by Luanne Rice
“I should have taken some napkins,” Chloe said, holding the white stick.
“I wish I had some tissue,” Jane said.
“That’s okay,” Chloe said.
Jane drew in a slow breath, shaking her head.
“Pink circle for positive, white circle for negative,” Chloe said, staring at the stick.
“How long does it take?” Jane asked, even though she had just read the directions.
“Three minutes,” Chloe said. “Then I’ll know . . .”
Jane couldn’t watch. She could barely sit still. The years disappeared. She remembered sitting in the Planned Parenthood clinic in Providence, having just peed into a cup, waiting for the results. Right now, as then, she was digging her fingernails into her palms so hard, she left half-moon nail marks in her own skin.
She knew what she should wish for. She realized that Chloe was just fifteen, five years younger than Jane had been. She had her whole life ahead of her. She had hopes and dreams and ambitions and plans, to come true. Jane could only wish that a white circle would appear, and she could then drive Chloe home and let her get on with her life.
Maybe this was all a test, in fact—a bigger test than just the white circle/pink circle. Maybe this was a sign to Jane, that Chloe’s life was her own, she was a fifteen-year-old girl who already had a family, that Jane should leave her alone and fade away.
“No matter what happens,” Chloe said, speaking directly to the stick, “I won’t let you be a star in the attic.”
“A what?” Jane asked.
“A star in the attic. A dead star—the opposite of live stars in the trees. I had a bad dream the other night. In it I was a fallen star, and my real mother put me up in the attic . . .”
“Why would she do that?” Jane whispered, shocked.
Chloe looked away from the stick, blinking slowly. “Because I wasn’t worth anything to her.”
“That’s not true,” Jane said. Then, at Chloe’s look of puzzlement, “It couldn’t be.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Chloe said. “It was a long time ago.”
The words hung between them. Jane’s nerves were raw. She wanted to tell Chloe the truth right now. She wanted to explain what it had been like, tell her that she wasn’t just some star in an attic—she was an entire galaxy, the whole firmament. Holding her tongue was almost impossible, but she told herself that this wasn’t the right time, that Chloe had to get through this next minute and a half.
Then Jane could tell her the truth.
The air would be clear. Being honest with Chloe, she could also tell Dylan. Touching her silver locket, she thought of how good it would feel to no longer carry this burden of secrecy. She wouldn’t have to go on lying to these two people she had come to know. And love.
For Jane no longer loved the mere idea of Chloe—the simple fact of a daughter’s existence—but she loved the real and actual girl. She loved her direct ways, her sharp blue eyes, her wit, her humor, her loyalty to Mona, her devotion to nature and the orchard, her imagery of stars. Jane stared down at Chloe’s hands—the same shape as Jane’s and Sylvie’s and their mother’s—and felt a rush of love that made no sense whatever, yet, at the same time, all the sense in the world.
“Oh,” Chloe said suddenly, excitedly, bringing the stick closer to her eyes.
“What?” Jane asked, letting go of her locket.
“It didn’t take three whole minutes,” Chloe said, and the excitement in her voice drained away, and she sounded strangely crushed.
“What does it say?” Jane asked, reaching over, gently taking hold of Chloe’s wrist, pivoting the test so she could see the window:
White circle.
CHAPTER 20
School was out, summer was officially here, and the stand was open for business—minus the dolphin flag. Chloe and Mona sat on stools wearing sun hats and dark glasses. They were pretending to be movie stars in the apple business. Mona had brought an array of Rhianna’s nail polish, so they could paint their toenails lots of different colors.
“She will kill you,” Chloe said, fanning her right foot to dry her puce, orchid, vermilion, white tiger, hyacinth, and flame-colored toes.
“No, these are old colors. She’s on to the newest thing. Ever since Dad took her on that business trip to Los Angeles, she only uses Jessica Colours . . . that’s ‘colors’ with a ‘u.’ These are her castaways.”
“What are Jessica Colours?”
