The Sunshine Sisters

by Jane Green

  River stares at her, nervous. “So what are you?”

  “I would say probably around eighty-five percent straight, with a fifteen percent possibility of falling in love with a woman. I’ve never met a woman I’ve been attracted to, but as my mother’s daughter, I have to say I can’t rule out the possibility.”

  Lizzy peers at Meredith, who is just walking back into the room. “What about you, Meri? Have you ever had a fantasy about a woman?”

  “Oh, my God, no!” says Meredith. “What on earth are you guys talking about?”

  “I think we should go and see Mom,” says Nell, hoping they don’t know how her heart is pounding as she quickly changes the subject, knowing she’s about to be asked next, knowing she’s not ready for this, not ready to tell her sisters anything. Knowing she won’t be able to hide it if asked. “Mom’s upstairs on her own and we’re supposed to be having dinner with her.”

  “You’re right,” says Lizzy. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to say this, but I’ve been enjoying my time with my sisters so much, I had forgotten why we’re here.”

  “Oh, ha, ha,” says Meredith, used to her sister’s sarcasm.

  But Lizzy looks at her, wide-eyed. “I swear I wasn’t being sarcastic,” she says, earnestly. “I really don’t remember the last time the three of us were together having fun. Billy?” She turns as he looks up. “Don’t write this down.” She turns back to Meredith and Nell. “This has been really nice. We’ve all drifted so far apart, and I have been totally okay with that. I get that we’re all so different, but . . . I’m deeply appreciative of all of us being together now. You’re my family.” She looks at Nell, then Meredith. “Like it or not. It matters.”

  River walks over to them with a grin, his arms outstretched. “Is this when we hug it out?” he says, tilting his head at his mother, who gives him an imperceptible shake of her head. “Come on, Mom. We are family. Let’s hug it out.”

  Lizzy steps in with a grin, as does Nell, with a reluctant smile.

  “Come on, Aunt Meri,” croons River, as Meredith shakes her head then finds herself stepping in, all of them with their arms around each other.

  Nell is the first to break free, awkward with any kind of physical intimacy with her sisters, even if she’s always loved her hugs with River. “Shall we just take food upstairs and eat it in Mom’s bedroom?”

  “Great idea,” says Lizzy. “By the way”—she turns to Daisy, who is watching the family love-in with a large smile on her face—“don’t think you’ve gotten away with it. I did ask you to tell us three things and I haven’t forgotten about the other two. Just in case you were wondering.”

  “I think I’ve told you enough,” Daisy says with a grin. “Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll get more out of me another time!”

  thirty-four

  Lizzy brings Ronni up a smoothie while the others take up their food on plates, pulling chairs up the stairs and placing them around Ronni’s bed so they can all eat together.

  “I wish you could eat,” says Meredith, frowning as her mother pretends to sip at the smoothie when Meredith holds the glass to her lips.

  “Don’t worry, dear. I’m not hungry,” says Ronni, looking at her family around her bed with a big smile. “That looks delicious. Lizzy, you’re such a good girl, cooking for everyone.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Lizzy says quickly. “Meredith, it turns out, is quite the cook as well. I have no idea how you managed to raise the two of us, but it seems I’m not the only one who knows how to make delicious food.”

  Meredith flushes with pleasure at the compliment, but their mother ignores it. “The smoothie is delicious,” she says to Lizzy, even though everyone can see she hasn’t actually tasted it.

  Meredith feels like she is going to cry. Once again, all these years later, her mother has to put her down by ignoring her, bestowing the few compliments she chooses to give to Lizzy. Once again, all these years later, it still hurts.

  “The chicken is better,” says Lizzy pointedly. “Anyone can make a smoothie.”

  “Don’t put yourself down, darling,” says Ronni.

  “Don’t put your other daughter down,” says Lizzy, staring at her mother in what would have been a confrontational way had Ronni not looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” Ronni says, looking at Meredith, who stares at her mother, not sure she has ever heard her apologize before. “I didn’t mean that your chicken isn’t delicious. I wish I could taste it, but I’m not good with solid foods these days.”

