After midnight I left Diana and hitchhiked to Milton. I refused two men wanting sex. I walked across the Blue Hills in the dead of night and arrived in my suburban neighborhood after 2am. Only my parents’ bedroom light shone on our street.

I crept upstairs to my mother’s bedroom. My father was snoring hard on his side of the bed. He was a good sleeper, if not a little loud. My mother put down the book she was reading, regarding me with relief. I was home safe.

“Hi, mom, how are you?”

“Tired, but I never could sleep good.” She took off her glasses and I noticed a purple splotch under her left eye.

I sat on the bed and caressed her hand.

“What is that? You get burned?”

No, it’s skin cancer, but I have a salve to treat it, but it’s very strong and knocks me out.”

She wasn’t telling the truth and I was a good enough son not to ask her for the truth this late at night, however the word ‘cancer’ shook my belief in my mother’s eternity and I came close to breaking into tears.
“Don’t worry about me. The salve will take care of this. I’m going nowhere soon.” The concern on her face hid not the lie and she said, “The doctors took a biopsy. They will clean this up. There will be no scar.”

“Good.”

Both of us suffered from narcissism.

“Go sleep.” She reached over to the light and pulled the chain.

The darkness this late at night is never complete and I kissed her forehead before going to my childhood bedroom. I stripped off my clothes and huddled under the covers. My father’s snoring was the only sound in the house. I shut my eyes hoping to dream of everything, but the future.