As Close as Sisters

by Colleen Faulkner

  “So you want to talk about it or not?” she prodded. “You don’t have to. We’re going to have to rehash it all tomorrow night. But I thought you might—”

  “Want to take a dry run? Is that what you’re asking me?” I’ve set my plate aside. I thought I was hungry, but after a few bites, I wasn’t. The new medication did that to me. She drew her knees up to her chest. “Now who’s the funny one?” She gazed out over the dunes. She looked so serious.

  Together, we watched the waves tumble in, one after the other. The tide was coming in. From the waterline on the beach, in relationship to the little picket fence in the dunes, I guessed that high tide would be in another two hours. Nine-ish. I made a mental note. I marked my days here at the beach house by the rise and fall of the tides.

  I remembered, from a family vacation in Hatteras, my dad showing me a tide chart. I was nine or ten. He explained how the gravitational attraction of the moon caused the ocean to bulge toward the moon and how, on the other side of the world, it was doing the same thing. There are twelve hours and twenty-five minutes between each high tide. It would be low tide around three tomorrow.

  My gaze caught Aurora’s. She was watching me now. Waiting.

  “We don’t have to talk about it,” I said. But I realized that I did want to. Maybe I did need a dry run. Tomorrow night would be the first time we’d all been together since the death knell officially began. Last summer we’d all been so hopeful. We thought I just had a measly little case of thyroid cancer in my thyroid.

  Tomorrow there would be tears. A flood of tears . . . hugs all around . . . several times. Maybe I needed to tell the story without the tears. This was something else I can always count on with Aurora; she wouldn’t dissolve. I couldn’t decide if that was because she was such a selfish person or such an unselfish person. Could you be both?

  Aurora sat back to listen.

  “Not a lot to say.” I feel like I’ve told this story a million times. “After I had my thyroid removed, we thought I might be in the clear. I wasn’t. The cancer cells drifted into my lungs,” I explained. They say it that way. Drifted. Like it wasn’t an assault.

  I was quiet for a minute. So was Aurora. I went on. “It’s thyroid cancer, but in my lungs. The scans look crazy. Little starbursts of tumors, filling my lungs.” I took a sip of wine. “That’s what’s making it hard for me to breathe. The tumors are filling up the space where air should go. There’s no cure. No treatment. Eventually the tumors will fill my lungs and then . . . then they’ll kill me,” I added matter-of-factly.

  “What about the nuclear radiation pill you took when it was in your throat?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “A no-go. Thyroid cancer cells are, apparently, tricky. They know how to morph or something. I still don’t quite understand.” I raised my hand and let it fall. “The cancer cells are somehow different now that they’re in my lungs. The nuclear stuff can’t find them, so it can’t stick to them, so it can’t kill them.”

  “Fuckers,” Aurora muttered.

  I smiled.

  “So now?”

  “So now, the doctors will make me comfortable until I die.” I exhaled, looking into my nearly empty glass. Aurora gave me a refill. We were both quiet. Another thing I’ve always loved about Aurora. She doesn’t feel the need to constantly talk.

  I swirled my wine and watched it form a tidal pool in my glass. I sipped it. I was waiting for the question How long? How long do you have to live? How long before I need a dress for your funeral?

  But Aurora didn’t ask. She just gazed out at the ocean. She probably already had an appropriate black dress.

  I took a deep breath and relaxed in my chair. The sun wouldn’t set for more than an hour, but it was well behind us now and the sky was darkening.

  After what seemed like a very long time, Aurora said, “I’d take it from you if I could.” Again she was quiet. Then, “Your cancer.”

  My eyes felt scratchy behind the lids. I’m not a crier. What tears I had, I tell people, I’ve already cried. As if we’re born with a certain number of tears in our eyes, like eggs in our ovaries. Maybe I was just afraid that if I started crying now, I’d never stop. I didn’t want to live out the rest of my days, however many there were, crying.

  “I’d die for you,” Aurora said. “I’d do it. I wish I could do it,” she added softly.

  “I know.”

