A Twist Of Fate (PREVIOUSLY A Purple Garden)

Chapter 30

Walking into the house with the weight of Walmart bags hanging from her arms, Sydney spotted her mother sitting at the kitchen table. She recognized that Rebecca was flipping through the pages of familiar photo albums. Sydney moved closer into the kitchen as she dropped the groceries she had in tow to the floor. "What are you into?" Sydney asked curiously.

"Just walking down memory lane," Rebecca replied quietly, not prying her eyes from the pictures open in front of her.

"Good memories?"

Rebecca smiled as she breathed out a small laugh. "They're all good memories. Look at this one," she said as she pointed to a picture of a young Sydney. She was sitting at a table leaning over to blow out the candles on the cake sitting on the table before her. In the background, you could see a pool and at the wooden picnic table where Sydney sat, she was surrounded by other eager kids.

They wanted the cake.

Smiling at the photo, Sydney sat in the seat beside her mother to look at it better. "That was my seventh birthday, right?"

Her mother nodded. "Do you remember what you said you wanted that year for your birthday?" Sydney shook her head no. "You wanted a Pegasus Barbie doll."

"Really? You remember that?" Sydney chuckled, impressed.

"Oh yeah, I remember that," she laughed to herself. "I tore apart every toy store within a 50 mile radius trying to find you that doll."

"That's so sweet," Sydney said as she scanned the photo closer. "It sounds like it was really stressful, though."

Rebecca smiled as she looked at the picture, touching it gently. "It was very stressful. But it was all worth it when I saw the excitement on your face when you opened it." Taking a deep breath, she turned the page and the next pictures were of a young Jeremy in a football uniform. "Look at your brother," she gushed as she pointed to a photo of him knelt on one knee as he posed with a football. "That's when he was playing in the Youth Football League."

"He was so little," Sydney chuckled. It was hard to believe that her brother was half the size he was now. He was just so tall.

"It feels like yesterday," she said softly as she looked through each picture carefully, swallowing hard. "I've lived a good life."

As those words hit Sydney, she lifted her attention to her mother's face as she looked at her with concern. All she saw was sadness and fear and she struggled to find the right thing to say.

"Dr. Miller called," she began, her voice weak. She didn't look up from the photos as she spoke. "The biopsy on my liver came back. It's cancer."

As the news echoed in her mind, Sydney felt like she had just had the wind kicked out of her. "Wha-what do you want to do?" she stammered anxiously, her voice wavering with disbelief.

"Like I said before, I'm done. They don't recommend me taking on chemo or anything anyway." Rebecca sucked in a deep breath as she closed the album.

As Rebecca turned the front cover of the album over to close it, a small photo slipped out and moved across the table. Before Sydney could even reach for it, Rebecca picked it up, holding it carefully as she turned it over to look at it. There was a teenage girl and boy sitting in the bed of an old red truck. The girl's legs were thrown over the boy's lap as he held her close. Their faces flowed with smiles of genuine happiness..

Sydney watched as her mother touched the picture tenderly, looking at it warmly. Sydney couldn't quite make out the emotion in her mother's eyes. Rebecca pursed her lips as a small tear rolled down her left cheek.

"You're just as beautiful now as you were then, mom," Sydney said as she touched her mother's arm.

Rebecca smiled at her daughter's kind gesture. "Thank you, dear." Touching the boy's face in the picture carefully, she heaved an uneven sigh as she slid it under the album's cover, tucking it away out of sight. She wiped her cheek as she stood up from the table. "I think I'm gonna lie down for a little bit. I'll put these away later," she said gesturing to the pictures and albums that scattered the table.