Chapter 11
"Your mother has stage 2 pancreatic cancer," Meredith said in her doctor voice, a mix of empathy and professional detachment.
Amber had insisted they told her what was going on, before they told her mother which was why they were all standing in front of Helen Karev's room. Meredith with Jo, the doctors on one side, Amber and Alex, the loved ones on the other side. Alex couldn't help but feel like he was on the wrong side of this conversation; he was supposed to be the doctor bringing the bad news. It was a part of his job he hated, but being on the receiving end of the bad news was so much worse than being the bearer.
Pancreatic cancer was the one thing he had hoped his mother didn't have. It was always nasty, always diagnosed late and involved a very long healing process, if that was still a possibility. Sometimes it was just about postponing the inevitable.
"You're mother will have to undergo surgery and chemotherapy afterwards. We're gonna run some more tests, like MRI and PAT scans to get as many details as possible about the tumour beforehand," Meredith explained.
"Wait, why surgery and chemotherapy? Can't you get the whole thing out with the surgery?" Amber asked Meredith.
Meredith shook her head. "The problem with this particular kind of cancer is that it's virtually impossible to recognise early. Once the first symptoms, like weight loss, tiredness or loss of appetite appear, the cancer is usually already advanced by the time it's diagnosed. In your mother's case the tumour has not extended to other organs, but it has grown into major blood vessels. That's why we're going with a surgery and chemotherapy combination."
"Okay... uhm..." Awkwardly Amber gestured with her hands. "Is there anything I can do? Donate blood? Or a kidney? Bone marrow? Part of my liver? Really I'd give anything to help Mom," she urged.
Alex who was standing behind Amber, put his hands on her shoulders. "Amber, it's not that kind of cancer," he told her softly.
Amber wheeled around, her face twisted in a mix of anger and fear. "Yeah, I know that," she yelled at him furiously, "I know it's not that kind of cancer. I just wanted to know if there's anything I can do to help my mom. I might not have a PhD, but I'm not stupid. So can you just let me talk to Mom's doctors and shut the hell up?"
Both Meredith and Jo backed away, obviously shocked by Amber's sudden outburst.
Alex was baffled too, but he could feel his confusion quickly giving way to fury.
Meredith exchanged a look with Jo. "Wilson, I think we better leave and let Miss Karev and Alex process the diagnosis." Turning to Amber and Alex she added, "Let us know when you're ready to break the news to your mother."
As soon as Meredith and Jo disappeared, Alex grabbed Amber's arm and dragged her down the hallway, away from their mother's room. Luckily there weren't any people around, pre-rounds were already over and most visitors came during the afternoon or evening hours. Still, Alex didn't want to risk a public scene and he didn't want to fight in front of their mother either, but his sister had gone too far. She was a loose canon and it was time to set her straight.
"This needs to stop!" He berated her in a scarcely lit closet, surrounded by shelves full of OR supplies. "Obviously you're still angry at me, but I won't let you disrespect and yell at me in front of my colleagues and friends, at the hospital I work. So just say what you have to say. Tell me what a horrible person I am and let's get this over with, because in case you haven't noticed - we got more serious things to worry about right now."
Amber was standing with her arms crossed over her chest. In order to avoid his gaze she stared at a case with surgical masks on the shelf beside her. At his last words she snorted. "Like you worry. Like you even care about Mom, or any of us for that matter," she murmured disparagingly.
"Excuse me? Of course I care!"
Finally Amber released her gaze from the surgical masks, flashing her eyes at him. "Yeah, we've seen plenty of that in the last 12 years. You never visit, you never call."
"I did call," Alex defended himself, "you were the one who stopped answering my calls."
Amber pinned him down with the icily look in her eyes. "Yeah, because I got sick of hearing the same question over and over, 'Is Mom okay?' which later got extended to 'Are Aaron and Mom okay?' You sounded like some distant relative. But kudos to you for always making your check-up calls. And thanks for the money and for making sure Mom had her pills. You always did your duties, didn't you? And you've done them now too. You brought us to your hospital, made your doctor friend take over Mom's case. You even spent a night watching over her. I think that should be enough to look good in front of your friends."
Alex thought that he was ready for this, that he could bear her accusations because he knew he deserved her anger. He thought he had to hear them once, before they could move on. But now he felt her words getting to him. He swallowed hard. "If that's really what you think of me, why did you even call?"
Amber shrugged her shoulders. "Mom needed a doctor, you are a doctor," she explained pragmatically.
"Amber, I know I wasn't there for you guys enough, but..."
"You think that's the only problem?" Amber exploded, "That you weren't there for us? What hurts just as much is you didn't let us be part of your life. For God's sake you got shot and we didn't know about it."
"I didn't want you guys to worry, okay? It wasn't even that bad." It was a lie, but the truth would only make things worse.
"You didn't want us to worry? It was a gunshot wound, for God's sake!"
"How did you even find out I got shot?" Alex inquired, trying to steer the conversation into another direction. He was pretty sure newspapers only mentioned the casualties by name, which is why he had never worried much about his family in Iowa finding out he had been involved in the shooting.