  My mother said the same thing when I told her that I was terminal. She cried buckets. She said it wasn’t fair that she was old and useless and I was still young, with children to raise. But there was something different about Aurora’s tone when she told me that. It was as if . . . she was more than willing to die, that she . . . I don’t know . . . she really wanted to. Which made no sense. She had a perfect life: famous, rich . . . and then there was Fortunato and his wang.

  I realized my thoughts weren’t making sense. It was probably the wine. I was feeling tipsy. The combination of the wine and the meds. I was most definitely not supposed to have three glasses.

  I looked at Aurora. She seemed so sad.

  This was one of the most difficult things for me about having cancer. I felt as if I were making so many people sad. Hurting so many people. Me, I got to die. They—those I love—have to stay. They have to carry my death with them for many years to come.

  “I . . . haven’t told anyone this,” I heard myself say. “But . . . I’m taking part in a drug trial.”

  She shifted her attention to me again.

  “At UPenn.” I set my glass down. “They’re hoping the drug will slow the growth of the tumors. Maybe even reduce their size.”

  Aurora unfolded her long legs and stood, holding a finger up, telling me to hold that thought.

  She was back in two minutes with another bottle of wine and the corkscrew. “So the doctors have had good luck with this drug?”

  I shook my head. “It’s a drug trial, meaning the doctors are basically taking a wild stab in the dark and need some human guinea pigs.” I stopped and started again. “Not exactly. The whole process for creating a drug and getting it approved by the FDA is very complicated and takes years. There’s been some evidence—in lab rats probably—that this drug I’m taking might have an effect on this type of cancer growth.”

  “So it might work?” she asked.

  “Someday. For someone. I know it’s too late for me, but I agreed to be a part of the study because I like the idea of possibly helping someone else, someday.”

  “Why haven’t you told anyone?” she asked as she stripped the foil from around the cork.

  “I can’t.”

  She waited.

  “Nothing else has worked, Aurora. This isn’t going to work. It’s a drug trial, not a cure.” I shook my head. “I can’t tell you how many second opinions I’ve gotten. How many oncologists I’ve seen. I can’t do that to my parents, to my girls. I can’t do it to Lilly and Janine. I can’t give them hope, not when there is none.”

  Aurora held the wine bottle between her bare thighs and used a simple plastic corkscrew—the kind you picked up at the counter in the liquor store and carried in your purse. She pulled on the cork, and it came free with a delicious pop. “But you can crush my hope?”

  “I’m sorry.” I glanced at my hands resting in my lap. “It’s just that you’re the strong one. The brave one. I guess . . . I needed to tell someone, and I know you . . . you won’t act crazy and start planning my fiftieth birthday or anything.”

  She raised the bottle to offer me another glass.

  I covered my glass with my hand. I’d had enough. “I’m sorry,” I said again. Now I felt bad. “I didn’t mean to dump this on you.” I hesitated and went on. “Please don’t tell them. Lilly and Janine. Or my girls.”

  “You know I won’t.”

  “I know.” I watched her pour herself another full glass of wine. And these were big glasses. The kind without the stems. “You’re good with secrets. You never told anyone I made out with Kandy Delacroix at her s
ixteenth birthday party.”

  Aurora grinned. Raised her glass in toast. “That’s because I made out with her that night, too.”

  I laughed. Hard. The kind of laugh that comes from deep in your belly. I didn’t know why that delighted me, but it did. We were sixteen. We weren’t lesbians; we were just exploring our sexuality. And our drinking limits. I wondered if either of my daughters has ever made out with a girl. I knew I’ll never be able to ask them. We get along well, for a dying mother and her daughters, but there were lines we will never cross. Asking them if they ever kissed a girl would be over the line.

  I laughed until tears came to my eyes. “I’ll be right back,” I said, getting out of my chair. I needed to use the bathroom.

  “Then maybe a walk on the beach?” Aurora’s dark eyes were on mine again.

  “A short walk. Maybe just down to the water. I’m not much of a walker these days.”

  Aurora rose, glass in hand. She had already drunk half of it. “I’ll carry you. If you get too tired.”

