How? How how how? How does a woman in perfect health go to a doctor about an upset stomach and leave with a cancer diagnosis?

I could see Duncan turn the corner in the distance. He waved as I hung up. I swallowed the lump in my throat, slung my bag back over my shoulder, and smiled. I thought, Save your tears for when your mother dies.

* * *

—

HAPPY HOUR was buy one, get one free, so we ordered two bottles of Miller High Life with seconds on standby. We caught up on each other’s postgraduate lives. He had just finished a cover story on Lana Del Rey and when I pressed him for details on the interview, he told me she chain-smoked through its entirety and recorded the whole thing on her iPhone to guard against misquotes, which endeared her to me.

On our second round I admitted I was entertaining the idea of moving to New York, fully aware that I was now speaking as a sort of character, mentally disavowing the information I’d learned only an hour before. I realized that any plans I might have had were now null and void, that I’d probably have to move back to Eugene to be there for my mother’s treatment. I was delirious with secrecy. It was against my nature to withhold such monumental information, but it felt entirely inappropriate to bring it up to someone I knew only marginally, and I was afraid if I even said the words out loud I’d start crying.

Duncan was supportive of the move and encouraged me to reach out again when the time came. We said our goodbyes and I called Peter from the same stretch of sidewalk where I’d learned two hours prior that my mother had cancer.

* * *

—

PETER WAS THE FIRST PERSON I dated that my mother had ever liked. They met for the first time in September of the previous year. My parents were celebrating their thirtieth anniversary in Spain and arranged to stop in Philadelphia beforehand. It’d been three years since they’d visited me on the East Coast, this the first time since graduation. I was determined to impress them with my knowledge of the city and my self-sufficient, albeit flimsy version of young adulthood, and so I spent weeks researching and reserving tables at the best restaurants in the city and planned a day trip to Elkins Park to show my mother the Korean neighborhood.

Peter drove us all out to Jong Ga Jib, a restaurant that specializes in soondubu jjigae, a spicy soft-tofu stew. My mother lit up as she browsed the menu, excited by the variety of dishes the Korean restaurants in Eugene lacked, picking out things my father would enjoy. Peter was recovering from a cold, so she suggested he order samgyetang, a hearty soup made from a whole chicken stuffed with rice and ginseng. For the table she ordered haemul pajeon “basak basak,” a tactic she always employed to try to get the edges as crispy as possible. Over soondubu jjigae and crunchy, thick slices of seafood pancake, I told my mother about a Korean spa I’d heard about in the neighborhood, similar to the ones we went to in Seoul.

“They even have the scrub,” I said.

“Really? They even have scrub? Should we all go?” my mother asked with a laugh.

“That sounds fun,” Peter said.

Jjimjilbangs are typically separated by gender, with a communal area for both sexes to socialize in the loose-fitted, matching pajamas provided on entry. Inside the bathhouse, full nudity is standard. If Peter came with us it would mean he and my father would have to be naked together a little less than twenty-four hours after they first met.

Peter ate his soup dutifully, thanking my mother for the recommendation, and partook joyfully in the banchan on our table—miyeok muchim, slick seaweed salad dressed with tart vinegar and garlic; sweet and spicy dried squid; gamja jorim, buttery, candied potatoes in sweet syrup—all dishes he’d discovered a love for since we’d started dating. One of my favorite things about Peter was the way he closed his eyes when he ate something he really liked. It was as if he believed cutting off one of his senses amplified the others. He was bold and never made me feel like what I was eating was weird or gross.

“He eats like a Korean!” my mother said.

When Peter excused himself to use the bathroom, my parents hunched in toward the center of the table.

“I bet you he chickens out of the bathhouse,” my dad said.

“I bet you a hundred dollars he’s going to do it,” my mother countered.

The next day in the spa lobby when it was time to separate, Peter moved toward the men’s locker room without flinching. My mother shot my father the smug grin of a winner and rubbed her fingers together, expecting him to pay up.

The bathhouse was smaller than the ones we usually went to in Seoul. There were three tubs of varying temperatures—cold, warm, and hot—and across from them a dozen showerheads where women rinsed off, seated on miniature plastic stools. On the far end were a sauna and a steam room. My mother and I showered, then slowly eased our way into the hottest tub, sitting side by side on the slick blue tile. In a corner, sectioned off, three ajummas in their undergarments diligently scrubbed their subjects. Inside it was warm and quiet, the only sounds the continuous gushing stream of water that jetted out from the ceiling into the cold tub and the occasional smack of a scrubbing hand against the bare back of an anonymous woman.

“Did you shave your boji tul?” she said.

I crossed my legs tightly, mortified. “I trimmed it,” I said with a blush.

“Don’t do that,” she instructed. “It looks slutty.”

“Okay,” I said, slinking deeper into the water. I could feel her gazing unhappily at the tattoos I’d accumulated despite her vehement disapproval.

“I like Peter,” my mother said. “He’s New York style.”

Anyone who has actually lived in New York would be loath to describe Peter as “New York style.” Though he’d attended NYU, Peter lacked the bristly nature and fast-paced hustle a West Coaster usually associates with an East Coast personality. He was patient and gentle. He balanced me out in the way my mother did my father, who like me was always in a rush, quick to give up on any task at the first sign of failure and delegate it to someone else. What my mother meant was that she liked that Peter proved early on that he was a stand-up guy.

* * *

—

“I’LL COME UP,” Peter said over the phone. “As soon as I get off, I’ll be there.”

It was Friday night and he had the late shift at the bar. The sun was setting, the sky getting pink. I started toward the subway and told him not to bother. He wouldn’t get off until two and it wasn’t worth coming up for the night when I was already planning on taking the bus back in the morning.

I took the M train to Bushwick, where I was crashing at my friend Greg’s for the night. Greg played drums in a band called Lvl Up and lived in a warehouse known as David Blaine’s The Steakhouse that hosted DIY shows. He had five roommates who all slept in tiny lofted bedrooms they’d built themselves out of drywall. They reminded me of the tree forts where the Lost Boys slept in Peter Pan. I lay on the couch in the living room and felt numb. I wondered what their mothers thought when they visited. The conditions musicians put themselves in for cheap rent and the freedom to pursue their unconventional passions.