As Close as Sisters

by Colleen Faulkner

  I hung on the doorknob, hesitant. Did McKenzie want me to come in? Was she too tired and just wanted to be left alone? I hated feeling this way, as if I didn’t know her anymore. As if I didn’t know what she wanted or needed.

  “Journal?” I asked. It sounded lame. Like I was the new girl in the cafeteria or something and didn’t know what to say. I’d felt this way my whole life. As if I never quite fit in. Even here, where I fit in best. I was so ordinary compared to McKenzie and Janine. And certainly compared to Aurora, who was practically a goddess.

  McKenzie nodded. “I’ve learned the hard way to write every night, if I can. Otherwise . . .”

  “I know,” I commiserated. At first, I thought it was kind of mean, us making her write it. But then Aurora told me that she thought it was good to give McKenzie a job, something to focus on other than her cancer. That made sense to me. I acquiesced, which of course I always did when push came to shove with Aurora.

  I glanced at the dozen or so brown plastic pill bottles with the white caps on McKenzie’s nightstand. I saw the nebulizer on the other side of the bed. The hose. The face mask. I knew the treatments helped her breathe, but I hated the machine. I returned my gaze to her face. While she had certainly aged since her diagnosis, she was still beautiful to me. “Okay if I come in?” I asked.

  “Of course. I know you guys are trying to be nice, letting me sleep down here.” She stuck her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout. “But it’s lonely.”

  I glanced around the room as I entered. For years, we just kept the door shut and never came in here. But eventually, when McKenzie had her girls and wanted to bring them down, we completely renovated it. We pulled out the carpet and had the hardwood floors refinished. We painted the walls a sunny yellow and added white curtains. White coastal-style furniture. It was a gorgeous room . . . but I’m still glad I’m sleeping upstairs instead of here. Just the thought of sleeping in the same room where Buddy McCollister had once slept gave me indigestion. Which I already had enough trouble with now, as it was.

  McKenzie scooted over in the queen-sized bed, making room for me. Anymore, I feel as if I waddle instead of walk. I couldn’t imagine how big I’d be at forty weeks. I already felt like a whale. But I was determined to enjoy my rotundness. This baby was a miracle and I knew it, and I didn’t want to squander a moment of my pregnancy.

  I waddled to the bed and sat down on the edge. She rearranged the pillows she’d been leaning against and patted the empty space on a pillow. I hesitated. Should I be lying in bed with her? Shouldn’t I let her get her rest? She needed her rest if she was going to get better.

  But the way she looked at me, I couldn’t say no. I stretched out beside her. Our heads were side by side on the king-sized pillow. I felt her warmth and smelled her facial moisturizer. We stared up at the white ceiling. There was a ceiling fan. I watched it spin. Listened to it tick-tick.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay.”

  She knew what I was talking about. I’d been here all day, but we hadn’t gotten to discuss it. Me not telling her sooner that I was pregnant.

  We were both quiet again. The fan tick-ticked. Lying there beside McKenzie, I could hear her breathing. It wasn’t labored. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but it wasn’t normal breathing, either. Shouldn’t she have been breathing normally, lying in bed?

  “I wanted to tell you . . .” I said finally. Then I hesitated. I hated to blame it on Matt. People thought I let Matt control me. I know Aurora thinks he does; she makes comments about him all the time. But what she didn’t understand was that I only let him make decisions that I couldn’t or didn’t want to make. I let him do the things I couldn’t or didn’t want to do. I knew this was totally not acceptable in the modern feminist world, but the truth was, I liked having my husband take care of me. I really liked it.

  “Matt and I talked,” I went on, “and he . . . I was afraid that if the pregnancy . . . didn’t continue, it would make you sad.”

  She rolled onto her side and propped her head up with her hand. I stayed on my back.

  She looked down at me. “Of course I would have been sad if you’d lost another baby. But, Lilly, that’s not how it works between us. We share the bad things, too.”