  “Think of the weight you’ll lose,” says River, who is sitting on the bed and seems to have not noticed, or decided to joke around, the fact that his grandmother is already half her normal body weight. “You could start a new diet! The Ronni Sunshine eat-nothing-and-drop-ten-pounds-a-week diet! You could become the next Dr. Atkins. The Sunshine diet!”

  “You mean I could finally make my fortune?”

  The girls all tilt their heads. This was the touchiest of subjects that they all always avoided. One would have thought that after Ronni Sunshine’s career, their family would be loaded, millionaires. But their mother went to great pains to explain they had only ever been comfortable, and it was only because Ronni kept working. Ronni always kept working.

  “I love having you all here,” says Ronni, looking at each of her girls, her grandson, graciously avoiding the subject yet again. “And there is something important I have to tell you.”

  “It’s MS, isn’t it?” Lizzy says, jumping in.

  “No. It’s not MS.”

  “It’s something like that, though?” Lizzy is the only one talking, though the other two are staring at their mother, waiting.

  “It is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.”

  “What is that?” whispers Meredith.

  “Oh, fuck,” says Lizzy, the color draining from her face. “It’s ALS. Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

  “You mean it’s fatal?” says River, shocked. “You’re going to die?”

  Ronni looks at him. “Everyone’s going to die, my darling. I’m just going to die a little sooner than I would have liked.”

  A hush falls upon the room. Forks are put down, and they each stare into space, letting the words settle on their shoulders, seep into their skin.

  Meredith is silently leaking tears as her shoulders start shaking. She refuses to let the tears out, calmed only when she feels Billy’s hand gently stroking her back. She concentrates on breathing in through her nose, and out through her mouth, until she calms down.

  Nell is silent, as always, but she goes to put her hand on River’s shoulder. He is looking at his grandmother with sorrow and concern.

  “How soon?” says Lizzy, her face impassive.

  “This week.”

  “What? How can you possibly know that? There’s no way you’re going to die this week—that’s absurd.” Her phone is already in hand, her fingers flying across the screen as she Googles. “I understand you don’t feel like eating, but there are so many new treatments for everything now. There’s no way you’re going to die this week. Look at Stephen Hawking,” she says. “It’s exactly what he has and he’s had it forever. This doesn’t mean . . . We don’t know what it means. People are working on research and cures all the time; they’re finding new drugs all the time. Look at the new immunotherapy drugs for stage four melanoma. It used to be a death sentence and now people are finding themselves cancer free. It may not be terrible . . .”

  “Lizzy.” Their mother’s voice is surprisingly strong. “Even if by some miracle my life was prolonged in the way Stephen Hawking’s has been, do you think I would want to live like that? In a wheelchair, paralyzed, with a voice box and a feeding tube? I’ve lost the use of my legs, and it is spreading. Fast.”

  “How long have you known?” Meredith asks, her voice shaking.

  “About two months. But apparently I’ve had
it a long time. We just didn’t know what the symptoms meant. And trust me, I have done all the research and I am out of options. There is nothing that can be done.”

  “The weakness,” Nell says dully, trying to help her sisters walk through the reality of this news. “The dizziness.”

  “The fatigue,” says Meredith, sick with guilt for not insisting their mother have more tests, get to the bottom of it when all the MRIs, EKGs, scans, and blood work showed nothing. Not that it would have made a difference.

  “Are they quite sure?” says Lizzy. “Are they sure it’s not something else?”

  “They are sure,” says Ronni. “And as time progresses I will lose everything—my ability to walk, to eat, to breathe. But my brain will be intact, so I will know exactly what’s going on. I will be a prisoner in my own body.”

  “What do we do?” wails Meredith suddenly. “What can we do?”

