by Karin Cook
“Want a bite?” he asked. He tilted his head the way he tilted the cruller, forward and questioning.
I shook my head.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m tired. We set up our tree last night.”
Even though Jamie didn’t talk much, he never let me get away with silence. “So?” he pressed.
“It’s a live one,” I said, “with the roots and everything.”
“That’s cool.” He fingered the new evergreen air freshener that hung from a knob on his dashboard. At the stoplight nearest the junior high, he looked up at me. “That all?”
“I can’t wait for this vacation to be over,” I said.
“Are you kidding?” He stared at me. “There’s definitely something wrong with you. I would give anything to be at your house.”
I could see something soften in his face. It made me edgy to have someone notice me fully. I knew that if I told anyone how I felt, I would slip right off the edge of the earth.
On Christmas Eve, Lainey assembled a large basket of gifts, each wrapped in a different color paper. In the card, she pasted a picture of the human body from an anatomy book. There were color stickers on various parts of the body with names written inside. It looked like a diagram of pressure points from my science textbook. Mama would have to match up each present with the colored dot in order to find out what part of the body it was intended for and who it was from. “The new you in the new year,” Lainey wrote in bubble letters across the top of the card.
The next morning, Elizabeth and I got up early and went downstairs. We were surprised to find that the red skirt under the tree held a few gifts from Uncle Rand. We raced around the house scoping out items that could be wrapped up and given as gifts from us. Mama had always encouraged this kind of giving. She stressed that the most important part of any gift was the card. It was what made something special out of something familiar, what made it all right to wrap up socks and toiletries. To give things that the person might get for herself anyway. The card was the part we would remember and save after the gift had made its way into the routine of our day. We wrapped our findings with a flourish, writing up cards and tying candy and costume jewelry onto the package with Elizabeth’s brightly colored hair ribbons.
When we finished, it was almost time for the guests to arrive. We carried our gifts down the stairs and spread them out under the tree. Mama was startled to see so many presents, but pleased too. “How did all this come about?” she asked. She was wearing her bathrobe with thermals underneath. Her wig looked scraggly and unkempt.
For months, I had just accepted her treatments as a part of life. But now that it was Christmas morning, I could recall what it had been like before, when we celebrated with stockings and carefully wrapped packages with bows. Mama had always worn a red Santa’s hat with white trim and small bells tied on her shoelaces. One year, she’d hidden our gifts in the yard, everything magic, her face flushed with excitement, ready to surprise us.
When Mama saw the guests coming up the path from the garage, she gasped and ducked up the staircase. Mrs. Teuffel looked like a giant bow, swathed from top to bottom in tartan. Lainey was dressed up too, in heels and a red dress, on her way to a family party on the South Shore. She was carrying the basket of gifts. Nick had invited Jamie, who looked awkward in khaki pants and a Fair Isle sweater. It was the first time I had seen him in anything but jeans. Uncle Rand quickly fixed up a tray of bagels and coffee and set it out on the table in the living room.
Mama came down wearing makeup and a black wraparound skirt with a green sweater. She tied a red ribbon around the band of her wig. “What is going on here?” she asked, greeting everyone with a kiss.
“We’re here to celebrate the end of that blasted chemotherapy,” Mrs. Teuffel said. It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone actually say the word out loud. I guessed it was easier to talk about now that it was over.
Mama withdrew initially, a bit stung by the announcement, and then softened. “Well, I suppose that does warrant a celebration.”
Lainey made the presentation, describing the theme and how to match the card to the gifts. Mama seemed nervous at first; she fidgeted with her skirt and looked everywhere but at Lainey. She didn’t like being the focus of attention. Once the gifts started coming, it gave her something to do. She relaxed into the method, matching up the colored dots and announcing each gift as she opened it.
Inside the blue wrapping was an envelope from Jamie. His dot rested smack across the mouth on the diagram. He rubbed his palms on his pants while he waited. There was a business card in the envelope. DR. ANTHONY SCHNER, ORTHODONTIST, it said. Mama looked confused.