  “I know. I know.” I felt my lower lip tremble. The floodgates were about to open. I’d cried three times already since I’d arrived. Of course I cried when McKenzie talked about her illness. But I’d cried earlier when Janine was telling us about a homeless teenager she found under a local bridge. I also cried when I saw a mom and dad on the beach with a little boy, flying a kite. Janine and Aurora looked at me like I was crazy. Even Fritz thought I’d lost it. But McKenzie . . . she understood. I guess because she was a mother.

  I knew I wasn’t a mother yet. But, I was, in a way. I was mom to all those little souls that had lived in my hostile womb for a brief time. I truly believed that.

  McKenzie rubbed her hand over my belly, and I smiled, bringing myself back to the here and now. It was something I was working on. It was time to stop always looking to the future, Matt told me. It was time to live in the present. And he was right.

  So I lived in the present, here at this moment in bed with McKenzie. Her hand felt good against my taut skin.

  “I’m so happy for you,” she said. “I’m mad at you for cheating me out of knowing all these months.” She smiled, looking into my eyes. “But I’m so happy for you, sweetie.”

  Her turban had shifted when she rolled over to face me, and now it sat askew. I reached out to readjust it and cover the tiny bit of red fuzz beneath it.

  She rested her head on the pillow again, and we just lay there.

  “Lilly, I want to talk to you,” she said after what seemed like a long while.

  I realized I was drifting off to sleep. I needed to get up. I needed to go upstairs to my own bed. “Not tonight,” I told her, opening my eyes.

  I knew what she wanted to talk about. About her cancer. But we already talked about it tonight. Of course, when we talked, it was in a general way. Like a recap of the information we already knew. I wasn’t the only one who had cried. Janine had cried then, too. I saw her tears, even though she was trying to hide them. I’d always loved that about Janine. She could get her bull dyke cop on when she had to, but she could still be a girly girl with us. She could still cry for us. The way we’ve cried for her. The way I still cry for her sometimes for that night. For all of those nights we didn’t know about, until after the fact.

  “Lilly.” McKenzie whispered my name. Her green eyes were so intense, more so now that her face is thinner.

  “I know,” I whispered back. “But I can’t, honey. Not tonight.” Then I sat up. Awkwardly. I kissed her forehead, right where the knit turban met her pale skin. “You okay?” I pressed my palm to her cheek and frowned. “Do you have a fever? Your . . . face looks red.” I looked at her more closely.

  She pushed my hand away. “I’m fine. It’s . . . one of the medications. I get a little bit of a fever sometimes. If I get lucky,” she joked, “maybe I’ll break out in hives by morning.”

  I don’t know how she can joke about this. If it were me with the cancer, I wouldn’t be cracking jokes. I’d be curled up in a ball on the floor, unable to speak or function.

  I made myself smile. “Okay,” I said slowly. My gaze went to the nebulizer on the table beside her again.

  My mom had died of lung cancer. She’d had a three pack a day habit in her prime. I knew my nebulizers. My oxygen tanks. I knew how a person with lung cancer dies. How their life slowly eked out of them with each struggling breath.

  “Go to bed,” McKenzie ordered. She gave me a push, but she didn’t lift her head off the pillow. I think maybe she was so weak that she couldn’t.

  I paused at the bedroom door and looked back at her. She was lying there, half asleep, half smiling. I knew she was happy we were all here together. Happy, like the rest of us. It seemed like we lived our lives just waiting to
get back here. To be together again, here. Just the four of us.

  Kind of sick, when you thought about it.

  “Yoi yume o,” I told her. Words my Japanese mother always said to me before she turned out the light.

  “Sweet dreams,” McKenzie echoed.

  7

  McKenzie

  “Get in.” Lilly pointed.

  I stared at the motorized grocery cart. I didn’t want to get in. But they were all standing there looking at me, making me feel self-conscious. As if I didn’t already feel that way, sporting no eyebrows. We were standing outside our favorite organic market in town.

  “I can walk,” I told her. “I feel good today.”

  “Get in the cart,” Lilly ordered. She was wearing another sundress, this one pink and green, and the big white sunglasses again. The handbag that weighed a hundred pounds swung from her elbow. “We don’t have all day. I want to sit on the beach.”

