The Hundred Gifts

by Jennifer Scott

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “Hold your fur, would ya?”

  She dressed in a pair of red sweatpants and a green flannel shirt—her one begrudging nod to the upcoming holiday—and stuffed her feet into gym socks and her old brown loafers, the ones Ernie would have called her sensibly hideous shoes.

  It was cold out there. She could tell just by looking at the sky. The snow was turning to slush, yes, but overnight it would freeze again and again and never really go anywhere, except to form smooth, treacherous patches of ice. She would have to be careful. The last thing she needed was to fall and break something. Who would take care of old Chuy if she was laid up in traction?

  She had a promise to live up to. A promise to give old Chuy her undying care, and she intended to keep it.

  “Let’s go,” she said, pulling Chuy’s leash from its hook by the front door. He squirmed with excitement. Or rather writhed in what was a close arthritic approximation of excitement. “Calm down, now. You’re no spring chicken. You’re getting too old for all those acrobatics.”

  She was so busy talking to Chuy, she almost fell ass over teakettle on top of a giant bag that was sitting at her front door.

  “What in the world?” she asked.

  Chuy barked at the bag, then lifted his leg and peed on the wall next to it. He’d reached his waiting limit. Ah well, at least he was sort of outside.

  She bent to peer into the bag. All she could see was color. Bright color in patches and stripes and swatches. And cloth. Lots of cloth.

  She looked left and right, and, of course, there was nobody to be seen. The stairs led only to her apartment. Whoever had left this here, had left it for her.

  “Change of plans, Chuy,” she said. She tossed her cane back into the apartment and used her free hand to drag the bag inside, too. Slowly, methodically, she pulled out its contents—a hat, two scarves, a pair of gloves, a coat, a blanket, boots.

  She stood by her couch, eyeing the things she’d just laid on it, her arms folded across her chest. Chuy barked once more, then seemed worn-out and lay down on the blanket, his thoughts of a walk chased away by thoughts of getting in a quick snooze.

  Someone had given her these things as if she were some sort of charity case. As if she were in need.

  Well, she was in need, all right, but what she needed they couldn’t very well give her, now, could they? And a coat, of all things. Gloves. Scarves. Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe some people had vowed off such things for a reason? Maybe they’d worn their last coat because that was what they wanted. Because that was what was right.

  “Well, I can’t take them,” she said to Chuy, though he was sound asleep. “But I know damn well what I can do with them.”

  She rebagged everything—upending Chuy from his spot on the blanket, causing him to give her quite the accusatory glare—and placed the bag by the front door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Bren had hoped that her high from the potluck class would have stuck with her long enough to get her through the next day. But it didn’t. She drove to her mother’s house, absently scratching her shoulder while she drove.

  Joan’s eyes lit up when Bren walked into the kitchen. “Well, what a surprise! I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I wasn’t expecting me, either,” Bren said, sitting across from her at the table.

  “Let me call Catherine. I’ll get a pot on.”

  Bren reached across the table. “No, there’s no time for that. I’ve already had my coffee anyway. I was hoping you’d want to come with me today.”

  Her mother’s hands clamped tight around her coffee mug. She was already dressed for the day, bright and early, as she always was, humming the birds awake. “Where are we going?”

  Bren wanted to tell her. She really did. Just like she wanted to tell Gary, and maybe even Kelsey (but not wild-time-in-Rome Kevin, because, really, would he even care?). She maybe even wanted to tell Rosa, despite the rhinestones and yoga pants. But so far the only person she could tell had been Nan, and only because Nan had noticed her scratching, had noticed the spot on her shoulder, and had insisted that she wouldn’t cut another strand of hair until Bren fessed up. And she’d told her doctor, of course, although all he’d done was promptly lateral her off to the R. Monte Belle Cancer Treatment Center. A cancer center. Where people with cancer went. Just for testing, he’d said, but how did someone not get freaked out about having to have anything done—even if it was just a little testing—in a cancer center?