“Oh, they come from this really posh nail salon where all the stars go. While she was there, she saw Nancy Reagan. You’d think they were best friends. But enough about that. I’m tired of waiting. WEEKS have gone by, and you HAVE to tell me—was that you she saw at the hospital?”
Chloe squinted, staring at her multicolored toes in the shade-dappled sunlight.
“You’ve got to tell me! It’s driving me crazy,” Mona said, knocking over an open bottle of Manic Mauve as she lurched over to hug Chloe. “Are you dying? My mother never told me she was sick, and if you’re doing the same thing, I’ll never forgive you!”
“Oh, Mone—I’m sorry,” Chloe said, hugging her back. She suddenly felt awash with remorse, for making Mona worry. “I’m not sick. I’m fine.”
“But it was you?” Mona asked, taking off her oversized sunglasses to reveal her normal specs. Her ever-shorter hair was now about a million different lengths. “What were you doing there?”
“I want to tell you,” Chloe said, still feeling queasy with shame. “But I also don’t want to . . .”
“Whatever it is, I won’t tell.”
“I know that,” Chloe said. “I trust you, Mona. But I don’t want you to think anything bad about me. It’s about Zeke . . .”
“We don’t like him anymore, right?”
“Right. He . . . and I . . . I thought I might be pregnant.”
“Oh, Chloe!”
She saw the shock in Mona’s eyes, followed immediately by hurt. “I’m not—don’t worry. And I would have told you, but I didn’t want to talk about it,” Chloe said. “I went all the way to Twin Rivers, so I wouldn’t see anyone I knew.”
“Then who were you with, when Rhianna saw you?”
“Jane,” Chloe said.
“The pie lady?”
Chloe nodded. It sounded funny to hear Mona call her that. Jane had started out being just the pie lady—or had she? Chloe had liked her from the start, and now she’d never forget the time they’d had together, sitting in Jane’s car while Chloe’s heart beat so hard she thought it might rupture, while they were waiting for the white circle.
“What were you doing with her?”
“She was visiting someone at the hospital, where I went to buy the test,” Chloe said. “And she saw me.”
“Twin Rivers isn’t that far away,” Mona chided. “Of course you’d see people you knew. You should have told me—we could have hitchhiked to Providence together.”
“Well, it worked out. Jane gave me a ride. She’s really nice . . .”
“I know, but weren’t you afraid she’d tell your uncle?”
Chloe shook her head. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but deep down she was positive that she could trust Jane. That whatever was going on between her and Uncle Dylan, she would safeguard Chloe’s secret forever.
“Rhianna wanted to call your mother. She was completely wrapped up in doing her maternal duty—you know, joining the SOM: the sisterhood of mothers. Calling your mother to bond over how horrible it is to be raising a teenager. I covered for you, though.”
“What did you say?”
“That you were at the hospital for your dialysis.”
“Mona!” Chloe said.
“What was I supposed to say? She was honestly about to pick up the phone and call your mother. And believe me, she would have. She was in a really awful mood, and she wanted to get you in trouble. The dermatologist screwed up her Botox.”
“Oh, no—what happened?”
“Some leaked into her eyelids. So she looke
d like Marlon Brando in The Godfather—you know, the way he can’t seem to keep his eyes open? Luckily, it’s not permanent. I can’t believe you had sex with Zeke and didn’t tell me. Where did you do it, and what was it like?”
Chloe shuddered.
“You still won’t tell me?”
Chloe shook her head.
“You mean, I’m the only virgin left in our friendship?”
Trying to smile, Chloe couldn’t quite manage.
“Did it hurt?”
Chloe nodded. “A lot,” she said.
“Is that why you broke up with him?”
“One of the reasons,” Chloe said. She told Mona about the Zoe-Chloe debacle, and the across-the-stream thing, and the fact that she wasn’t an entirely willing participant, and Mona gasped, shrieked, and fell silent.
“Rapist,” she said after a minute.
