Page 31 of The Reluctant Roommate

The room suddenly felt cold. “Mom? Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

Her mom nodded and wiped her eyes.

“Dad? Are you really both okay?”

“We are, honey. It’s your Aunt Linda. She needs surgery. Breast cancer.”

The C-word. The room seemed to freeze. Her parents appeared immobile on the video link. The ticking clock was loud in her bedroom. “Is it—is it bad?”

“She’s stage 2. She’ll likely make a full recovery—if she has surgery.”

“When’s she having it done?”

“She’s not.” Her mom’s lips trembled. “She doesn’t have insurance. She can’t afford it.”

“I’ll pay.” The words fell out of her mouth. “It’s Aunt Linda. Of course I will. Tell me how much. Tell her I’ll pay.” Her words tumbled over themselves in her desperation to be heard. Her fingers shook, and she nearly dropped the phone.

“She knew you’d say that, and she doesn’t want you to. She doesn’t want the debt to transfer to her kids after she’s gone.”

“It won’t. I swear it. I have money in the bank. She can have it.” She did, but that was what she was living on. But this wasLinda—steady, strong Aunt Linda. The aunt who’d had the toughest life—losing her husband while in her twenties, raising two kids alone—yet who’d always had time for Morgan during her teenage angst, her realization about her sexuality, her coming out. Linda’s support had smoothed the family path for Morgan.

“I told her you’d say that. I reminded her about your job, that you can afford it. She still said no. She’s going to have radiotherapy. She says that will be enough.”

“What do Nathan and Ellie think?” Surely her cousins would talk sense into their mom.

“They don’t know. She intends to tell them at Thanksgiving when they come home.”

“I’ll see her then too. Maybe I can persuade her to—”

“Honey, there’s no easy way to say this. Linda doesn’t want to see any of us at Thanksgiving. She wants the day to be just her and the kids. She hopes to see us sometime after. Maybe Christmas.”

Hurt pierced her like bone shards. Linda didn’t want to see her? Any of them? “Is she telling the truth? Is it worse than she’s saying?”

“I don’t think so,” her dad said. “She said she loves us all, but she just wants this time alone with her kids, and she hopes we understand.”

“I don’t right now, but I accept that.” Morgan pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Still, I get to see you both.”

Another long pause, and Morgan’s stomach clenched.

“We thought we’d go away,” her mom said. “Just the two of us. When Linda told us, we booked a hotel in Vermont. We want the time together, to count our blessings. When you come, you usually only stay overnight because of your work. We didn’t think you’d mind too much.”

She looked away, unable to speak. Linda, her parents. Loneliness wrapped itself around her like a shroud. She swallowed hard. “Of course,” she said, her voice brittle and bright. “My friend Manuela is always asking me to join her family at Thanksgiving. I’ll spend the day with them. I hope you both have a wonderful time in Vermont.”

Her parents exchanged a glance. Were they on to her lie? But, no, they were smiling, relieved that she didn’t mind. “That sounds wonderful. A real big family Thanksgiving. How many kids does Manuela have?”

“Three,” she said automatically. Her ex-workmate used to always talk about them. “Two girls and a boy.”

“We’ll call you on the day and you can introduce us,” her dad said. “We seldom get to meet any of your friends.”

“Sure, that would be great.” Her lips could barely form the words. There was no way she was going to Manuela’s—even if she was invited, which she wasn’t. No way she could admit to not having a job. No way she could even tell her parents what had happened—it was too easy to imagine the shock and shame on their faces if she told them she’d been fired. Keep a bright face, hide the bad, exaggerate the good. That was what her family had always done. And now, it seemed, even more so.

“How is your work going?” her dad asked now.

Oh no.On top of the news about Linda, her parents’ trip, and the lies she’d told, she now had to compound that by adding more lies.

“Great,” she said. “It’s a busy time of year. I’m working from home a bit more now, which is nice.”

“Does that mean you have more free time?” her mom asked. “I worry that you spend too much time working.”