Family of Lies by Mary Monroe

Author:Mary Monroe [Monroe, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: new93aug
ISBN: 9780758274748
Amazon: 0758274742
Publisher: Dafina
Published: 2014-05-27T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 35

SARAH

IT WAS HARD FOR ME TO BELIEVE THAT TWO MORE YEARS HAD PASSED and I still had not become pregnant. Bo and I had made love several times a week during all that time! We had almost given up hope. But Daddy’s long face and the way he got misty-eyed around other people’s grandchildren was the main reason we kept trying so hard.

My last two periods had been very light and I’d been feeling light-headed and weak a few times during those two months. But I had experienced similar symptoms before, even when I wasn’t sexually active, so I hadn’t given it much thought. My annual visit to my OB/GYN for a routine checkup was coming up soon, so I made a mental note to mention my symptoms to him.

On the day of my appointment, I treated my friend Mabel Cunndiff to lunch at the E&O restaurant, one of the best places in town when it came to exotic Asian cuisine. Mabel and I had attended the same boarding school. She had recently married and moved to the Bay Area.

“You look so tired and puffy,” she said as we enjoyed our fried rice, veggies, and blackened prawns and white wine. Mabel’s husband was a doctor, so she paid close attention to things like how other people looked. “Are you all right?”

“I hope I am,” I replied as I speared another prawn with my fork. “But if something is wrong, I’m sure Dr. Parker will tell me when I see him this afternoon. I have been feeling funny, though. It seems like no matter what I do, I ache somewhere,” I said, chewing on the prawn even though my jawbone was aching now. “I’ve had this weird, sharp, burning pain in my stomach for the past two days.”

Mabel’s big brown eyes got even bigger. Her sharp little nose began to twitch like a rabbit. She gave me such a mournful look you would have thought that I’d just told her I was dying. “Uh-oh! That’s the same kind of pain my mother had just before she died,” she warned. “I feel sorry for you.”

I froze. I suddenly lost my appetite, so I set my fork down and pushed my plate to the side. “I thought your mother died of cancer.”

“She did. That weird, sharp, burning pain in her stomach was cancer of the intestines.”

“Nobody in my family has ever had cancer,” I pointed out.

“So?” Mabel shoved a huge forkful of bok choy into her mouth. I couldn’t believe she was still able to eat like a hog and at the same time talk to me like I was about to be embalmed. “That doesn’t mean anything. Nobody in my family ever had cancer either before my mother. You know us black folks. With all the greasy pork and cow parts our ancestors ate, we are bound to inherit some of the ailments that killed them.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. I was glad I had ordered a huge glass of wine. The buzz I had made it easier for me to listen to Mabel’s morbid comments without going into panic mode.

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