  “Come on,” Janine urged, pressing her hand into the small of my back. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “If she doesn’t want to ride, she doesn’t have to ride.” Aurora went to the double doors, and there was that familiar pneumatic hiss as they opened.

  Janine and Lilly stood on either side of me.

  “You should save your strength,” Janine said quietly into my ear. She glanced away, but kept talking, as if this was some kind of top secret summit. “You don’t want to waste it on grocery shopping. We’ll go swimming this afternoon. All of us. If you’re up to it,” she added quickly.

  I couldn’t see Lilly’s eyes through the designer sunglasses, but I could feel her stare, boring into me. Her pink lipsticked mouth was in a pucker.

  I sighed and threw up my hands, imitating one of my girls. “Fine. I’ll get in the damned cart, but we’re going to talk about this,” I warned. “I’m not going to be treated this way. You guys aren’t supposed to act like this. Not you guys.” I sat on the black molded plastic seat of the cart. I always felt like an idiot when I used one of these things; they were for old people, handicapped people, not me.

  Regrettably, this wasn’t the first time I had used one. In March, I’d come down with a wicked case of bronchitis. I had barely been able to walk from my living room couch, where I had slept, to the bathroom. When I was well enough to go out again, I still couldn’t walk from the car into a store without gasping for breath, so I’d been forced to ride in the damned things.

  I twisted the grip on the right side of the T-shaped steering wheel, and the cart lurched forward. I took off at a snail’s pace.

  “What are you talking about? Act like what?” Lilly kept her voice low. Lilly didn’t do scenes. Her mother had always insisted on a certain veil of decorum, no matter what. Even with a dead body. I still remember when the police had Lilly’s mother come to the beach house that night to pick her up. She’d been so . . . polite.

  “You know very well what I’m talking about.” I hit the gas, full throttle, thinking I could zip away from them, but I was already at full throttle.

  Lilly passed me at the “Free Beach Paper!” kiosk between one set of doors and the next. Janine continued to walk beside me. She looked like she was going to say something.

  “Zip it,” I warned.

  “Everyone get what you want, and we’ll meet at the registers,” Lilly instructed. Inside the market, she handed Janine a plastic shopping basket and took one for herself. She didn’t bother to give one to Aurora, who had stopped to check out sand shovels in a bin next to an artfully arranged table of local melons. “I’m making dinner tonight. Aurora, you’re tomorrow night. When are the girls coming?” She turned back to me.

  I was still racing to catch up. The motorized cart had a basket in the front for all my shopping needs. I wondered which aisle had handguns. “Monday or Tuesday. Probably Tuesday.”

  “I’ll get stuff for chicken tacos for when they come. Of course we’ll do the grill thing for the Fourth. Tonight, I think we’ll have steamed shrimp, fresh broccoli, and baked potatoes.” Lilly floated away in her white patent leather sandals. “Teens like tacos. I’ll get some soda, too.”

  I slowly made my way through the fresh produce section, ignoring Janine, who had apparently been appointed my keeper on the outing. Lilly hadn’t assigned me a night to make dinner. I wasn’t a good cook, nor did I like to cook, so that was okay by me. I got two avocados, a sweet onion, and some garlic to make guacamole. One of my few specialties. When I started to stand up to grab a couple of limes, Janine reached over me.

  “Two?”

  “We better get three.” I settled back into the cart. “Aurora will be ready for a gin and tonic by the time we get back to the house.”

  She chuckled, and I couldn’t help myself. Even though I was still annoyed with her, annoyed with all three of them, I smiled. How could I be annoyed with Janine when she laughed at my dumb jokes? We headed down the dairy aisle. I debated getting some almond milk. Mia was lactose intolerant. As I reached for the carton, I realized it was silly to get it. I’d be lucky if my girls stayed more than an hour; Lilly would be lucky if they ate her tacos.

  I crawled along next to the open refrigerated shelves in search of some Greek yogurt. Janine was clearly going nowhere, which was okay because I hadn’t had a minute alone with her since she had arrived the afternoon before. I wondered if she wanted to talk about the lawsuit that had been filed against her; we hadn’t really talked about it, even on the phone. But I didn’t want to be the one to bring it up. It was like my cancer. She had to be desperate for a few minutes peace without the weight of it on her shoulders. The charges against her were serious. If anything came of the case, it might mean her career.