“No, it wasn’t like that,” Chloe said. “I was right there, in it. I just wasn’t sure about the timing. I was ready, but not that ready. It was a gray-area moment.”
“Why? He deserves to go to the ACI!” Mona exclaimed, and Chloe pictured the Adult Correctional Institute, built of imposing red brick, surrounded by fields of razor wire, lording it over the stretch of I-95 in Cranston.
“No,” Chloe said quietly, but she remembered the feeling of sticks scratching her back as she lay on the hard cold ground.
Even as she said the word, she saw Mona jump off her stool, begin rummaging under the pie shelf. A moment later, she pulled out the blue flag. Unfurling it, she exposed the beautiful felt dolphin Chloe had glued on. Now, unscrewing the top from a bottle of purple polish, Mona began to paint the flag.
“What are you doing?” Chloe asked.
“He says dolphins keep sharks away,” Mona said, enhancing the fin on the dolphin’s back, “but my money is on the shark.”
“Yeah,” Chloe said, getting into the spirit, opening a bottle of bright red, drawing big sharp teeth. She loved animals and fish—all animals and fish—equally. She never cringed from snakes, centipedes, mice, or spiders. At the beach, she loved jellyfish as much as cute minnows. So right now, with the help of her best friend, she was calling on the spirit of the maligned shark to protect her from Zeke and his dolphins . . .
“I still think you should listen to me,” Mona said. “And turn him in.”
“Mmm,” Chloe said. If she did that, then everyone would know. Her parents, Uncle Dylan, lots of people. This way, only Mona and Jane had heard.
“What was she there for, by the way?”
“Who?”
“Jane. Who was she visiting at the hospital that day?”
Chloe had been drawing some magnificently vicious shark teeth, but suddenly she stopped, dripping polish. She didn’t know. How selfish could she be? That she could encounter a really good, kind person like Jane at Twin Rivers Hospital, and not even ask what she was doing there?
“I don’t know,” Chloe said, staring Mona beseechingly in the eye. “I forgot to ask her.”
Other tests had come back negative, as well.
Jane and Sylvie sat at their mother’s bedside, surrounded by flowers they had picked from her garden. A bottle of sugar-free sparkling cider was open on her tray table, along with three champagne glasses that Jane had brought from home, to celebrate the fact that her enlarged lymph nodes were, in fact, caused by an infection related to the diabetes.
“I’ve dodged another bullet,” Margaret said.
“You’re indestructible,” Jane said, pouring the cider.
“But delicate,” Sylvie said, smiling.
The three of them raised their glasses and clinked. “Cheers,” Jane said. “To Mom’s health.”
“To all of our health,” Margaret amended, sipping. “This is lovely. If only it were the real thing . . .”
“Real champagne?” Sylvie asked.
“Yes. Your father smuggled Piper-Heidsieck into the hospital for both of your births.”
Sylvie lowered her glass. She looked at Jane, who had definitely gone a shade paler.
“What was he thinking?” Jane asked.
Their mother laughed. She looked so much better than she had in weeks: the doctors had tested and adjusted her medicine levels, and the physical therapist had been in to work with her. She was getting electrolytes and vitamins, and her school-principal interest in the entire staff made her a magnet for young nurses and orderlies: They gave her lots of attention.
“You mean, because he broke the hospital rules?” she asked.
“No. I mean because he celebrated our births, then fell off the face of the earth.”
“Jane,” Sylvie warned.
Margaret’s smile faltered. “Oh, dear . . . I wish I knew the answer to that. I’ve asked myself a million times.”
“He must have been happy to have us,” Jane said. “At least a little—he bought champagne. So what happened?”
“Dear,” their mother said, sipping her cider. “You know as well as anyone alive that sometimes people aren’t up to child-raising. The time isn’t right, or they find themselves challenged—and they just can’t handle it. Your father—”
Sylvie was watching Jane. The expression on her face could only be called “dangerous.” She glowered, her eyes growing dark, the storm building inside as she realized her mother was equating her with their father. But then, just raising her eyebrows in an “Okay, Mom” look, she just shook the words’ meaning off, as if it no longer mattered. As many times as they had had this conversation about their father, it still never made sense. And never would.