Jamie sat up and pointed at the diagram. “You can get your teeth cleaned for free,” he said. “My mother works there. She arranged it.”
Mama rubbed her tongue on her teeth. “I could use that,” she said. “Thank you, Jamie!”
He sank back into the fold of the couch, too shy to look up in the wake of all that pressure. I watched him out of the corner of my eye until he gave me a sly glance, checking to see if I approved of his gift.
Mrs. Teuffel walked right up next to Mama when she got around to opening her gift. As Mama struggled to untie the gold ribbon from the tissue paper, Mrs. Teuffel practically lifted it out of her hands. Together they pulled at the paper and revealed a giant Weight Watchers mug with a membership card inside.
“Water is the mainstay of the diet,” Mrs. Teuffel said. “Lots of it.”
“Really?” Mama said, turning the mug in her hand.
“Drink four of these a day,” she said. “In fact that’s all I do to stay trim. That and walking.”
Elizabeth’s eyes were on Mrs. Teuffel’s midriff, large and barrel shaped. Mama passed the mug to her left. Jamie picked out the membership card, read it and put it back.
The green box was from Elizabeth. “Don’t be mad,” she said just before Mama went to open it.
Elizabeth had commissioned Lainey to spruce up Mama’s synthetic wig with the hair from Mama’s old ponytail. Lainey created an entire set of professional-looking hairpieces and displayed them on a special rack. One spray of hair was stapled to a plaid headband, another batch was glued to the insides of barrettes. They looked kind of like the hooks that are used for fly fishing. She even sewed some Velcro bangs into one of Mama’s turbans. In a plastic Baggie was a small bun that was designed to cover any future thin spots. It looked like a bird’s nest.
Lainey went over each one, gesturing back and forth between Mama’s head and the pieces with her long, painted fingernails. After each description, Elizabeth held them up to Mama’s wig, clipping a couple on to the hair in order to demonstrate.
“That was very thoughtful, sweetie,” Mama said and opened her arms for a hug. Elizabeth went over and Mama held her. But when I looked at her face, I saw how exhausted she was and took my present away from the stack, slipping it under my chair.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth asked.
“It has to be opened in private,” I said. But I knew that I wasn’t ever going to give Mama the gift I had made for her.
Lainey’s present was next, another envelope with a gift certificate inside.
“Ladies, Ladies, Ladies,” Mama read off the card, “full body fitness.”
“It’s not just a gym,” Lainey said, “it’s a way of life.”
Mama raised her eyebrows in interest. “You all are too kind, really,” she said. “Doesn’t anyone else want to open any gifts?”
“We’re not quite done,” Nick said.
Mama opened an IOU from Uncle Rand, an offer to paint the station wagon the color of her choice as soon as spring came. Everyone pitched in his or her ideas as to what color the car should be.
“Maybe silver,” Mama said.
“There’s one more,” Nick said and picked up his gift to Mama—a small box wrapped in gold paper. He tossed it in the air and caught it, twice, before handing it t
o her. He seemed both confident and nervous at the same time. He paced around the room while she fumbled with the tape. He smiled a big smile as he tried to catch my eye and then Elizabeth’s.
“Move closer, girls,” he suggested.
Mama opened the box and stared inside without speaking. Her face grew serious, as if she might cry.
“What is it?” Elizabeth shouted in a voice too loud for the quiet room.
Lainey held up the diagram and pointed to the gold dot on the figure’s hand. I leaned over and looked inside the box. She was right. Resting on a bed of pine needles, was a gold ring with one diamond chip set into the band. Mama looked up at Nick and shook her head. She tried to fit the ring on each of her fingers, but they were still swollen from the hormone therapy. Finally, she slipped it on her left pinkie.
Right there in front of everyone, Nick got down on one knee. “Be mine,” he said, “till the end of time.”