  Lizzy goes to put her arm around her sister as Ronni looks at each of her daughters, then takes a deep breath. “That’s why you’re here. I want three more days with my family, and then I want you all to help me take my own life.”

  There is silence.

  “You’re kidding, right?” says Lizzy, snorting before shaking her head. “You’re not kidding?”

  “I am sadly not kidding. The paralysis on my left side is spreading, and soon I will be completely unable to move, then unable to breathe on my own. I will know exactly what’s going on, but will not be able to speak or otherwise communicate. I have been living with this diagnosis for some time, and I have thought long and hard about what I want and do not want, and what I am going to do. And what I am going to do is to leave this world in the way I choose, on my terms, with my daughters by my side.”

  “You’re asking us to help kill you?” Meredith is in shock.

  “I was thinking of asking a right-to-die advocate to come and help me. I thought about having someone with me, but I don’t want a stranger here. Other than you, Billy.” She flashes him a smile. “I want my girls. I want to spend as much time as I can over the next three days with you, even though I still get very dizzy and tired.” She paused. “What I want most is for you to not try and talk me out of it.” She sighs and sinks back into the pillows. “I’m sorry. I’m tired already. I am glad you’re all here, and I hope you can do this for me. I know I haven’t been the best of mothers, but I have always loved you. So much.” She closes her eyes.

  “No fucking way.” Lizzy stands up abruptly, making Meredith jump. “I don’t accept this. I might be willing to consider assisted suicide, but only after we have exhausted every other option. Three days? I’ve never heard of anything so awful. You’re granting us three days before having us kill you?” She starts pacing the room. “How are we expected to live with that on our conscience for the rest of our lives? You’re right that you may not have been perfect, but you’re our mother and there’s no way we could live with ourselves knowing that we hadn’t explored everything. There are new treatments for all kinds of diseases that were once fatal. Who knows what they’re developing in Germany or, I don’t know, the Philippines? I will not agree to this until we have explored everything. Three days? No fucking way.”

  Lizzy turns and runs out of the room, as Nell and Meredith exchange glances.

  “I’ll go after her,” says Nell, who leaves but doesn’t follow Lizzy down the stairs. Instead she leans against the wall outside her mother’s bedroom, relieved she is no longer carrying the burden alone, and shocked. It is now becoming real. Tears trickle down her cheeks as she realizes that Lizzy is right. She may not have been perfect, but she is the only mother they have. She can hear Meredith sobbing from inside the bedroom, as her mother tries to reassure her. River comes out, choking back tears, and Nell takes him in her arms.

  • • •

  An hour later, when she has calmed down, Lizzy goes back into the bedroom, embarrassed that her first reaction was anger. Her first reaction is always anger, she is coming to realize. When she is scared or anxious or sad, the only way she knows to express it is through anger. And later, as always, she is sorry. Everyone left the room when Ronni became tired, but Lizzy waits.

  Her mother is lying there in the semidarkness, her eyes closed. Lizzy feels her eyes fill with tears, and sits on the chair next to the bed. As she does so, her mother’s eyes fly open and settle on her youngest daughter.

  “I thought you were asleep,” says Lizzy, her voice breaking. “I was just going to sit here for a bit. I’ve found places that are doing experimental stem cell treatment . . .”

  “Shh,” says Ronni. “Not now.”

  Lizzy stops talking, even though doing something—searching online, making phone calls—makes her feel less helpless. It might be the only way she can cope with such momentous news.

  “Why aren’t you asleep?” whispers Lizzy.

  “I don’t sleep well at night,” says Ronni. “I’m exhausted all the time, but at night I get these terrible leg cramps, like the worst charley horses you can imagine.”

  “Can I bring you a painkiller?” says Lizzy.

  “Yes, please. They’re somewhere downstairs. Bring me four.”

  “Four? Why four? You’re not going to kill yourself with four, are you?”

  “No. That’s what I need to help. I’ll space them out throughout the night. One every four or five hours. Two if it gets really bad.”