  I grinned, resting my hand on the doorjamb. “I know.”

  2

  Aurora

  She’s dying. Stroke. Glide.

  She’s really dying. Stroke. Glide.

  I could see it. Stroke. Glide.

  Her bald head. Stroke. Glide.

  I lifted my head to breathe deeply. The tangy, ionized air filled my lungs.

  My face hit the cold ocean water again.

  But it wasn’t her hair. Stroke. Glide.

  It was her eyes. Stroke. Glide.

  I saw it in her eyes. Stroke. Glide.

  McKenzie was really dying. Stroke.

  I breathed again.

  My strokes were always choppy when I first hit the water. I was more a crawler than a breaststroker, but tonight, I was feeling it. Needing it.

  Slowly, I found my rhythm. My breath. I cut through the dark water, under the dark sky. I was fifty feet off the shoreline. Invisible in the darkness. I liked the invisibility.

  McKenzie was going to die. The thought drifted from my head, down to my shoulders. I pulled at the water, and the thought drifted out from my fingertips.

  Well, fuck me. McKenzie was really going to die.

  And then how would I live?

  For a moment I let my emotions wash over me like the salt water. The pain. The fear. Sadness so deep that it took my breath away. But I could only hold on to the feelings for a second and then they’re gone. Not my own anymore. They drifted below to the great deep.

  Everyone died sometime, I told myself. I was going to die.

  I closed my eyes. I pulled myself through the water. I tasted the salt in my mouth. It stung my eyes, even with goggles on. Stroke. Glide. Stroke. Glide.

  And I did it again.

  I swam faster. Lifting myself in and out of the water, I propelled myself through the dark, cold water. The ocean was the only place where I could really think.

  I dove off the yacht in the Venice lagoon. Pretty ballsy. Even for me. It was probably close to a mile swim. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal except that I had been drunk and sleep-deprived. And I might have done a line of coke. I’m not sure, even now. It was a miracle I had made it to shore without being chopped up by a boat’s propeller.

  I wondered what Fortunato and his brother thought. When they came back to the cabin in their black leather pants and masks. Found me gone. Not in the bathroom. Not up on the deck. Gone. Over the side. Into the dark, silky water.

  I laughed at the idea and gagged and spit. Broke my stroke. Picked it up again.

  I could have died. In that filthy water that night. Christ knew what was in that water. Sharks, probably.

  But I couldn’t have stayed on the yacht. Not with the human sharks. They were way too coked out. I had let things go too far. Kinky sex was one thing. That, what they wanted, was another.

  I could have died on that boat. It had been smarter to risk it with the sharks and the boat propellers.

  McKenzie was going to die.

  If I had died on the yacht, would McKenzie have been spared?

  Stroke. Glide. Stroke. Glide.

  I did it again and again and again.

  I wondered how far I’d swum. How much time has passed. McKenzie would be pissed if she woke up and found me gone from the house in the middle of the night. Maybe even scared.

  But she knows that I have to swim. I swim or die.

  3

  McKenzie

  My one-piece swimsuit (dark blue—I was living on the wild side two summers ago when I bought blue instead of black) was a little baggy in the butt and boobs, but I had put it on. It was the only one I had.

  As I tugged on my University of Delaware ball cap, I wondered if I should get a new suit. There were plenty of boutiques and swim shops in Albany Beach. There was a nice boardwalk; smaller than in Rehoboth, but it might be fun to go shopping one day. The four of us, for old times’ sake. But that would be a waste of money, wouldn’t it? I always bought good clothing, intending to wear it for years. I wasn’t buying new clothes these days.

  It was ten forty when I walked into the kitchen. I’d slept in. Bad night. Aurora and I didn’t go to bed until one. Then, like every night, my alarm went off on my phone at three a.m. and I took my drug trial medication. It had to be taken on an empty stomach at least an hour after I’ve eaten, with no food for an additional hour. Two doses, twelve hours apart. I fell asleep right after taking the harmless-looking little beige pills, but I woke an hour later feeling as if I’d had three bottles of wine instead of three glasses. The bed had been spinning. The waves of nausea washed over me. I didn’t puke, which was a nice surprise. But I was deathly nauseated. It was so bad that the thought went through my head that if I walked (or more likely, dragged myself ) out into the ocean, I’d be too weak to swim. I could just let myself go under....

