As Close as Sisters (10 page)

Aurora shrugged. “I like reading the stuff, but I guess. It might be cool.”

Lilly walked onto the porch, with Janine following behind her, carrying a tray of glasses of iced tea and sodas. I hit the record button again.

“Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes,” Lilly announced. “Just waiting on the rice.”

I watched them, via my cell phone screen. It gave me an interesting perspective. Janine looked funny carrying the tray, walking behind Lilly like she was her maid: Lilly in her pristine sundress, Janine in her baggy board shorts and a K-Coast T-shirt. What was even funnier was that Fritz was following dutifully behind
her
. Which made it crowded on the front deck. And everyone was talking at once.

“Unsweetened,” Janine told Mia, pointing at one of the iced tea glasses. She pointed to another glass. “Coke.”

“Nope, just one,” Lilly was telling Maura as she rubbed her protruding abdomen.

Aurora grabbed a glass of iced tea and set it down on my armchair, filling my screen with the glass. I’d have to learn to use the focus button.

“Sugar?” Aurora asked.

I hit the red button. The video stopped. “Please.”

We sat on the deck and sipped our drinks; Lilly and I in the chairs, Janine standing, Aurora and my girls perched on the rail. Everyone talking, and Lilly was getting loud—to be heard—and it was . . . glorious. I was so happy. The five most important people in the world to me were at arm’s length.

I listened to Maura giggle over something Lilly said. I heard snatches of conversation between Janine and Mia; they were talking about where Mia would be applying to college. As I listened, I felt as if I was taking a step back from them. One minute I was in the fray, the next, I was an outsider. Watching, but not participating.

Would it be like this when I was dead? Would I be able to watch my daughters interact with my best friends from the clouds? Would my spirit hover over my daughters? Guide them? Would I ring bells on Christmas trees? Would my face appear in condensation on glasses, to let my daughters know I was with them, in spirit if no longer in the flesh? Or would it be like one of my assistant librarians had said: When you died, you just no longer existed?

One would think that dying would force one to come to some conclusions about death. So far, I hadn’t. It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought about it, because I had. A lot. I was envious of my friends who had strong religious beliefs—who
knew
what was going to happen to them when they died. I wrote “Methodist” on forms when asked of my religious affiliation, but only because when I was a kid we’d gone to a Methodist church on Christmas and Easter. My mother now attended regularly and belonged to a prayer group at her local church. I got the feeling, though, that the women spent as much time drinking tea as they did praying. She said they prayed for me all the time, though exactly what they were praying for, I wasn’t sure. For me to be healed. Or at least not die, I suppose. I found it hard to believe old ladies drinking tea could save me when science couldn’t. But I wasn’t so convinced that I had asked my mother and her friends
not
to pray for me.

Fritz sat down beside my chair, and I glanced at him. We were both outsiders.

He looked at me, at the others, and then at me again. I felt as if he was trying to communicate something to me, but I’m not good at doggie language. We didn’t even have a dog anymore. Our border collie had died two years ago. We had planned on getting a puppy, but we’d been waiting for an opportunity to rip up the old carpet in the family room . . . for I don’t even remember how long. Then I was diagnosed, and I guess we forgot all about the puppy.

Fritz stared at me with his expressive dark eyes. And I smiled. I smiled at him. At my girls. At my friends, and then at the great wide ocean that was my front yard.

 

Dinner, served at the table in the living room, was more mass confusion. Everyone was still talking at once. Janine’s phone rang twice, Lilly’s, too. Fritz, who never barked, went crazy when some kids rolled a stalled scooter in behind my girls’ car and started it again. Maura managed to keep up with what was being said at the table while texting to friends. At home, we had a rule about no cell phones at the table, but I knew Jared allowed them. I was learning to pick my fights. And no one else seemed to mind that Maura was with us, but not entirely.