  Lizzy goes downstairs to the corner of the kitchen where the pill bottle is kept. The label says one to two. She empties three into the palm of her hand and pours some water into a glass.

  In the room, her mother motions for her to put it all on the nightstand. “It’s a little better,” she says. “I’ll take them during the night when they wake me. If I can ever get to sleep,” she adds.

  Lizzy looks at her mother. “I have something that may make you sleep,” she says slowly. “It’s an e-cigarette.”

  “Darling, I haven’t smoked in years,” says Ronni. “I can’t imagine I’m going to start now. Although it might be nice to spend the last three days doing all the vices I once gave up. Do you have any cocaine?”

  “Mom!” says Lizzy, pausing and leaning closer. “Are you serious? Because I can get some . . .”

  “No, I’m not serious,” she murmurs, smiling at her joke.

  “But I do have medical marijuana,” says Lizzy. “That’s what that e-cigarette is. And it will help you sleep like a baby.”

  “Really?” Ronni is skeptical. “Where did you get it?”

  “From a friend. Apparently there’s a dispensary somewhere around here so we can get you a card and get some closer to home.”

  Lizzy refuses to consider the thought that her mother might be serious about three more days. If she gives her enough options, surely she can change her mind. “This stuff”—she reaches into the back pocket of her pants and pulls out a slender black metal cigarette—“is the good stuff. This is sent to me by a friend in Colorado. Here. If I hold it to your mouth, sip on it. Don’t take a huge draw, just take sips.”

  She reaches forward and holds it to her mother’s lips, as her mother inhales.

  “Sip, Mom. Sip.”

  Her mother coughs a little, and Lizzy holds a glass of water to her mouth, before her mother indicates she wants some more. Lizzy holds the e-cigarette up again, and her mother sips this time, then sinks back with a smile.

  “I feel tingly,” she says. “In a good way rather than bad.”

  “Nice, right?” says Lizzy, smiling.

  “It’s very good,” says her mother, looking peaceful for the first time that night. “Tell me about you, Lizzy. What’s the real stuff?”

  Lizzy nods. She knows what her mother means. “I’m having an affair with my business partner, a married man, and James found out and made me promise to end it. I did, and agreed to do couples counseling and work on our marriage. But then it started
again, and this time he doesn’t know, and our marriage feels dead in the water. We feel like two people who have completely lost sight of why we are together, and we have grown so far apart, I don’t honestly think there’s any chance of us getting back together again. And then I have Connor, who I love so much, and I don’t want to hurt him by making him a child of divorce, but I worry I’m hurting him more by staying in something that is a farce. And I worry that I’m a terrible mother, that I’m causing him permanent damage because I don’t seem to have the mothering gene, and . . .” She stops and takes a deep breath, then another hit on the e-cigarette. “What do you think, Mom?” Lizzy is aware that she has never asked her mother’s advice in her adult life. “What should I do?”

  “I don’t know.” Ronni smiles, her eyes closing. “But I trust you to find the right answer.”

  Lizzy is at first stunned at her words. Certainly not the kind of thing her very judgmental mother ever said to her before.

  “You were always my favorite, Lizzy,” she adds. “You know that. Don’t tell your sisters. You’re my driven little firecracker, so talented, so ambitious, so gorgeous. I have no doubt life will unfold in the right way for you.” She pauses for a minute, then whispers, “But, my God, I wish I had raised you differently.”

  Lizzy chuckles. “Been a better mother? Don’t worry about it. I turned out pretty good.”

  “No,” says her mother, turning her head to gaze at her daughter. “You didn’t. I spoiled you, in every sense of the word. I love you, but you’ve grown up to be selfish, to step all over people, to never worry about consequences. You think you can get away with everything, and you hurt people. You have no idea how much you are hurting your husband.”

  Lizzy stares at her mother as guilt and anger combine. Did she know before today? How could she have known?

  “What are you talking about?” Lizzy says slowly.