"Oh that's a funny story," Amber replied with fake enthusiasm. "It was right after you visited me at the hospital. Remember that? You could barely even look at me and you were in such a hurry to leave."
Alex lowered his eyes, ashamed of the memory. As if that was the desired reaction Amber carried on. "Anyways, afterwards I did some channel surfing in my hospital bed and guess what? There he was again, my big brother, in this nice little documentary they did about the aftermath of the shooting, 'Seattle Medical: Road to Recovery'. Interesting documentary, really. I think I learned more about you in that 45 minutes feature than in the last 12 years put together."
She blinked, struggling with what she was about to say next. "I remember you had a pretty remarkable case back then. That little girl with the cancer in the trachea, right? You created a completely new one for her from scratch. How impressive was that? And how devoted you were to that little girl, wasn't that cute?" she sneered. "You sang for her, you joked around with her and in the end she took you to school like you were a freaking science project."
Alex did not like how this conversation was developing. He would have never ever wanted for his sister to see that documentary. "Amber, I..."
"No, it's alright. You said it yourself, you have a new family here. And you became a surgeon. You got married and divorced. You bought a house. We just weren't meant to be part of any of it. I guess the fact there isn't even one single picture of us at your house should have been enough of a hint."
"Amber…"
"No, don't 'Amber' me," she cut him off. "You completely shut us out, so don't say you didn't! It's like we don't even exist in your life. But hey, you came to pay us a visit when shit hit the fan and Aaron joined the ranks of the crazy, so thanks for that, Alex. I'm glad you could spare a few hours of your precious time."
Alex couldn't take any more. "Goddamn it, Amber what do you want me to say?" he asked desperately, "That I'm sorry I left Iowa? I'm not sorry! I had to get away from that place, don't you get that? I had to! I needed a break from all the responsibilities and obligations. Do you know how that is, when you're a kid but you constantly feel like you're the only adult in the family? Like you have to take care of everything, because there is nobody else - literally nobody - you can count on? And in the end you still feel like a screw-up, because no matter what you do it can never be enough, it's never good enough. Just for once I wanted to be free of that feeling. Just for once I wanted to have fun and not think about the consequences. Just for once I wanted to not be the grown-up, the reasonable one everybody depended on. Can't you understand that?" It was a lousy explanation, but it was the only one Alex could give, because it was the truth.
Amber's reply was merciless, "Just for once? In case you haven't noticed it turned into 12 years. So what I understand is that you're a selfish ass, who doesn't care about anybody else but himself."
Something shattered inside of Alex when Amber said those words, practically spit them at him. Ass. Selfish ass. It was not an uncommon insult for him. He'd heard it a thousand times over the years. At that time it hadn't bothered him, because he hadn't given a damn about people's opinion of him, or at least that's what he'd told himself. Plus, the way he had acted back then had probably rightfully earned him people's abhorrence.
But hearing the words out of his sister's mouth, her eyes full of disdain when they used to be full of adoration - it hurt like a cut from a knife.
Besides the pain, Alex felt something else rise inside him like a geyser. Anger. A kind of fury which bubbled and boiled inside until he gave into it because anger was familiar. Anger was safe. Anger was so much better than all the other feelings - hurt, remorse, guilt - which threatened to come up and suffocate him.
Alex narrowed his eyes at Amber, mirroring the contempt with which she was looking at him and hissed through clenched teeth, "And you are an ungrateful, little brat."
Although the closet was only dimly lit, Alex could see how Amber's eyes widened. For just a moment she looked at him as if he had slapped her across the face. Alex didn't allow himself to care about it.
"If I hadn't gone away," he continued, his voice still full of spite. "If I hadn't become a surgeon, who do you think would have paid for Mom's meds? And her psychiatrist or when she had to be committed to the institution? Who do you think paid for your fancy little private school? Do you think I could have afforded a school like St. Xavier with the wage of a bartender?" He knew his words would hurt her, but she was the one who hurt him first. Later he would hate himself for even thinking like that, for giving in to the impulse to spread the hurt around.
Throughout his speech Amber held his gaze defiantly. He could see though, she was about to burst into tears. But she refused to blink and let them out, like it was a victory she wouldn't grant him.
"You finished now?" She asked eventually, still trying to sound tough.
Since he didn't reply she just pushed past him.
As she pulled down the door handle she turned around once more, her eyes still wide open as to keep the tears from falling. "You know, what the worst part is? When I saw that documentary at the hospital I was jealous. Jealous of that dying, little girl... because she had you... and I didn't. I was disgusted with myself for feeling that way but I couldn't help it. But you know what?" she asked as her voice cracked so that the rest came out as a whisper. "Joke's on me. You were never worth missing. So I'm done now. I'm done missing you and I'm done caring about you. Like you've been done for a long time now." That's when she closed her eyes and while her body was shaking from suppressed sobs, she lost the fight against her tears after all.
When she stormed out of the closet Alex made no attempt to follow her.
Author's Notes: I know you guys are dying for some Jolex, so please stay tuned for the next chapter ;)
As always, thanks to my beta reader Sam for her help.
