"Mommy!" The little boy shouted joyously, his short brown hair tossing about in the gentle wind of the day while he ran across the parking lot. The father of the child paced behind, giving a small wave towards his wife.
A woman, in her mid 20s, gently turned in the direction of the boy. Her beautiful hair rippled from the breeze softly as her soft caramel eyes so gingerly relaxed on her boy who ran. The small child laughed innocently as his yellow shirt fluttered while he leapt up into his mothers arm. The woman grasped his back and slid her hand under his calves to keep him balanced. "Hello! So how is my little Joey doing?"
The little boy giggled as he threw his arms around his mother's neck, "In kindergarten to-day we had a field trip to route 30 to see the wild pokemon!"
"Oh! How wonderful!" The woman laughed along with her boy as she tenderly ruffled his hair.
"Mam, we need to finish this." A man from behind said gravely. Joey craned around to look over his mother's shoulder to take a view of the stranger. He was older, his black hair was peppered with grey hair running about while on the bridge of his bony nose was a resting pair of dark wire glasses. He was dressed formally, black pants that brushed his loafers while around his neck was a simple navy blue tie which tucked into a stone-grey vest. What Joey found most peculiar though was a white lab coat opened and the clipboard in his hands.
Though the man first came off different than what Joey was used to, he soon recognized the type of person it was. "Doctor!" He twisted his head up to look at his mother whose face went from a delicate smile to a cold, almost sorrowful, expression. "Was mommy having a check up? Mommy is healthy of course! She always is!"
Not answering her son, the mother set Joey back to the ground, though weaved her fingers with his. "I already know. Please, just not in front of my child."
The doctor seemed unfazed by the toddler whose cheeks puffed out in confusion. "Mrs. Smith, the tumor must be dealt with so not to spread further. We have already set up an appointment with the hospital for your first radiation session in three days. After that you will have to go there every other day to keep it up."
"I know." The mother's voice grew dark as she spun around. Her face quickly changed as she gazed upon little Joey, "Come! Today you and mommy get to go get our hair cut!" She looked to her husband with a shadow in her eyes, "Thanks for dropping him off. I know you still have work."
The father of Joey waved his wife off, "Oh, come Joann! I understand with everything now that you want to spend as much time as you can with him!"
The six year old boy leapt into his mother's small silver Dodge car, strapping into his child-safety seat behind the drivers. Joann slid in after waving off to her husband and started the engine. They took a short drive to the near hair dressers and Joey only had to have a few snips trim and shaping before he was finished, skipping back to the seats lined across the windows to wait for his mother.
When Joann was finally finished, Joey's jaw dropped, "Where is all of mommy's pretty hair?" He asked in shock. The woman who walked up no longer had her beautiful locks of chocolate hair and she was digging though her purse. Still, she gave off a happy facade as she pulled out a baseball cap. It was blue with a white bill and she fixed it to her head.
Looking at her son she beamed brightly, "Well don't you look spiffy!" Her voice as light as a Pidgey feather falling, "Mommy just wanted to try something new for a change!"
Gently she grabbed her son's little hand, which was the size of a skipping stone compared to hers. Joey didn't say much after that. When he got home, Joey watched some TV and had some food for dinner. Nothing too memorable. Well, except after he was tucked into bed.
His eyes focused on the ceiling as he listened to his mother's sobs, his father hushing her kindly.
"I'm so scared, John."
"I know, honey. I know."
"I mean, radiation! That's all they can do... And they said I probably wont be the same after."
"It will be okay, honey."
"Will it? After, will I still love you... Will I still love our Joey? What if I hurt someone. And they said I'd forget a lot. What if I forget to go to work? Or to make dinner? I am terrified."
"Time will pass, we'll be here always for you."
With that, Joey was confused but found sleep tugging at him. Dreams begging him to play. That next day, as the kids in his class played with pokemon that traveling trainers brought, he decided something different. The small dark-eyed boy waddled up to his teacher who greeted him with a smile. Smiling back he asked the teacher, "What's a tumor?"
Very flustered, the teacher shooed off the child to play with the class. Though that day when Joey's father approached to pick him up, the teacher stepped in between. "I think we need to speak about something." The kindergarten teacher said very straightly.
Guided back to a room in the elementary school, the adults took their seats across from one another.
"Today during recess, Joey asked me something very odd." The instructor combed back his hair with his fingers, holding eye contact with John Smith.
The father of Joey simply smiled calmly, "Well children do that."