  She’d put off making the appointment. And then rescheduled it. Twice. And then the news about Kelsey not coming home and Kevin’s little bombshell, and the class, and it had become easy to forget that just a little testing was necessary in her life. But the itch. It was always there. Always reminding her.

  She couldn’t put it off anymore. What if she died before she could work up the courage to go in?

  But telling all of this to her mother proved impossible. Joan was so fragile, so frail, her face so open and kind and loving. It always had been. She’d been a great mother. Always there for Bren, with open arms, open heart. Bren literally could not think of one time in her entire life that her mother was too busy to attend to her. Truth be told, she was a way better mother than Bren herself was.

  Knowing Bren had this problem would upset her. Knowing it had gone on so long without Bren’s telling her would hurt her. Knowing what it could possibly mean would frighten her.

  But Bren needed her mommy.

  “Christmas shopping,” she lied, opting to buy herself some more time before spilling. “You up for it? I also have to run a quick errand I hope you’ll go with me to, if that’s okay.”

  “Oh, sure, sure,” her mother said, jumping into action, pulling her sweater closed over her shoulders and taking her mug to the sink. “I need to get a canister of popcorn for the mailman. I forget him every single year. How can I forget him every year? He never forgets me. Not for one day.”

  “He’s sort of paid to remember you, Mom.”

  “A paycheck is not a thank-you.”

  “Well, it kind of is.”

  “A thank-you is a canister of popcorn.”

  Bren knew her mother. When her mind was made up, there was no changing it.

  “Then to the mall it is.”

  So they braved the mall the week before Christmas, something Bren wouldn’t do on a normal year. She’d had to drop her mother off at the door and park all the way out in the Chili’s parking lot, halfway on a curb, and pray that nobody towed her. Of course, if someone towed her, she would miss her appointment. Silver lining.

  There was a choral group singing “Gloria” in the middle of the food court, their voices drowning out the sounds of the cash registers and blenders and cappuccino machines and the food court workers hawking free samples as people way too stressed out about their checkbooks and their lists blew past them without so much as a glance.

  Bren checked her watch roughly every ten seconds as they bought tins of popcorn for each of their mail carriers, a Precious Moments doctor statuette for Joan’s endocrinologist, candles for the chiropractor and the podiatrist, and boxes of sausages for every nurse Joan had ever come into contact with. Even Bren got suckered into picking up a box of chocolates for her dentist, whom she wouldn’t even see until the end of February. Not to mention, what dentist appreciated a box full of sugar for a gift?

  Even after all that shopping, and the requisite standing awkwardly in front of the choral group, smiling appreciatively, there were still two hours until her appointment. She couldn’t take it.

  “You hungry, Mom?”

  Her mother checked her watch. “It’s only eleven.”

  “Lunchtime. I’m starving. Come on. You in the mood for pizza or baked potatoes?”

  “Neither. It’s still morning.”

  “Chinese food it is.”

  Bren
led her mother to Asian Matters, a trendy fast-food Chinese restaurant that specialized in sweet-and-sour everything. Bren ordered pork and chicken, a bowl of lo mein, and two egg rolls. And a coffee for Joan.

  “How can you eat lunch so early?” her mother asked, sitting in the same posture she was in at the house—hands wrapped protectively around her coffee cup, shoulders hunched, placid look of tranquility on her face.

  “Well, I haven’t killed my gut with twenty gallons of coffee,” Bren answered, biting into an egg roll, which squirted a stream of grease into her mouth. Guilt, guilt, guilt. When she dropped dead of a heart attack, and Gary was left to find her, she would have nothing to blame but her love of sweet cabbagey grease.

  “Is there something bothering you, Bren? You seem on edge lately. Not your usual sunny self. Is it the kids?”

  Bren took a bite of lo mein and chewed. “It’s everything, Mom,” she said. “It’s the kids, it’s Gary, it’s the class, it’s this.” She stared down at her tray of food. If she looked around the food court, she could see that nobody else was eating like she was. This was embarrassing, what she was doing to herself.

  “What’s going on?” her mother asked, placing her hand on top of Bren’s. “Something’s wrong with Kelsey?”

