The fiction I’d put out over the past three years was all about getting drunk, stealing things, illegally committing homosexual acts in the military, prostitution, cheating on ­boyfriends—what on earth was in there to cast the author as “a fine young man”?! If he was any finer, he’d murder someone. In any case, you had to hand it to the church ladies—they ­really were consummate spin doctors.

Umma paused her patented soft snoring and sat up, complaining about how she hadn’t slept well the previous night. Yawning, she mentioned that the pain from chemotherapy made it hard for her to sleep. Her snoring had already scared off two previous roommates, so for better or worse she’d had the two-person room all to herself for the past three months. Before, she’d complained about having to share a room, but now she ranted in a most un-Christian, shamanistic way, for someone who had devoted the past forty years of her life to her church, about Death coming to visit her in the night.

—Umma, do you want me to peel an apple for you?

—There’s a bitterness in my mouth. Unwrap a candy for me instead.

She had never eaten sweet things in her life, but ever since her tumor removal surgery, all she craved was peppermint drops. I once made her spit out her candy when I found her picking at her lunch. They said her digestive system was unable to work properly. I sprayed Febreze on the sheets to cover up that sickly hospital-ward smell.

Five months ago, I’d been dismayed but not surprised to learn that Umma’s cancer had returned. She’d been in remission for years, but I had been worried it might come back. And I was sick of this repetition of joy and pain, comedy and tragedy—nothing good ever came of it. I’d already been through everything the relative of a cancer patient could possibly experience, except the funeral. And perhaps now it was time to prepare for this final step as well.

◊

It had been six years since the cancer was first discovered in my mother’s body.

I was an intern in my mid-twenties. The ten interns who had started out had been whittled down to three. Rumor had it that only one would score a permanent contract, and as the only male remaining, it was likely to be me. The research team I assisted investigated the correlation between political leanings and the health of people in their fifties, calling over a hundred people a day. But it was truly a first when a certain center-right woman in her fifties called me out of the blue. I hung up on her twice, but she refused to stop calling. I ended up sneaking in a call though the company phone.

—Hello, I’m calling from Korea Research—

Umma interrupted me, her voice filled with joy.

—Your mother has cancer! In the uterus! Hallelujah.