Mama leapt up from her seat, moving with the grace of her old self and wrapped her arms around him. They held each other for a long time, the rest of us watching on, not moving, afraid perhaps to break the spell. Nick squeezed Mama’s hand and patted the ring on her finger. A hair clip dangled by one strand of the wig, swinging back and forth by her ear.
I squeezed my eyes tightly closed and then opened them, trying to will Mama back to me. It seemed that with each day she slipped further and further away. After a moment, Mrs. Teuffel cleared her throat, crossed and recrossed her legs. Mama excused herself, said she was feeling a little weepy, and Uncle Rand jumped up to pour the coffee. I hated that Nick had done that in front of all those people. I looked to Elizabeth for a reaction, but she was busy trying coffee for the first time. She took a baby sip and grimaced at the taste. She tilted the mug near her face to feel the steam on her skin. Before long, Lainey was looking at her watch, amazed at how the time had flown. The group quickly dispersed, kissing Nick and calling out congratulations to Mama. Uncle Rand stood up and closed the door behind them.
I didn’t say good-bye to anyone.
Suddenly, the house fell quiet, a lonely kind of hush that made me sad. Even Mama seemed subdued when she came back into the room to gather her presents. She balled up the wrapping paper, stopping every once in a while to look at her hand and then at Nick.
“You sure you want to marry someone that needs this much of an overhaul?” she asked surveying her gifts.
“If the girls give their permission,” Nick said, looking to each of us for approval. “What do you say, gang? How about a spring wedding?”
I couldn’t believe this was happening. I had barely survived the move, then Mama being sick, and now Nick was threatening to become our father. It was as if they had been planning it all along. I felt tricked. Elizabeth didn’t even seem surprised. She jumped up and down in front of the couch like a little girl. For some reason, I felt more like crying.
“Come on, what do you say, girls?” Mama asked.
“Yea,” Elizabeth cheered.
“Tilden?”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Whenever you want.”
There was a strained silence during which Mama flagged everyone to go back to what they were doing. Uncle Rand chose the moment to hand Elizabeth and me matching gift boxes.
“Simultaneous opening,” he said, which meant that it was probably the same thing. I knew this and didn’t bother racing Elizabeth to be the first to get through the paper. She tore the wrapping at both ends, revealing the Victoria’s Secret emblem and then lifting the lid of the box to find the brightly colored silk underwear. She held them up to herself. The tissue paper smelled like potpourri.
“Thanks,” she said, and threw the underwear on the coffee table.
I leaned over and touched the slippery fabric. It embarrassed me. I hurried up to my room, where I stashed my balled-up silk underwear next to Mama’s unopened present at the back of my closet.
Later, when Samantha called to find out what I had gotten for Christmas, I lied. “A stereo,” I told her, “with a cassette player.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I said, “it’s on order.”
She started to ask me something and then stopped. “I got a Polaroid camera,” she said. “Everybody came over. It was so boring.”
I felt jealous of Samantha, but not in the usual way. I wanted my life to be like hers. The simplicity of a family that had been together always. A normal holiday—one where a family did the same thing year after year, had traditions and tinsel—with a mother who didn’t get married in the middle of everything.
PRIMARY CARE
As soon as Mama seemed stronger, Elizabeth began getting strange stomach pains and headaches. Unexplained nausea and fever. Even Ms. Penny, the school nurse at Brooklawn Elementary, seemed concerned. She called one afternoon in February because Elizabeth had been coming to her during the first two months of the year to get her feminine protection. She wanted to know if there was a problem supplying these items at home. She recalled that Mama had not been present at the period movie the year before. She wanted to know if everything was all right.
I heard this information secondhand from Mama when she took me for a drive to find out how much I knew. She drove on the expressway, in the direction of New York City, for three towns before exiting and broaching the subject. She was agitated, her foot heavy on the gas and then the brake, lurching and halting. She was silent as we drove past the car dealerships, garden supply stores, and shopping centers that zoomed by before I could read their names. I studied the new calico hair peeking out from the edge of Mama’s wig and waited.
