16 Things I Thought Were True by Janet Gurtler Page B

after another. I want to keep my emotions under control, shoved down, but I can’t. “Maybe you wanted to protect yourself,” I say softly, knowing it’s wrong to do this to her now. “That’s why you never told me.”
    â€œYou have no idea what it was like,” she whimpers.
    â€œSo tell me,” I plead. I want to know why she always made me feel horrible for wanting to know who my dad was.
    There’s a long pause, and she sniffles and gulps in air. Guilt pumps around my body, traveling through my veins. I open my mouth to apologize.
    â€œThe answers you might be looking for…who he is…”
    I stop breathing. My heart pounds. The machines in the room whir and beep. The old man snorts and mumbles in his sleep. I push off the bed, get to my feet, stumbling a little as if I’m dizzy from low blood sugar or something. I fainted once in the hallway at school when I had too many Tylenol for cramps. It felt like this.
    I reach out and touch the end of the bed to steady myself. “What?” I can’t think of anything else to say, so I walk to the closed window and stand in front of it, my arms crossed, my back to her.
    â€œI don’t want to go to my grave knowing you never got a chance to find the truth. I’d feel guilty the rest of my life. Well—the rest of my death, I suppose.” She attempts a laugh, but it fades as soon as it leaves her mouth. “I’d have to hang around the hospital as a ghost or something, unable to move on to the light.”
    There’s a clatter from the hallway. Sounds like someone dropped a bedpan. I don’t bother to look.
    â€œTell me,” I whisper.
    â€œI can’t,” she says.
    My hands shake and I make fists at my side. I limp to the chair that’s at the end of her bed and sit. Anger mashes with numbness. It feels cold.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she says.
    I raise my head to look at her. She’s staring at me and she clears her throat. I’d given up knowing long ago. I look away and study the picture on the wall above the bed. A cottage scene. Pastels. Boring. Tranquil. Exactly opposite to what’s going on inside me. It’s almost worse that she’s only telling me because she thinks she’s going to die. But I can’t provoke her now. I have to keep her calm before surgery.
    â€œYou’re not allowed to die to get out of this,” I tell her. “You’re not allowed to. We’ll talk about this later.”
    She will have a later, and I’ll save my anger for then. She’s not allowed to die.
    There’s noise outside the room, and then a couple of nurses enter the room. One waves her hand in a shooing motion, telling me to get out of the way. She’s young. Blond. Probably in her twenties. Pretty.
    â€œYou must be the daughter. Good. You made it. Now off you go. We’re prepping her for her surgery. Go wait with Josh.” I don’t miss that the nurse knows my brother by name. She must like mustaches. The other nurse, an older one, starts unplugging and moving things around. It’s a dance they’ve done a thousand times before with a thousand different patients.
    â€œWait,” I say, and something in my voice must be extra desperate because both nurses pause. I step around the young nurse and lean forward so my mom’s face is in line with mine. I take a deep breath. “I love you, Mom,” I whisper, and honestly I don’t remember the last time I told her that.
    She smiles, and the fine wrinkles around her mouth crease up even though I know she secretly gets Botox injections when she can afford to. Thank you, she mouths and then closes her eyes. “If you want the truth. Look at home. In my jewelry box. The answers are there if you want them.”
    The nurses are instantly moving again. I stand straight and move against the wall, out of the way, and before I know it, they’re out the door, wheeling my