It comes and goes

forty

Manny's POV

Shawn rushed inside the house when I opened the door for him. He was always coming here just for a cup of coffee now but this time it didn't look like he was caffeine deprived, much like the complete opposite.

"Are you ok?", I asked him.

"Yeah", he said right away and came back to hug me and say good morning. "Are you ready to go?"

"I am, but Shawn you don't need to come with me. It's just routine".

"No, no. I wanna go", he insisted and I shrugged because I had learned very early in his days how determined and stubborn he was.

We got on the car and he had this weird anxiety energy going on. He was always the kind of kid that needed to move and do something all the time, but this wasn't just that.

"Is everything ok?", I asked him just blocks away from hospital.

"Yeah, everything's fine", he smiled but he didn't fool me. I was his father, I knew him more than he would like to. Same reason why I didn't push and waited for him to come to me if something was wrong.

We walked inside the white walls of the hospital and into the doctor's office. This place gave me chills every time. I knew it was the place where people come to heal, but it had given me the worst news in a while as well. When I woke up here, in a bed, with Shawn looking over me after having no idea what had happened, I thought it was over for me. My son then told me I had collapsed in my classroom when I was giving some notes to Camila. That was the last thing I remembered, her face enthusiastically looking at me because she was excited about the tutoring class.

"How's Camila?", I asked him while we waited for the doctor.

Never in a million years I had expected my teaching assistant being the mother of my grandchild, but I had to say, I was more than happy for that. I always knew she had potential and I didn't think twice when I saw she had applied to be my assistant.

"Good", he sighed. "Is it normal for women to be so weird during the pregnancy?"

I laughed softly as his question. How crazy it was to be discussing this with my son. The kid I had raised, that same kid that cried when he couldn't tie his shoes or his sister took food from his plate. I looked at him and I felt damn proud of the man he had become.

"It is", I told him. "Your mom drove me insane when she was pregnant with you. You just have to be patient. We don't really know what they're going through".

He sighed and was about to say something else when Dr. Kholi came inside the room and joined us at his desk.

"Good morning, gentlemen", he said cheerfully.

"Good morning", we said in unison and he began asking questions.

"Any pains, discomfort, dizziness?", he said at one point.

"Not at all", I said proudly.

"Great. That's good", he said typing on his keyboard.

"He's also been eating a lot", Shawn added making fun of me.

"I'm always kinda hungry", I explained.

"Just be careful with what you eat. Nothing too spicy or full of fats".

"Of course", I nodded.

Shawn's phone started to ring and he excused himself to take the call in the hall. Dr. Kholi continued with the questions.

"We'll run some tests just to be sure everything is gone fine and after that, we'll have appointments every six months for a while and then just once a year. Hopefully, cancer won't come back", the doctor said.