When I was younger, my mother used to tell me stories about my late grandfather, Ba. I never met Ba, who had succumbed to lung cancer long before my birth, but I enjoyed the stories nonetheless. There were days when I would crawl into the nooks of my mother’s soft arms and listen to her voice for hours, its sweet sound always lulling me into a deep sleep afterwards.
He was tall, she said, with a strong build and kind face. Everybody in the neighborhood loved him, and his distinct, warm laughter would echo for miles.
“Your grandfather,” mused my mother, “Now he was something special.”
But as the years wore on, time caught up with him and his hands became calloused from the strenuous work days. Worry lines etched themselves onto his forehead and his pale skin was stained dark by the shadows. Each morning, he would leave the house in his ragged white t-shirt and torn work pants just before the orange sun rose from behind the rolling hills, careful not to wake anyone. And just like clockwork, he would return each night long after the pink glow of the sky had faded to darkness, shirt soaked translucent from sweat and face smudged brown from mud. He always managed a faint smile, hiding the exhaustion that he felt underneath. But later, when the flickering light had retired and the stars had awoken, Ba would quietly slip outside, his figure illuminated by the glow of the moon, and light up a cigar, unaware that his method of release would one day prove fatal.
He followed the same routine for eighteen years, never once uttering a complaint, until the day he had raised enough money to send my mother to college in America, a place with hot meals, new clothes, and clean showers. Although her absence would pain him, he also knew that China held no future for an educated woman. And just like that, she boarded a 747 and disappeared from his life, leaving Ba to suffer under the glare of the simmering sun, smoking away his sorrows.
I could tell that the subject of Ba still pained my mother by the way her voice lowered while she spoke and the tap of her foot against the hardwood floor, as constant as a heartbeat. A lack of money had prevented her from caring for Ba in his time of need as he had done for her so many times before. So, perhaps in an attempt to console herself, she would stroke my tangled hair with her delicate fingers after finishing each story and quietly ask if I would care for her when she was weak. As a child, still oblivious to the complications of reality, this question seemed peculiar and without hesitation, I would nod yes, unaware of the implications this promise would bring in the future. 
As the years passed, the stories became less and less frequent until one day, I began to question whether they had even existed in the first place, but life still moved on the same way it always had. Transitioning from toddlerhood to childhood was a time of many firsts, the most significant being my first day of school. Meanwhile, my mother, who had given up her management position at the bank to raise me, stood by my side throughout the entire journey. She would always have my favorite snack, a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich, waiting when I came home (no crusts of course because she knew how the texture bothered me) and when flu season arrived, she would watch The Lion King on a loop with me because it was my favorite movie.
But one day when I was ten, my mother wasn’t waiting for me when I came home. The lights were off and the sink was dry. No one had been there all morning. Plopping myself down on the leather couch and turning on the TV, I thought nothing of this.
“Mom is just running late,” I reassured myself.
I should have known better though, because my mother was never late. As the sky grew darker and the resonant chimes of the grandfather clock increased from four to five to six tolls, I grew anxious. Where had she gone? It wasn’t until the clock struck seven that the sound of the garage door opening reverberated through the room and my parents’ car pulled in. My father came in first, followed by my mother, and both of them greeted me with a hug, as though they had been there the whole time. The disappearances continued, each one longer than the previous, but I was too distracted by my toys to ask my parents for an explanation.
It was a Saturday morning when they finally told me the news. Breakfast had just been cleared and the smell of scrambled eggs still lingered in the air when my mother explained the reason for her absences. They had been visits to the doctor’s office. She had stage two breast cancer.
Cancer? I thought to myself. What was cancer? This word, never having been covered in our fourth grade curriculum, was foreign to my naive, ten-year-old self and I responded with a grunt, unsure of what else to say. An awkward moment passed as my parents waited for a more elaborate response that never came, and then, thankfully, my father cleared his throat and dismissed me from the kitchen. Afterwards, I returned to playing with my new Barbie doll and when evening came, my mother began preparing for dinner, both of us acting as though nothing had happened. We ate in silence that night.