  Bren sighed. “Not Kelsey. She’s fine.” Beautifully fine, in fact, she thought. “But Kevin may be married.”

  Joan sat back, her eyes wide, blinking, her mouth hanging slightly open. “What do you mean, ‘may be’?”

  “He doesn’t even know for sure. Something about a wild night in Rome. How wild can it get when the Pope is right there? I mean, a wild night in Rome is accidentally drinking too much wine and maybe jumping into a fountain, right? It’s not accidentally marrying someone your parents have never spoken to.”

  “You don’t know the girl? Who is it?”

  Pavy. And the others. “Her name is Pavlina. He met her somewhere in the Czech Republic. Or maybe it was Russia. Or . . .” She wadded up her napkin and tossed it into her remaining lo mein, suddenly too disgusted to eat. “Or the Congo, for all I know. I have no earthly idea where he even met the girl. Where did I go wrong?”

  “Oh, honey,” Joan said. “You didn’t go wrong. You raised independent kids who aren’t afraid to go out and live lives and make mistakes. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? That’s being a successful parent.”

  Bren shook her head. “But why do they have to be so independent from so far away?”

  “They’ll come back.”

  “How do you know?”

  Joan smiled, a nostalgic smile. “Because I have a couple of independent kids myself. Remember your brother going away to college on the East Coast? It felt so far away, and I was sure he’d get attached and stay there forever. He met Kelly there, and I thought, This is it. I’ve lost him. But here they are, right back home, twenty minutes away.” AmIright? Bren thought. “And you sowed your oats, too. But you came back. And now I’m so proud of you. You raised these amazing kids, you’re a successful teacher, you’ve got Gary.”

  Bren grimaced. “I wish I could agree with you on a couple of those things.” She reached under the napkin and picked at a noodle, snapping a piece off and putting it in her mouth.

  “There are problems with Gary?”

  Bren shrugged, petulant. “We’ll be fine, I’m sure. But right now he seems a million miles away. Like he could be having a wild night in Rome and I wouldn’t even know about it. I’m pretty sure he’d rather be having a wild night in Rome than ever be with me.”

  “Be patient. Being empty nesters takes time to get used to.”

  “You and Daddy didn’t seem to have any trouble adjusting.”

  Joan’s smile deepened. “That’s because that’s what we wanted you to think. All I have to say is thank goodness Catherine moved in right across the street, and thank goodness she always had plenty of gin on hand.”

  Bren chuckled, then pulled her half-eaten egg roll out from under the napkin and ate it, feeling better about her vice, knowing that her mother had vices, too.

  “Brenda? What else?” Joan was looking concerned now. Her mother could always tell when she wasn’t being entirely honest. And she could always tell when something was wrong. Not just with her, but with her brother as well. It seemed the woman was forever bursting into a room a half a second before they broke something valuable and was already rushing toward them before they managed to get hurt. Bren thought of it as her mother’s superpower.

  “Okay,” Bren said. “I actually have someplace else I want you to go with me today. It’s a doctor appointment. At the cancer center.”

  Joan blanched but didn’t say a word, which for some reason scared and upset Bren even more. She took a bite of sweet-and-sour chicken, feeling tears prickle the corners of her eyes while she chewed.

  “How bad is it?” Joan finally said.

  “It’s this,” she said around the food, and pulled the collar of her sweater to the side. Joan squinted at her shoulder, then got up, moved around the table, leaned in, and squinted harder.

  “Why, it’s just a mole,” Joan said.

  “But it itches. And now it’s sore from all the scratching.”

  “So stop scratching it.”

  Bren let go of her collar. “It’s not that simple, Mom. Women my age can’t just get new moles.”

  Joan made her way back to her seat. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because.” Bren rolled her eyes, picked up her fork, removed the napkin, and went back to town on the Chinese food. “Because women my age get cancer, not moles.”

  “It’s not even a big mole.”

  “That doesn’t make any difference!”

  “Sure it does. What did your doctor have to say about it?”

