The Year My Mother Came Back Read Online Free PDF

into the next.
    â€œAlex is my favorite llama,” she tells me while watching the sea lion feeding at the zoo. “He’s a really nice guy. I took him for a walk every day.”
    â€œYELP!” Grab.
    She doesn’t notice my new tic. She holds my left hand, leaving me free to grab my breast with my right. “And it’s true, llamas do spit when they’re mad, but only at each other,” she continues, while we row a boat on the Central Park Lake.
    â€œYELP!” Grab.
    â€œAnimal care was awesome. I took care of pot-bellied pigs and rabbits and donkeys and kittens,” she continues, in front of Calder’s Circus at the Whitney Museum. “We fed and mucked and cleaned and brushed them. Oh, and Gross Out Day this summer was the best ever.”
    â€œYELP!” Grab.
    At home, she flops down on the sofa and wiggles her tooth. “Do you have any more questions for me about camp, Mom?”
    When I run out of questions, I ask, “Do you have any questions for
me
?”
    â€œUm, yeah. Why are you having surgery?”
    â€œAh, good question. Because . . .”
    This won’t be easy. I’m determined to do this differently than my mother did. I’m not going to keep my cancer a secret from my daughters.
    â€œBecause I have breast cancer. The surgeon will remove the part with cancer. It’s called a lumpectomy.”
    â€œWill you get better?”
    â€œYes. My doctor says I’ll get completely better.”
    â€œGood.”
    That was easy! Was it too easy? Nah. I wish Mom had told me, when I was twelve, why she was going to the hospital. On the other hand, my doctor has assured me that my cancer is curable. Mom had no such guarantee.
    â€œDo you have any more questions?”
    â€œUmmm.” she wiggles her tooth meditatively. “Yeah. Is there really a tooth fairy?”
    â€œAh . . .”
    â€œTell me the truth, Mom. Who puts the money under the pillow?”
    I remember confronting my mother with the same question.
    Sally, the mean girl across the street, had revealed the big, fat parental conspiracy. “Your mom is lying to you.” “No, she’s not!” “Is, too. There’s no such thing as the Tooth Fairy, stupid! Only babies and retards believe in fairies!”
    â€œYou’re right, Alice,” my mother confessed, “I’m the one who puts the quarter under your pillow when you lose a tooth.”
    I burst into tears—betrayed, humiliated, and terribly sad. “Why did you lie to me?”
    â€œIt wasn’t a lie, Alice. It was a fantasy. It was true for
you.
The tooth fairy is a gift parents give to their children when they’re young enough to believe in fairies.”
    She struggled to explain a deeper truth about fairies than I was able to understand. This was my first existential crisis, and it was all the fault of mean, stupid Sally. I wasn’t ready to stop believing, but there was no turning back.
    However, Eliana initiated this.
    â€œHow truthful do you want me to be, Eliana?”
    â€œTotally truthful.”
    â€œOkay. The tooth fairy isn’t real. Daddy and I put the money under your pillow.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought.”
    â€œAny more questions?”
    â€œYeah. Will I still get money if I put my tooth under the pillow?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œAny more questions?”
    â€œUm, yeah. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. How come I look so much more like Daddy than I look like you, when I grew up inside your body, and all Daddy did was give you a wedding ring?”
    â€œAh . . .”
    Cancer! Tooth fairy! Sex! Whoa, isn’t this a bit much for one afternoon? Eliana’s questions are a checklist of the Secrets of Life. I can’t wait to return to our conversations about llama care and Gross Out Day.
    â€œI’m so glad you asked that question,” I say, half-truthfully, stalling while I