  Wouldn’t my mother love that phone call?

  I’d never do it, of course. I wasn’t suicidal. This cancer was going to kill me, but I’d fight it to my last breath. My last glass of wine. The last smiles of my daughters. The hugs of my friends who should have been born my sisters instead of the dud I got.

  There was fresh coffee in a French press on the counter. Aurora. It smelled heavenly. A dark roast. She’d ground the beans this morning; the grinder was still on the counter, surrounded by little brown specks. But I didn’t dare have a cup. Coffee doesn’t stay down first thing in the morning. I needed tea, lots of hot, sweet tea. I added water to the teakettle and sat on a stool at the counter and waited for it to whistle.

  I wondered where Aurora was. She wasn’t in the house or out on the deck. I called to her when I got up. A morning swim maybe. Or she might be hitchhiking to Mexico City. Either way, she wouldn’t leave a note.

  I would never leave the house without leaving a note. Maybe it was the mommy in me.

  The kettle whistled, and I took a tea bag from the box I’d brought. Barry’s Irish Breakfast. Janine had sent it to me. I smiled. She’d sent me four boxes. She knew how I loved my morning tea.

  “Mom, pick up. Mom, pick up,” my phone chirped.

  My daughters set my ringtones.

  I checked the screen before answering. I heard the same ringtone no matter which girl was calling. An image of Mia, sticking her tongue out at me, was on my phone screen. “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  “So what are you guys up to today, Mia?”

  “It’s Maura.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I told you guys you can’t do this to me. You know I can’t tell your voices apart on the phone. My phone says Mia’s calling. I expect Mia.”

  “I can’t find my phone,” Maura said.

  I pushed the tea bag around with a spoon. The mug was in the shape of a woman’s curvy torso, wearing a hot pink bikini. Not my favorite cup (we all have our favorites), but the one closest to me when I opened the cupboard.

  “I warned you. I’m not paying for another phone,” I told Maura. She’d had two since Chris
tmas. I was lying, of course. If she needed a new iPhone, I’d buy it today. A new Maserati? Coming up. A dying mother’s prerogative—to spoil her daughters.

  “It’s upstairs, somewhere,” Maura said dismissively. “Or at Sondra’s. Is everybody there yet? Aunt Aurora?” My girls, particularly Maura, adored Aurora. I knew Maura wished that she were their mom instead of me. She had as much as said so. Aurora was beautiful and cool. She sent good gifts: FAO Schwarz toys when they were younger, Italian shoes and handbags now. And she would never get cancer and die on them. “Aurora’s here, but not here right now. Lilly will be here soon. Janine tonight. When are you coming over to say hi?”

  “Mia! Mom’s on the phone! You wanna talk to her?” my darling daughter hollered.

  I held the phone a few inches from my ear.

  “I don’t know,” Maura said, now talking to me again. “I work ’til ten tonight, Saturday, and Sunday night. We’re going to Sondra’s house tonight. So I guess Monday or Tuesday.”

  “Your father making you stick to your curfew?” I fished the tea bag from my mug. I added sugar but not milk. I couldn’t do dairy, not since I started the drug trial. That was a guaranteed express train to Barfsville.

  “Of course we’re keeping our curfew.” She was using her “sweet Maura” voice.

  She was lying. I knew she was lying, but what was I going to do about it? Soon Jared would be her only parent. I had to trust him.

  I closed my eyes for a second, standing too close to that abyss. Teetering on the edge of an emotional black hole I visit too often. You can’t think about this, I told myself. I repeated my mantra. You can’t think about it.

  I couldn’t let worry about my girls dominate my last thoughts, my last days. Mia and Maura would be okay. I’d raised them for seventeen years. I could trust them, even if I couldn’t trust their nitwit father. How could you trust a man who names his baby Peaches?