Just then, a team of doctors walked in. Dr. Becker led a group of residents and interns from Brown Medical School as they fanned out around the bed. They smiled at the sight of a family celebration, then went right into a discussion of diabetes and hip fractures and how they impacted each other in Margaret Porter.
Sylvie and Jane walked out into the hall. So much had happened this last week, Sylvie could hardly keep it straight. She had had several meetings with the discharge department, trying to come up with the proper plan for Margaret’s release. In the meantime, she had cleaned her mother’s room from floor to ceiling, airing all the bedding and dusting all the books.
John had helped. Refusing to let Sylvie do any heavy lifting, he had hoisted the mattress and turned the box spring. He had helped her polish the floor. Along the way, he had started talking about the summer. He loved to kayak and camp, and he asked Sylvie if she’d like to go to Maine with him. He thought she’d find it interesting—he knew a place where moose and bald eagles were often sighted.
Sylvie started to say she couldn’t, that she had to stay home with her mother. But she hadn’t. Instead, she had said simply, “Maybe.”
“What do you think we should do?” she asked Jane now, as they waited in the hall.
“We should just be happy,” Jane said, smiling and kissing her. “We should be so glad that Mom’s going to be okay.”
Sylvie grinned, gazing at her sister. Jane had seemed very buoyant lately. Ever since that day at the hospital, right after Dr. Becker had scared them with the possibility of lymphoma. Jane had disappeared—for hours—without any explanation. And when she’d returned, she had seemed . . .
Happy, lighthearted, on top of the world.
Even now, Jane’s eyes danced as she watched Abby Goodheart, the hospital social worker, coming toward them. Large and affable, with a round face and a long graying blond braid, she greeted them with a smile.
“How are you both?” she asked.
“Fine, Abby,” Sylvie said.
“Celebrating your mother’s good news?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “We’re so relieved. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Abby’s beeper went off; she checked the number, then turned back to Sylvie and Jane. “I thought we might spend a few minutes talking about your mother’s discharge plan.”
“Discharge? But she has a broken hip,” Jane said. “She can barely move . . .”
“The hospital can’t keep her here much longer,” Abby said. “We’d like to, but with managed care, our hands are tied. I know her doctors want to examine her a little longer, do a complete mental-status workup. But when that’s done, decisions will have to be made.”
A few moments of silence passed, and Sylvie could barely look at Jane. She was afraid that her sister would look into her eyes and know that she was wavering. Sylvie had always been the keeper of the flame. While Jane was down in New York, running away from the past and her problems, Sylvie had stayed in Rhode Island, with their mother. But right now, all Sylvie could think about was a cold starry night, a campfire, and John.
“This is hard stuff,” Abby said. “I know that. I’ve seen many families struggle with what’s the best solution. . . . You might consider sending your mother to a nursing home on an interim basis. Just so she can get some extra care, some intensive PT, and a chance for everyone to discuss the next step.”
“I don’t think she’ll want to go even temporarily,” Sylvie said. “She’ll be afraid she’ll never get out.”
“You’ll find that they’re not such bad places,” Abby said. “I work with several, and I can vouch for them all. They’re bright, clean, modern; they have friendly, young staffs, lots of activities.”
“Just like school,” Jane said, sounding thoughtful and distant.
“As a matter of fact, they are a bit like school. I’d be surprised if your mother didn’t like them. She is so sociable, always ready to help others—I’m not sure whether you’ve noticed, but all the nurses stop in to visit with her. She is such a good listener, and she helps them figure out their own problems.”
“She’s good at that,” Jane said, with just the smallest trace of irony. But when Sylvie glanced over, she saw that Jane was smiling, as if all hard feelings had been forgotten, or forgiven; at least during this crisis.