“What has Elizabeth told you?” Mama said finally and looked at me.
I turned away and stared out the window. Elizabeth hadn’t told me anything. In fact, since Christmas, we had rarely talked at all except to trade off chores and decide who got the first shower each morning. But I knew that the way she was acting had everything to do with getting Mama’s attention. I’d had the urge to stay home sick myself, wanting Mama to feel my head for a fever, to make ice cubes out of Coke, and set me up on the couch with a TV tray in the den.
She waited for me to say something and when I didn’t, she raised her voice. “Tilden, I’m talking to you. When did she get her period?”
The louder Mama’s voice, the more private I became. “I don’t remember,” I said, “before Christmas, I guess.”
“She told you?” Her voice was thin with an edge of panic. The question seemed more like an accusation.
“Not really. I kind of walked in on her.”
Mama grew quiet in a way that made her seem angry and then sad. “Do you have yours?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Would you tell me if you did?”
I nodded.
We were quiet for a moment.
“Why didn’t Elizabeth?”
“I guess because it was in the middle of everything. You were busy …” I drifted off, trying to remember how it had been before Mama’s procedure. Even though the follow-up was finished and the side effects had lessened, she still seemed distracted.
“Why not now?” Mama asked. “I’m not so … busy now.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe she feels bad because I haven’t gotten mine.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, dismissing me and then caught my eye. “You don’t feel bad, do you?”
I cried—more from the relief of being asked than from how terrible I felt.
“Oh no,” Mama said, reaching her hand out to me, “don’t cry.” I cried harder, collapsing into her lap as she drove. “Oh sweetie,” she cooed and brushed her hand over the side of my face. “There, there.”
It had been a long time since I felt her attention so completely. I buried my face in her skirt, letting her stroke the top of my head, her cool fingernails running through my grown-out Artichoke and combing my scalp. I didn’t ever want to move.
Before we moved in with Nick, when Elizabeth and I wanted to stay home
from school, we would crawl in bed with Mama first thing in the morning and wait as she pulled the comforter over all three of our heads. A sleepy tent, she called it, letting us snuggle next to her, the warmth of our bodies seeping through our cloth nighties. We didn’t pretend to be sick. It was enough to want a day together, the three of us nestled against the world. Now, with Nick it seemed there had to be an explanation for everything. A reason.
Mama decided that the best way to put an end to the ailments and reassure both me and Elizabeth that we were normal was for us to talk to a doctor. She set up an appointment the following week for which we each got to miss a half day of school. As children, Mama prepared us for the doctor by doing things we might not normally do. It was the way I imagined that some families went off to church, freshly scrubbed and brushed and tucked, an awkward clean that made me feel not quite myself. It was never clear to me whether we were to strive for sickness or health in our doctor’s presence. My pediatrician said things like “good solid cough” and “impressive throat.”
Elizabeth stayed in the bathroom that morning for forty minutes, running water constantly and refusing to unlock the door. Uncle Rand walked by me in only a towel.
“What’s she doing in there?” he asked. He pretended to hip-check the door.
“Who knows,” I said.
“I’m going downstairs.” He tucked the towel at his waist. “I have to pee.”
Uncle Rand always gave me more information than I really needed. I waited until he walked down the stairs and then banged loudly on the bathroom door.
“Just a minute.” Elizabeth slammed the cabinets and flushed the toilet before opening the door.
“What took you so long?” I asked.
“I was cleaning myself,” she said and flashed her pink-flowered box at me. “Inside.”
Elizabeth and I had both gotten a message early on that there was something slightly romantic about doctors—not about their work so much, but their person. Mama always dressed for them, dabbing a bit of perfume first behind each of her earlobes and then ours. Perhaps it was like this for Catholic women with their priests. Having one wise and constant presence. Someone to return to on occasion to chart your growth. It meant someone else looking out for you in the world, one other person who knew all the pertinent information. Like a father.