InsaneJournal

She'd had a few visitors already, girls from the diner and a policeman, her manager. By Cate's urgent request when the hospital wasn't able to reach her, they hadn't called her mother again until Cate herself was stable. She was fine, she'd said; they'd been attacked, but Cal had beaten the guy off before he could do much. The girl they were with--she had a few superficial cuts and some internal bleeding, but she was all right. With any luck, they wouldn't notice the direction of Cate's cuts until she had time to collect herself. For now, they all seemed pretty concerned with Edie. How was the girl, there'd been so much blood for such small cuts (and Cate had to allow herself a little smugness there), what had happened, was she going to be ok. Oh, and Cate, too: at least he'd only gotten her arm.

Her fingers plucked awkwardly at the top sheet. At least.

When she woke up in the morning, her mother was there. Mrs. Denisof didn't look like herself. Haggard and tired, her neat braid in disarray and deep red circles under her eyes. The doctor was standing behind her--she knew him. The oncologist. He'd come in with the surgeons soon after she was brought in, as soon as Cate's records came up. Why was he here? With her mother?

"Mom?" It was an effort to push herself to a sitting position. The arm she'd cut up collapsed beneath her, but no one else in the room moved. Cate found that a little strange; but when she turned to ask for help, her mother's hard eyes stopped her.

"You tried to kill yourself," she said flatly.

Cate froze. They'd determined the origin of the cuts already? "No, I--"

Mrs. Denisof's hand snapped up, cutting whatever Cate had to say short. "I've spoken with the oncologist," she said, and swallowed. "And the doctors. You didn't tell me you'd had another appointment."

Cate sank back into the bed, smaller than she'd been when her mother had first entered. "I didn't--I didn't want to worry you."

"Worry me?"

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry." Mrs. Denisof seemed to smile and grimace at the same time, eyes drifting upward and away from her daughter's face. Her lips tightened like they were fighting against what her mouth wanted to say, and turned to the doctor. Cate's eyes and face felt incomparably hot. "How long does she have?"

The doctor hesitated, his cool grey eyes flicking to Cate. She was holding her breath, willing him not to say, to make this disappear. He sighed. "Mrs. Denisof, you know I can't, under doctor-patient priv--"

"How long?!" she shrieked, and the machines seemed to creak and beep with her. The doctor raised his hands, helpless, and Cate's voice rose up quietly beneath the scratching sheets and steady beeping.

"Four months," she said. Her mother looked sharply over at her, her lips thin. "Maybe five."

"Four months."

Cate looked down at the blanket. "Maybe five."

Mrs. Denisof looked from Cate to the doctor, nodding in the way mother's do, as if to silently say she knew it--she should have known. Her heels clicked on the linoleum, and with a sickening smack, her hand went skidding across Cate's face. Cate didn't move. The EKG beeped, faster for a moment before settling down, deafeningly loud. The doctor's leather shoes squeaked on the floor.

"Why would you do that," Mrs Denisof said softly, her voice too hard, too rough for the moment. It wasn't a question. They had gone through this before. "Why would you do this again."

The doctor paused. His hand moved slightly, as if to make a note on his chart, and with something like a small bow, he exited the room. Air swept back into it with his absence, heavy and pregnant and waiting on an answer as ardently as Mrs. Denisof was. Cate's tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, defiant, even as her chin dipped submissively downward. What could she say? Her blood had the power to heal any wound? She'd nearly sacrificed herself for the sake of a girl she barely knew? Three days ago she'd been pronounced N-stage. There was hope she couldn't afford. And now here she was, her wrist slit open. What else was her mother supposed to think?

Her voice creaked when she spoke, like an ungreased hinge. "Mom--" Mrs. Denisof's eyebrows rose. She could always tell when Cate was lying, and the red rings around blue eyes, the lines in her forehead--they weren't having it. Cate's eyes fell. "I'm sorry." The sting in her cheek seemed to redouble.

Mrs. Denisof began fishing around in her purse, vehemently, as if whatever she was looking for was of dire consequence. When she spoke, it was short and forced, frustrated--perhaps that she couldn't find what she was searching for. "I'm going--to have them put you under psych watch. Is that what it's called? You'd know better than I would." That stung almost as much as the slap.

"It's been five years, Mom," Cate said. She had withheld those circumstances too, and at 18, she'd eaten up whatever the doctors told her. The boy she'd helped had never spoken to her again, which made forgetting very easy.

Her mother didn't say anything, but her chin trembled when she clenched her jaw. "I have four months."

"Maybe five," Cate said quietly.

Mrs. Denisof paused. "Maybe five," she said, and when her hand came down on her daughter's cheek, it was softer, warm. Cate hadn't realized she was crying, but her mother gently wiped her face clean.

They sat silently like that for a while, her mother on the edge of the bed, barely touching Cate as she rolled onto her side and away. Morphine dripped steadily into Cate's arm, numbing the self-inflicted and internal wounds alike, but leaving the rest to ache. When Mrs. Denisof left, the room was that much lonelier than when she'd come in.