T w e n t y S i d e d

It’s now 2006, Lorretta is 61, Logan is five. Kelly and Michael are married, and Lorretta has cancer.

The few weeks after the concerning diagnosis are a blur. The doctors at the ER are worried it’s progressed due to her symptoms, but the specialist she’s sent to is really optimistic it’s not. The nurse doing her blood draw helpfully mentions she has an uncle who recently died of cancer, but one of Lorretta’s colleagues at the library has herself been cancer-free for twenty years. Everyone has something different to say, and none of it is collaborated in any way because none of these people know each other. If Lorretta wasn’t under an over-abundance of stress and worry, she’d be understanding about that, but as it is she wishes these idiots could have a group call and get their stories straight.

The news she does eventually get isn’t great, in fact, it’s about worst case scenario. She’s dying and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Treatment could turn her few months into a year, but that’s about it. Even her doctor doesn’t recommend treatment, it would turn the time she has left into dealing with chemo instead of enjoying what she’s got.

She doesn’t tell her daughters right away, instead, she takes an afternoon to take Logan out for ice cream and to the park. She calls her boss and tells her she’s coming back to work. She’d taken some time off to deal with finding a diagnosis, but now she wants to make sure to leave her daughters with as much as possibleAnd obviously her meth business hasn’t taken off yet /j. Her little coping mechanism becomes buying lottery scratchers once a week as her little budget for herself. She figures since she’d won one poorly-conceived terminal illness lottery, the universe owes her one.

Neither Kelly or Michael take the news well, but it’s hard to imagine a universe where someone would take that news well.

Lorretta spends a lot of time feeling very frustrated and sad at the unfairness of it all. She’s just finished college, finally settled after a divorce, and gotten her first grandchild. She’d never get to see Logan grow up, and she’d only gotten to work her dream job for a few months, and now she was dying.

Her colleagues at the library refuse to complain when she doesn’t pull her weight, though, which is nice. She spends much of her work time sitting at a desk sorting books onto carts, working the front desk, and doing the story times in the children’s section. Kelly makes a habit of bringing Logan to every kids event, maximizing their time together. At first, Kelly had been against her mom working still, considering, but she was quickly shut down. Lorretta didn’t go to college in her fifties just to be stopped now. She loves her job.

Finally, the question of the house comes up. Lorretta wants to leave it entirely to Kelly, of course, but she knows full well that staying in it when she’s gone might hurt her daughter. So, she leaves it up to Kelly, not truly because Lorretta wants a say, but because she wants her daughter to know she has her blessing to sell it once she’s gone, if that’s what she needs.

At first, Kelly bolsters that of course they wouldn’t sell it. That house had become Lorretta’s pet project, to sell it would be betraying her in Kelly’s mind. But, once pressed, she agrees to really think about it instead of just insisting one way or the other. Lorretta knows she might feel that way now, and entirely differently once she was actually gone. She wants her to know that’s okay.

She begins acting more like a guest, rather than the owner of the house. She asks Kelly’s permission before making any decisions, including her thought of getting a cat. Lorretta’s in a support group for her condition, and one of the women there has a cat, which she says has really helped her. At first, Lorretta dismissed the idea, but come a few nights alone with her thoughts trying to sleep, it didn’t seem so silly.

When she asks Kelly this, she offers to pick up a cat which is already very old, who needs someone to spend it’s own last days with, so as not to leave her family with an animal to take care of for her. The idea seemed very sensible in her mind, but upset Kelly deeply.

Kelly points out that she’s bound to get attached, and Lorretta is asking her to watch her mom die, and then her cat as well. No. Absolutely not. Lorretta can have any cat she likes, provided she leaves it to Kelly after, preferably well and not due to pass away for a long time. They reach an agreement, and Lorretta brings home a kitten the next day.

Welcome to the family, Noodle, lovingly named by Logan himself. He’s really into noodles right now.

Bay Jubilee Oldest child of Shamus Young. They/Them