my mother. Except for the sliver absorbed in what’s happening on my ankle. In the last twenty-four hours, the bumps have spread. What started as five or six individual welts is now a solid patch of rash about three inches square. And the rash really itches. I’m afraid I’m going to permanently scar myself from all the scratching, so eventually I coat it with Neosporin and cover it with a Band-Aid to keep from clawing at it. My mother calls me that night. She’s all checked into the hospital and she’s got good news: The new polyps were all benign. That means that when she has the resectioning surgery the doctors will have to remove only the area of the colon around the one cancerous polyp. “That’s great news, Mom! So the surgery’s tomorrow, then?”