Since we were clearly ignoring the no-phones-at-the-table rule, I recorded with mine: Lilly chattering about a belly band; Janine taking a big bite of taco and it exploding all over her plate; Maura texting madly with one hand, munching a taco with the other; Aurora sitting back, nibbling on a taco shell, and drinking a beer; Mia smiling at me from across the table, salsa on the corner of her mouth.

Lilly’s tacos were good, though I dared eat only one and a little rice. Refried beans? No way. My gastrointestinal tract was already a hot mess.

My girls didn’t really talk to me. They wanted to know about Lilly’s baby; she showed them sonogram pictures on her phone. Janine was telling them about some class she and Fritz were taking; he was learning to open gates and jump over fences. Why, I didn’t catch. Aurora, on her third beer of the meal, regaled us with tales of London, Paris, and Geneva.

Jealousy bubbled up as I watched Maura rest her head against Lilly’s shoulder while Lilly let her feel the baby moving in her belly. It wasn’t so much jealousy over the relationship Janine, Aurora, and Lilly had with my girls, but with the time they would get with them. A part of me thought Maura and Mia should be sitting on each side of me, talking to me, putting their heads on
my
shoulders. Why didn’t they want to spend every minute I had left with me?

Of course we’d had long talks about this. I had stressed again and again how important it was to me that they go about their lives. That it would break my heart to see them miss their senior year of high school, moping around, waiting for me to drop. I made it clear to them that the only way I would not crack up, the only way I could do this gracefully, was if they lived their lives as if I
wasn’t
dying.

I guess I just hadn’t expected them to actually listen to me.

Too soon, dinner was over. And suddenly I was exhausted. Everyone began to carry dirty plates and empty bowls to the kitchen. I just sat in my chair, my chest feeling heavy. It was as if someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the air. And I had thought earlier today that I was breathing a little easier. I’d walked down to the beach this morning and had barely gotten out of breath. Had it been my imagination?

“Why don’t you go lie down,” Lilly suggested, hovering over my shoulder. “Maybe stretch out on the couch.”

I picked up my plate; it was incredibly heavy. She took it from my hand.

“Go on,” she urged in a whisper. “You look beat.”

Janine watched me from the other side of the table, where she’d been clearing dishes. She had a bowl of shredded cheese in one hand, a water glass in the other.

I glanced at the open windows across the front of the house. The sheer curtains were whipping around. It had clouded up outside. We were expecting rain tonight. But it was supposed to be clear for the Fourth on Thursday, Janine had said.

I heard my girls laughing in the kitchen with Aurora. Then the garbage disposal running. It was clinking. Someone had dropped something down it, a spoon or a bottle cap.

I looked up at Lilly, feeling as if the world were spinning on its axis a little slower than it had been when we sat down for dinner an hour ago. “Maybe I will,” I said, my voice breathy.

I didn’t see Janine put down the dishes or come around the table, but somehow her arm was around me. “Come on,” she murmured.

“I don’t know what’s . . . wrong with . . . me,” I heard myself say.

“Up you go.” Janine practically lifted me out of the chair. We walked, arms around each other, across the room to the couch. “You want to lie down for a minute?”

I shook my head and cut my eyes in the direction of the kitchen. I didn’t like my girls to see me like this. Weak. “Maybe just . . . the chair.”

The ten feet to the chair felt like eight miles. I actually sighed with relief when my butt hit it. I didn’t know why I was so tired. Why it had come on me so quickly.

Janine covered my lap with an old patchwork quilt that someone had made for her. I couldn’t remember who.

“Need anything?” she asked. “Water? A gin and tonic?” Her dark eyes twinkled.

I tried to breathe deeply. “Maybe some . . . new . . . lungs.”

She was squatted in front of me. I could tell she was worried, but she was trying to play it cool. “You think you need a hit of oxygen, sweetie?”

I had let her bring the portable oxygen tank into the house, just because I didn’t know if it should be sitting in my hot car. But so far, it had just sat in the corner of the bedroom. I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” She stood up. “We’ll just get the dishes cleaned up and then come in.” She glanced over her shoulder as she headed for the kitchen. “Smells like rain coming.”