The kindergarten teacher shook his head solemnly. "This was very odd. He asked me: What is a tumor. Is there something, some health problem, going on with Joey that our school was not informed about?" The man rose an eyebrow darkly.
John waited for a moment before letting out a heavy breath. "No. Not with Joey. My wife, Joann, has been diagnosed with cancer. A Malignant tumor in her brain. I was handing off Joey to his mother when the doctor persisted to talk with Joann about treatment. She won't be coming to pick up or drop off Joey much the day after tomorrow. That's when her radiation is going to begin. Best to tell you now, I guess, instead of later."
The teacher, who once was ridged with this parent, relaxed. his eyes swirled with a sympathy, "I am so sorry. I thought something was up... Please, do take care."
The next day passed quickly for Joey, but every second after the first day of his mother's treatment would pass like years. It was the final day his mother would drop him off to his school.
About to run off into the school building, Joey was pulled back. His mother grabbing his arm like a gentle twig that could snap if touched once more. "Joey! Mommy has a present for you!" She laughed, fishing to the bottom of her purse. Joey seemed to be jittery with a giddy joy of receiving a present. "I was going to give you something like this on your tenth birthday, but some complications arose." She spoke with a feigned happiness. She knew she probably would never see her son's tenth birthday. From her bag, she turned out a red and white capsule, placing it into the boy's open hands.
"A-A-A pokemon!" Joey was practically oozing the overwhelming excitement he felt, "Now I will be so po-pop-popular in class!"
"That in there is a Rattata. Now, I know their common," The mother felt a tickle in her stomach, a wafting guilt floating over that she wasn't able to capture her son something more exotic, "But this one is different than any regular Rattata, this one is the top percentage Rattata!"
"Super cool!" The boy who was first crestfallen about having a Rattata was now elated that his was the top percentage. Not even a thanks before skipping off to school, clutching the pokeball close to his heart.
The weeks slowly passed, his mother became recluse from Joey. And he really didn't know why.
When he got home one day on the eighth week, his Rattata skipped close to his feet. Being so small, the Rattata was up to the child's knee and chittered happily. His father though quickly bushed past his son and to where they soon found Joey's mother. After not seeing his mother so often, the toddler assumed the hunched figure curled up at the dining table was a stranger. So the boy hid behind a wall corner and observed cautiously as his father rubbed the intruder's back.
"That was the last one, correct?"
The form whose head hung in the palm of their hands slowly nodded. Just sitting on the table inches away from them a meal sat, basically picked at. "It hurts..." The voice shook, fingers digging deep into their scalp, no hair seen due to constant shaving of the head. "The radiation... The tumor... I can't even swallow my food with out pain. I can't go to work any more... I'm just so exhausted now... It's working with computers... It's a damn computer job! And I don't have the energy to even type!" The woman's voice escalated as she trembled like a storm cloud. Tears splattering against the polished wood table. Joey flinched before his mind registered that it was his mother who spoke, the voice unforgettable to him. Tears welled up in his eyes as he sniffed. He tried to wipe his overwhelming globs of water from his eyes with no luck as they were just replaced.
"Mommy!" He cried out, stumbling over his own feet. He ran over and clutched her leg, flopping onto his butt on the floor. "I missed mommy! Where were you hiding... Do you not like Joey any more?"
"... Joey?" His mother looked tiredly down at her son and smiled weakly to him, she forced her pain down for the child she raised. Her nails brushed though his silky hair, "Mommy still loves Joey with all her heart. I didn't mean to hide."
Joey looked up to his mother, his heart condensing when he saw the blisters that burned across her once fair and rejuvenating skin. His lips pulled tightly in before sobbing into his mother's pant leg. "And Joey loves mommy!"
The sobbing continued in a dead silence for minutes. With a tight throat, Joey took his final sniffle before his father told him to go play outside with his Rattata. Running off with the purple furred rat-pokemon close behind, the last thing Joey heard was from his father, "Time to start hospice?"
"... Yeah."
The days came and went, a woman coming back and forth took care of Joey's mom. The small boy would sometimes come home to find the strange woman making food in the kitchen for his mother. At first, Joey was weary of the strange woman who came and went from his home. But she would give hard-candy to the boy and pokepuffs to his Rattata, so Joey came to trust her.
Then the day came.
It was a weekend. The sun hung high in the clear azure sky while Joey, now in his seventh year, trained outside his home with his partner. "Now Rattata, use quick attack!"
The small creature nodded, poising it's buck front teeth viciously. With a spring of it's back legs, the purple-furred Rattata flew forward as a blur towards a towering tree. With a strike, the rat bounced back to his original position. The nearly soot black bark of the ash tree was upturned to reveal it's creamy texture within.