  “He said to get my ass to the cancer center. You don’t think I would just decide to take myself there, do you?” Actually, she kind of had. What her doctor said wasn’t so much Get your ass to the cancer center. It was more along the lines of It looks like a mole, but if you’re that concerned about it, you can have it followed up on by a specialist.

  Which, in Bren’s mind, was basically the same as Get your ass to the cancer center. Okay, in Bren’s mind it was Get your ass to the cancer center before you die, die, diiieee.

  But Joan didn’t need to know any of that.

  There was a pause, and then, to Bren’s surprise, her mother began to giggle. She held her coffee cup in front of her mouth, presumably to hide how funny she thought Bren’s immediate demise was, closed her eyes, and laughed.

  “I’m glad you think it’s so funny,” Bren said, scooping the last few grains of rice off her plate. “You’ve been hanging around Aunt Cathy too long.” And when her mother kept laughing, added, “Who does this? Who laughs about having to take her daughter to an oncologist?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Joan said. She took a sip of her coffee and pulled her sweater up over her shoulders again. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m just . . . well, you had me worried.”

  “That’s a fine way of showing it,” Bren pouted. She got up and tossed her trash into the bin behind their table.

  “Oh, don’t be so pouty, Brenda,” Joan said. “I’m sorry. Of course I’ll go with you. And I promise not to laugh. Let’s go.”

  • • •

  Bren wanted to be a nervous wreck in the waiting room. She wanted to be chewing her fingernails to nubs and growing pit stains on her shirt and pacing a hole into the carpet. But her mother had robbed her of all of that with her laughter. Now she felt relaxed and as if there was most likely nothing to worry about. Damn that woman.

  The lobby was hot—overcompensating for yet another incoming winter storm that Aunt Cathy’s favorite weatherman was predicting. This one was supposed to dump as much as three inches on them. Oh, how Bren of yesteryear would have been excited about this. If the weathe
r kept up this way, it would be a white Christmas. Heaven. Was there anything more peaceful than a snowy Christmas Eve? Any better proof that God did exist, and He was good?

  The lobby Christmas tree was small and nondescript, decorated with angels, each one bearing a name. Bren hated to think what that meant, although she was pretty sure she knew exactly what it meant. She tried not to look at the other patients awaiting their turns. So many of them children, playing despite the obviously serious path their lives had now taken. Instead, she watched the small TV mounted high up on the wall in the corner by the reception’s desk—Martha Stewart making something out of pinecones. She couldn’t follow along, because the sound had been turned all the way down to make way for the Christmas music droning over the loudspeaker. “The Little Drummer Boy.” Of course.

  The nurse who rescued Bren from the waiting room was full of small talk—Are you traveling for the holidays? Do you make a big dinner? What do you think about this weather?—and barely peeked at Bren’s shoulder before whisking out of the exam room, as if she had never been in there at all. Bren tried to read her expression but could tell nothing about the direness of her situation from the nurse’s face. Maybe that meant it was really bad.

  Joan sat in a chair in the corner of the exam room, thumbing through an ancient People magazine, while Bren sat on the table, wondering why no one had given her a gown. Surely once the doctor saw that she had this . . . lesion on her skin, he would want to see everything. To look for how far it had spread.

  But, no. It turned out he didn’t. He asked her a few questions, dug a magnifying glass out of his coat pocket, leaned over her shoulder, poked her skin a few times, then kicked his little rolling stool back a few feet, and said, “Looks like a mole.”

  Joan snickered, but when Bren shot her a look, she was bent over the People magazine again, looking very interested in an article about Ben Affleck. Bren knew for a fact that Joan had no idea who Ben Affleck even was; she was just trying to keep her eyes down. Smart lady.

  “That’s it?” Bren asked, knowing she should feel relieved, but instead feeling slightly irritated. This was how people ended up on those prime-time news shows. I went to doctor after doctor, and nobody took me seriously. And now look, my nose is gone. Fell off right in the middle of the grocery store. Right in front of the Pop-Tarts. “Shouldn’t you, like, test it or something? It didn’t exist before. And it itches.”