I closed my eyes for a second. Maybe five minutes.

“Mom.”

Startled, I opened my eyes. It was Mia.

“You okay?” she asked.

I forced a smile. “Just tired.”

“It’s like . . . six thirty, Mom.”

A piece of hair had fallen from her updo, and my hand itched to reach out and tuck it behind her ear. She’d had bangs for a while, but she was growing them out.

“You tell her we’re leaving?” Maura walked into the room.

I looked up. “I thought you were staying.” I looked at Maura, then at Mia again. “You’re not staying to play cards?”

Mia cut her eyes at Maura. “We . . . were thinking about going over to Sondra’s place. She invited us . . . her parents will be there and stuff. I guess we could—”

“No, go. It’s okay.”

Maura had her phone out again, texting. Mia’s was clutched in her hand. I heard it ding, telling her she’d received a new text message.

“They wanna know if we want to go for ice cream,” Maura said.

“Go,” I repeated.

That was all Maura needed. “Okay, see you, Mom. Bye. Love you.” She threw me a kiss.

“Love you, Mom,” Mia murmured. She leaned over me, rested her hands on my shoulders, and kissed my cheek.

“Love you,” I said, making my voice steady. I was already feeling better. I wasn’t sure what that had been at the table. “Love you, Maura Alexandra,” I called after her. “See you for fireworks.”

“Traffic is going to be awful,” Maura moaned. “I was thinking we could skip it this year. I don’t even like fireworks.”

“We’ll get Dad to drop us off.” Mia backed away, looking at her phone. “We’ll be here, Mom.”

“You could invite your father to join us. Chelsea and Peaches, too,” I said cheerfully. “You know we have the best view on the beach.”

“Right. Like
that
wouldn’t be awkward,” Maura mumbled as she left the room.

“Call you tomorrow, Mom,” Mia promised.

“Call you tomorrow, Mom,” Maura hollered from the kitchen.

I sat back in the chair and listened to their good-byes.

A minute after the back door closed, Aurora walked through the living room, making a beeline for the deck. “You good?” she asked as she went by. She didn’t make eye contact.

“I’m good.”

“I’m just going to get some air.” She slipped through a tangle of sheers. The curtains were whipping around in the wind. Someone needed to close the doors.

“I think it’s starting to rain,” I called after her.

Lilly walked into the living room, glancing in Aurora’s direction. I could hear Janine in the kitchen, water running.

“She okay?” Lilly whispered, pointing in the direction of the deck.

I looked at her. “What did I miss?”

11

Janine

I
glanced toward the open doors to the front deck. Fritz watched Aurora from just inside the living room.

The wind had picked up. The sheer white floor-to-ceiling drapes Lilly and I had hung two summers ago whipped like eerie dancing ghosts. It had gotten cooler outside. I could hear the first pit-pats of rain on the glass.

When the house is warm and sunny and bright, I’m not afraid, but when it rains, I feel uneasy.

It had been raining that night. The night of Buddy’s demise.

“What’s wrong with Aurora?” McKenzie asked me. “Did Maura—”

“I don’t think Maura said anything wrong,” I said. McKenzie looked pale. Except for bright red raised circles on the apples of each cheek. Not good. Did she have a fever? She’d been breathing heavy this afternoon, even though she hadn’t exerted any more energy than it took to walk from the deck to the table. I didn’t know if I should say anything. She wasn’t exactly touchy about being sick, but she’d made it clear that she didn’t want us to dwell on it every minute of every day. Of course it was all I could think about.

“Because I know,” McKenzie went on, “that Maura can sometimes. . .”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. I knew what she meant. At some point or another, Maura, since hitting her teenage years, had brushed each of us the wrong way. Most of the time it was McKenzie. Maura could be critical and antagonistic and sometimes downright mean. But I’d been in the kitchen with the girls and Aurora. Aurora had seemed fine until Mia and Maura went out the door. Then she’d suddenly teared up and walked abruptly out of the kitchen, out onto the deck.