  “So, how are things?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Good.”

  I cut my eyes at her. “Your mom?”

  “Fine.” She was quiet for a second before she said, “I guess.” She picked up a hunk of cheese she had no intention of buying. “I haven’t really talked to her much. Well, just a little last week. For a minute. You know, when Todd and Christie had the baby. She called to say that Christie was fine and all. That everybody was okay.”

  “So you’re an auntie again!” I tried to sound cheerful, but it came out fake. Janine put the cheese back.

  “I’m sorry.” I grabbed her hand. Squeezed it and let it go.

  Physical shows of affection were tough for Janine. No surprise there. But we’d never let that stop us. Just because it was hard for her didn’t mean she didn’t want it. And sometimes she was okay with a quick hug or a peck on the cheek. It just depended on whether or not it was “a Buddy day.” Today, apparently, wasn’t because she didn’t pull away from me or tell me to fuck off.

  I know she feels bad about not knowing her nieces and nephew better than she does. I think, in a different life, Janine would have had kids.

  Her brother barely spoke to her, which meant she had very little contact with her nieces and nephew. Todd was an okay guy, but he was more screwed up than Janine would ever be. For various reasons. A big one was that he blamed himself for what happened to his sister. The fact that he had been a little boy, younger than her, didn’t seem to matter. He blamed Janine, on some level, too, for ruining his life. And of course he was the number two fan in the I Hate Buddy McCollister Club. The crazy thing was, he had never faulted their mother. Something Janine still had trouble coming to terms with. It was like an invisible wedge that always stood between them.

  “You have a picture of the baby?” I asked.

  She reached into the pocket of her knee-length cargo shorts and pulled out her cell phone. She held it out for me to see a wrinkled face burrito-wrapped in a pink blanket. “Megan.”

  “She’s cute,” I said.

  Janine put the phone back in her pocket without looking at the screen. “We’re talking about me going down for Christmas. We’ll see.”

  I nodded and inched forward in the cart.

  “I guess it depends. On whether or not I can get of
f work.” She picked up a package of shredded mozzarella. “You put the word organic on something, and it’s fifty percent more expensive.” She dropped it into her basket. She’d be making baked ziti. She always made baked ziti. “I guess it also depends on what’s going on with the lawsuit. The lawyer says we’re looking at December. If anything comes of it.”

  So she did want to talk about it. I spotted Lilly crisscrossing in front of us. She was headed our way, but clearly on a mission, sunglasses perched on her head, her grocery list in her hand. I don’t know if she even saw us.

  “Any word on the status of the suit?” I asked Janine.

  She lifted her shoulder. Let it fall.

  At the end of the aisle, I maneuvered the cart around a stack of packages of natural toilet paper and started down the next aisle. Was there unnatural toilet paper?

  “You think it will actually go to court?” I asked.

  She scowled. “Doubt it. Female perp who filed against me has a rap sheet. Her boyfriend, too. Both for assault, among other things. And this wasn’t his first tussle with cops. Resisting arrest charges were dropped on a previous case, but my lawyer’s got a private investigator on it. I’m not worried.”

  I stopped and studied a shelf of beans: kidney, garbanzo, black, cannellini. I had no idea why. Beans weren’t on my list. What I needed was corn chips, to go with my guac. “I’m sure it will all be fine,” I said.

  She stood beside me, hands hanging awkwardly at her sides. She stared at the beans. “You read what happened, I guess. Saw the news.”

  I reached for a can of pintos. “I did.”

  “I didn’t shove her, Mack. I barely touched her. The baby daddy grabbed me, and he was the one who knocked her down. All three of us went down. He was big and I was—” Her voice caught in her throat.

  I looked up at her, the stupid beans still my hand. A female voice came over the loudspeaker advertising a sale on steamed crabs seasoned with Old Bay. Three dollars each, but just for the next fifteen minutes.