"Good job Rattata! Now once more with more power!"
"Joey!" A voice called from within the house. Both the obedient pokemon and boy spun on their heels to see an open window. A frail hand trembled to hold something so simple open. "Could you please come in here?"
"Of course mom!" The young boy grinned brightly, rushing into his home with Rattata following close behind. Pouncing into his mother's bedroom, Rattata spun up to his trainer's shoulder with tail wagging like a Growlithe. Entering the room, they found Joey's mother smiling. Her hair growing back, currently being an unshaped pixie of dark locks. She rested under dusty brown blankets while her black nightgown draped over her frame. The light that seeped in from the room's window rested on the woman's sickly pale skin with small odd colored patches. Though she held a fading smile to her child. "What do you need?"
"Since my hospice is on the day off and her replacement won't be coming until tonight. Could you grab me something?" She inquired with a kind tilt of her head. "Mommy is allowed to have pain killers when I need it. Right now, I feel very achey. Could you please get mommy the bottle of Oxycodone? It's in the medicine cabinet. It's spelled O-X-Y-C-O-D-O-N-E. Oh, a bowl of ice cream?"
The boy naively nodded and trotted off with his Rattata on shoulder to get what the mother requested. Returning with the bowl of vanilla ice cream and a white pill bottle. Gently he passed them to his mother who, upon receiving these, viciously unscrewed the bottle and threw over dashes of the disc-like pills over the ice cream as if they were sprinkles. The entire bottled was emptied out.
"M-mom... Isn't that a little too many?"
"No! I can have as many as I want!" The mother suddenly snapped, her tone like a knife and eyes cold as the dairy product in her hands. Seeing the fear that settled into her seven-year old son, she quickly forced forward a reassuring smile, "Sorry. I am just in a lot of pain right now. And it makes me cranky."
"Oh... It's okay." Joey smiled, taking a seat beside his mom. The small Rattata leaping into it's master's lap to curl up. He watched as his mother shoveled the ice cream mixed with pain killers into her mouth. Reaching the bottom of the bowl, the woman's muscles sunk and her head leaned back gradually into her pillow. "Mom?" Joey's voice cracked.
"Hey..." Her voice ghosted. "Sorry... I'm just tired... Joey, I love you" Joann let her head drop to the side so it was angled to her boy. Her caramel eyes moved from his face down to the slumbering pokemon. "Make sure to take care of him... He is top percentage..." With that, her eyelids fell like a leaf in the Autumn finally reaching the ground on a windless day.
The young trainer smiled like the sun, and misunderstood his mother's words. "I love you too! and I will take care of him!" He didn't know who his mother was really speaking to. But the Rattata, whose ear flicked, had heard and understood. The boy who wanted to let his mother, what he thought was to, sleep, decided to stand. He cradled his pokemon like a baby and wandered out to watch some TV, the volume low.
A few hours passed when his father finally arrived home. "Hi dad."
The father crept in and grinned at his son, "Hey my boy. How's your mom?"
"She's sleeping in her room."
The man chuckled in a low tone, "Well I'll go check up on her, then." John bustled into the bedroom to return only a few minutes later. His once hardy expression had turned dark and grave. "Joey," He spoke slowly, "Your mother is not asleep..."
"She woke up?"
"No."
"...What?"
Joey's father paced up to him and took a seat. John wrapped an arm tightly around his son and told with a shivering voice. "She's..."
"She's what?" For so long, everything was sugar-coated to the young boy. But not anymore. There was no more spaced to lie. Saying she was in a better place is what would be told for a pet, or a grandparent. To have said gone would be to vague and inevitably lead to this.
"She's dead."
The years passed, Joey still tried to grow up like any other child. Though it was difficult when people asked what his parents do for work. He gave a fake smile where ever he went, though looking at his Rattata, he did feel better. The last thing his mother really gave to him. Something he would always treasure.
And if he was ever feeling lonely, he would call up his friend Gold to talk! Or brag. In a way.
"Hey Gold! Remember my super cool Rattata? My Rattata is different from regular Rattata. It's like my Rattata is in the top percentage of all Rattata!"
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A/N: Still waiting for Serena-Daniels to publish her Joey one-shot.
Yeah, her and I have this Joey-writing-one-shot thing. She has to write hers soon and I thought that an annoying public announcement like this would kick her butt into gear.
thank you for reading my one-shot!
Read. Vote. Comment. Enjoy!
-Avalon R. Day