Lilly came into the living room, a dish towel in her hands. She took one look at our faces and lowered her voice. “What’s going on?” She glanced in the direction of the deck, then back at us. “Aurora?”

I touched my cheek with my fingertip and drew downward.

“Crying?” She made a face like she didn’t believe me. Lilly knew she was the crier of the group. McKenzie and I were somewhere in the middle, but Aurora? Aurora never cried.

Why?
she mouthed. Then she looked at McKenzie and reached out and laid her hand on her forehead. “You okay? You don’t feel hot, but you look like you have a fever.”

“I’m fine.” McKenzie grasped Mother Lilly’s wrist and lowered her hand.

Lilly looked at me. “Go see what’s wrong.” She pointed.

I glanced at the open doors. Rain was coming in, making little round circles on the hardwood in the doorway. Fritz just stood there, muzzle thrust out. Watching Aurora.

I looked back at Lilly. “Me?” I whispered. “I’m not good at this. Maybe . . . maybe Mack should go.”

“She’s sick,” Lilly hissed. “She needs to stay put.” She pointed at McKenzie, just to make sure she understood her instructions.

McKenzie looked up at me. She was wrapped up in the quilt. She didn’t move a muscle. “I’ll go.”

“No,” I said, sounding like I was headed for the electric chair. “I’ll do it.”

I wanted to call “dead man walking” as I went slowly to the door. I was so
not
good at this. With tears. With emotion in general. At least any emotion that wasn’t anger. Anger I was pretty good with. I could even deal with a little rage on the side.

I stood in the doorway, sharing it with the dog. The lights on the front deck were out, but I could see Aurora on the north end, leaning on the rail. Lamplight from the living room backlit her.

Rain hit me in the face.

Fritz whined.

Okay, okay, I’m going already
.
But you know I suck at this.
Some dog owners say they have a telepathic connection with their pets. I looked at him. He looked at me. Whined again. Maybe it was only one way with Fritz and me. Maybe he could read my thoughts, but I sure as hell couldn’t read his.

I stepped out onto the deck. The wind caught my hair and blew it back. The rain was cool on my face. It felt good. I walked to the rail and stood beside Aurora. I gazed out over the beach, then at her. Tears ran down her face, wet from the rain. But she didn’t make a sound.

I just stood there for a minute, hands stuffed in my pockets. “You okay?” I finally asked.

She didn’t answer.

I heard Fritz come outside, his nails clicking on the wood deck. I needed to get out my Dremel and sand them down.

“Aurora?”

She pressed her lips together. She was so pretty, even with her hair wet, beginning to stick to her head.

“You think he thinks about me?” Her voice sounded as if it were coming from far away, ethereal almost.

It took me a minute to realize whom she was talking about.
Jude.

“You think he ever wonders . . .” She closed her eyes and raindrops hit her eyelids. “You think he wonders what would have happened if I hadn’t abandoned him?”

“You didn’t a—”

She opened her eyes and glared at me, and I shut up instantly. “No lies,” she said.

“No lies,” I repeated. It was our code, hers and mine. The other two, we let them tell us untruths sometimes. We told
them
untruths. Little ones at least. Untruths to smooth over hurt feelings or cover for our occasional inadequacies. But never Aurora and me. There was no need for lies. She knew my deepest, darkest place. She’d been there.

So Aurora had a right to call me on the lie I had almost told. Fair was fair. She actually
had
abandoned her son at the hospital less than twelve hours after he was born. She had handed him to her ex-boyfriend and walked out of a private LA hospital. The next time she saw Jude, he was two and a half.

I looked out over the rail. Though the sun hadn’t set yet, the clouds covered it. I could hear the waves hitting the beach. I could see the white foam in the wet sand. “You did what you thought was the right thing at the time,” I said.

“Right for me. But what about him, Janine? What about Jude?”

I didn’t say anything. What was I going to say? If I’d gotten knocked up by my boyfriend (which, of course, wasn’t possible because, at the time, I had been with a cute little gal from west Texas named Clementine), I wouldn’t have given up my son. Clementine couldn’t have pried him out of my arms.