My mother’s mastectomy was scheduled for August 2nd, about two months after I had found out about the illness. That summer, the sun was exceptionally strong, each day stickier and sweatier than the previous, but otherwise, nothing seemed different. We spent a few days down at the Cape with my brother, who was on vacation from college, and once we got back, my mother drove me to and from my friends’ houses everyday for play dates and birthday parties. No one mentioned the cancer when I was around and I chose to disregard the word, still unsure of what it meant.
As each sunny day passed, however, August drew nearer and the earlier lightness of the summer seemed to darken. The phone rang so often that I found myself humming the ringtone while reading and my mother’s pedantic flaws slowly began to show. She would wash the same dish three times before deeming it to be acceptable and wipe the floor with her green Swiffer Sweeper for hours, scraping at dust that was only visible to her. The neighbors all thought that she had gone mad. I knew better than to interrupt her when she fell into one of these trances, though, so I never did.
By the time August 2nd arrived, the house was spotless and as we were leaving for the hospital, my mother glanced back to examine her work, looking pleased by what she saw. She carried that look of poise with her all the way to the operating room and her hand grasped mine firmly, giving me a sense of assurance. When it was time, she squeezed my hand slightly before letting go, her tranquil expression never faltering, and then I watched as the doctors wheeled her behind the double-doors and into a world of uncertainty.
The surgery was a success, or at least that’s what the doctors kept telling my father in their conferences, but I found that difficult to believe. There were days when my mother would get out of bed at four in the afternoon, only to take another nap later in the evening, leaving me to countless nights of frozen pizzas and Ramen noodles. Eventually, she refused to leave her bedroom at all and in those rare incidences when I did catch a glimpse of her, I wished that I hadn’t. Her hair had fallen out, her skin had dimmed to a murky gray, and her bones had become scarily pronounced, leaving her a skeleton of her former self. Sometimes at night, I would hear her toilet flush and the helpless sound of her raspy coughing, but I never went to help her, frightened of what she had become.
No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, however, responsibility still found me, hiding under the sheets of my bed. My father was never home, always preoccupied with work so he could pay off the extensive medical bills, and I was left to care for my mother. Overwhelmed with the sudden changes in my life, I began to distance myself from her. We were in the same house every day, but she had never felt so far away.
Late one night, though, as I was about to fall asleep, I was suddenly reminded of my grandfather and my mother’s stories. Soon, the unfulfilled promises I had made to her so many years ago came flooding back and a feeling of shame washed over me. So, partly out of guilt, I vowed to redeem myself. On the days when my mother felt strong enough to eat, I would make her the chicken soup that my dad taught me how to cook and bring it to her bedside. At first, I was hesitant to make conversation, unsure of what to say, but eventually, old habits resurfaced and we would talk for hours as she slowly slurped at her food. Afterwards, when she was too tired to stay awake any longer, I would bring the dishes back to the kitchen and clean them, making sure they were pristine because I knew that was how she liked them.
Soon summer turned to fall and fall faded to winter, but the seasons weren’t the only thing changing. Instead of sipping cold lemonades and lounging on the couch after school, I found myself surrounded by the white walls of the hospital, accompanying my mother to her chemotherapy sessions. The cycles came once a month, and each time I would sit in the waiting room until my mother reappeared. Often she was overpowered by the strength of the medication and her arm would wrap around my shoulders as I patiently walked her to the parking lot. One time, as we were making the laborious journey down the hospital stairs, my mother stopped for a second to rest and as she was leaning on the railing, she looked up at me. 
“I’m glad you’re here,” she breathed.
“Me too,” I responded, a feeling of warmth spreading through me. By the kind way her eyes peered up at me, I could tell that she was proud of the person I had grown into. Deep down, I knew Ba would be too.