Aurora took a shuddering breath. “Maura and Mia, they love McKenzie so much. They adore her, and she adores them. I could have . . . I could have had that with Jude. I could have had someone of my very own.” She looked at me, her lower lip trembling. “He could have loved me the way Maura and Mia love her. I really fucked up, Janine.”

My eyes felt scratchy behind my eyelids. I wasn’t used to seeing Aurora cry or hearing such devastation in her voice. She never second-guessed herself. She was the tough one. We cried on her shoulder, not the other way around.

“You can’t go back,” I told her. I leaned my forearms on the wet rail. “You can’t change what you did. But you
can
go forward.” I glanced at her and then out over the dunes. A rabbit hopped through the swaying sea grass.

Fritz spotted him and made a grumble in his throat, pushing his muzzle between two vertical rails. It wasn’t a growl. He was better disciplined than that, but his canine instincts were still there.

“Have a seat, boy,” I said, my voice low.

He dropped to his haunches. It was beginning to rain harder, but his thick coat shed the water easily.

Me, on the other hand—my hair was getting wet. It was beginning to stick to my face and the back of my neck.

“I don’t know how to move forward,” Aurora whispered. “How do you make up for twenty-some years of being a shitty person?”

“You’re not a shitty person.” I felt like I should put my arm around her or take her hand. Something. But I wasn’t good at that. I wasn’t like Lilly, who kissed everyone hello and good-bye. Hugged in line at the grocery store. So I just stood there, feeling like an idiot, feeling like my own heart was breaking with hers. “You’re not a shitty person,” I repeated.

“I’m a shitty mom,” she said.

“Okay, so you are that,” I agreed.

We both laughed. Which was kind of warped.

She sniffed. “You guys should have told me not to leave him.”

“We did. Don’t you remember? All of us were in your hospital bed. We stayed all night. Even when the nurse threatened to call security.”

“Then you shouldn’t have let me do it.”

“What?” I looked at her. “I should have handcuffed you to his bassinet?”

“If you had to.”

I didn’t respond. Even though it sounded like she was trying to blame me for her abandoning her kid, I knew she wasn’t. And the thing was, over the years, I did sometimes feel as if I didn’t do enough to keep her and Jude together. And that’s on me. Always will be.

In a way, Aurora abandoning Jude had been the easy way out, not just for her, but for us, too. I could imagine how messy that would have been, Aurora with a baby, with a toddler, a middle schooler. He would have ended up at our homes more than hers. Especially since she didn’t really have a home.

“What I’m trying to say,” I told her, “and doing it badly, is that if you want a relationship with Jude, it’s not too late.”

“It is.” Her voice broke again.

“It isn’t. I mean, okay, it’s too late to be his mom, but maybe . . . maybe you can be something else, Aurora.
Someone
else. Maybe just his friend.”

Another silence stretched between us. We just stood there, side by side, looking at the beach, lost in our thoughts. Then it began to rain harder. The temperature started to drop. I was beginning to feel chilled, now that I was soaked through.

“We should go inside,” I finally said. “See how McKenzie is feeling.”

“She looked sick tonight at the table.”

“Yeah. She says it’s nothing. I don’t know. If she doesn’t look better, maybe we should take her home to see her doctor or something.”

“I don’t think she wants to do that.” Aurora turned to me, leaning against the rail. She looked thin, too thin, with her hair and clothes plastered to her skin.

“So maybe we shouldn’t give her a choice. She’s so weak.” I glanced in the direction of the living room. “I could probably pick her up and carry her ass out of here.”

“She has a right to do this the way she wants to.” Aurora sounded better. More like her usual self. Nothing suited her better than a good argument. “You don’t—
we
don’t—have the right to make her do anything.”

I pushed my hair back, slicking it over my head. Crisis averted, at least temporarily, and I was cold. “I’m going inside. You coming?”

“Race you to the bar.”