Daughters for a Time

by Handford, Jennifer

  Like every day, Sam and I picked up Maura after school and drove to the hospital to visit Claire. Once parked, I turned around to see that Sam had fallen asleep in her car seat, her fists unfurled, no longer clenched with anxiety.

  “Maura, honey? You ready to go see Mom?”

  “I don’t want to,” Maura pouted defiantly.

  “But Mommy wants to see you. She loves you. I need you to be a big girl, okay?”

  “Mommy’s skin feels weird and she looks different.”

  Maura was changing as she struggled with her mother’s illness. Her open, welcoming, trusting face now looked grumpy and anxious. A scowl often played across it, and her cheeks no longer pushed up into a perpetual smile. Just as I’d been repelled by my sick mother sitting feebly in her hospital bed, Maura was working through her own process, as only a four-year-old could. She yelled at Claire, refused to sit in bed with her, turned away from hugs and kisses. Claire kept a stiff upper lip, but we all knew that it was killing her. The cancer may have been ravaging her health, but her daughter’s rejection was breaking her heart.

  “She’s still Mommy,” I said softly. “Now, come on. Let’s go up there with big smiles on our faces—how about silly faces?” I squished my face and stuck out my tongue. “Let’s go give her a big hug and kiss and tell her that we love her.”

  “What about my birthday?” Maura asked quietly.

  Oh dear. Of course, her fifth birthday, only two weeks away.

  Maura’s chest heaved, her mouth darted downward, and her cheeks flushed red. I slipped out of my seat and opened the back door, sliding in next to her. I scooped her out of her booster and into my lap, hugging her tightly. Her wet mouth pushed into my neck and her hands clasped behind my head. “I want my old mommy back,” she cried. I held her, rocked her, until the gulping, choking cries subsided. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell her that her mother and I, both, were selfish. That we had brought daughters into our lives without the guarantee that we could live to see them grow up. All evidence had pointed to the contrary, and we’d plowed ahead anyway.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I lied, knowing that it was far from okay. I knew exactly how Maura felt, the jab and twist of the knife every time I thought about losing Claire. “We don’t have to go right now. How about we go to the cafeteria first for an ice cream? Let’s start celebrating your birthday right now. We’ll go see Mom in a little while, okay?”

  Maura nodded, stretched her eyes wide, and sniffed. Sam stirred as I lifted her from the seat. “Ice cream?” I said to my sleepy baby. In the cafeteria, the girls chose their treats and ate them quietly. Afterward, I washed their hands and faces, and loaded them onto the elevator. Maura pushed the button. As we walked into Claire’s room, I saw Father O’Meara praying beside her.

  “Hi, everyone!” Claire said in the overly enthusiastic falsetto she now used for Maura’s benefit. “Come here, sweetheart.” She waved to Maura, patting the bed, but Maura inched instead toward the sofa, a magnet pulling her in the opposite direction of her mother.

  Claire was wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt, a purple knit cap on her head, and two pairs of wool socks on her feet. She was cold all of the time.

  “We were just saying some prayers,” she said. “Would you guys like to join us? Maura, would you like to show Father O’Meara how nicely you say the Our Father?”

  Maura shook her head no, while a wave of panic surged through me. All of a sudden, I felt as anxious and childlike as Maura. The fact that Father O’Meara was here wasn’t good. My brain felt mossy and thick. I needed to get some air.

  “Take your time,” I said to Claire and Father. “I’ll take the girls outside to the courtyard and we’ll check back with you in a little while.”

  “Don’t be silly!” Claire chimed. “Stay. I want to hear about last night’s sleepover.”

  Ever since Claire had returned to the hospital, Maura had been sleeping at our house. Sam—as a distraction, as a playmate—helped considerably to ease Maura’s grief. Run, hop, twirl, I urged Maura, just keep moving so the hurt can’t catch you.

  “We’ll be back. I promise.” I hoisted Sam higher on my hip, grabbed for Maura’s hand, and zoomed down the corridor, the narrow hallway closing in on me.

  The automatic doors opened to the courtyard, blasting us with cool air. Maura collected acorns and pine needles while I hugged Sam tightly, resting my chin on the top of her head, thinking it through. Maybe Father O’Meara visited Claire all of the time. Maybe this time wasn’t necessarily significant. Maybe he was there for reasons other than to perform the sacrament of anointing the sick, offering Claire her last rites. Definitely, I thought. He wasn’t there for that; there was no way that he was there for that.

  Half an hour later, Father O’Meara found us in the courtyard.

  “How are you doing?” he asked me.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” I said, hearing the unintended curtness in my tone.

  “This is a very difficult time,” he said.

  “We’ll get through it.”

  He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. The sleeve of his cassock, the white of his collar. “It’s time to say good-bye to your sister,” he said.

  I stepped back, watched his hand free fall off my shoulder. “No,” I said. “I’m not—”

  “Claire has accepted—”

  “No she hasn’t,” I argued.

  Father nodded, bowed his head.

  “Thanks for coming, Father,” I stammered. “But I’m fine. Claire will be fine, too.”

  “If you want to talk—”

  “It’s getting chilly. I need to get these girls inside,” I said, scooping up Sam and reaching for Maura.

  I had no plans to say good-bye to Claire. My only plan was to love her as if each day were her last, take care of her daughter as she would do herself, and wait for the miracle to come. Whether my sister lived another day or another five years, she wouldn’t have a doubt that my heart bled for her.

  Five weeks later, in a hospital room just like Mom’s, Claire slipped into a coma. To look at her, she looked nothing like the sister I knew. The waxy, white skin, the lifeless eyes, the frail bones. Yet every time I looked away and then looked back at her, the glimpse I caught—that split-second image of her that my mind would capture—registered as familiar. I see you in there, my mind would say. What was it? The purse of her lips? The cheekbones perched just high enough to frame her face in a perfect heart?

  “She’s on life support,” Ross said. He’d appeared in the doorway. “There’s no brain activity. The doctor said that we need to decide when to…you know.”

  “Turn off the machines?” I said.

  “That’s what’s left,” he said. “Machines. Claire’s already gone.” His voice broke on the word gone. He walked to the window and pounded his fist against the wall. Ross had been pounding his fist against a lot of walls lately.

  I nodded. I needed to play this one cool with Ross. He was hurting, and each of us wanted different things here. “There’s no hurry, right?”

  “What’s the point in keeping her alive?” Ross wanted to know. “She’s already gone.”

  “I know,” I agreed. “I just need to sit with her for a while.” I scooted next to my sister territorially and stroked her frail hand.

  “I need for this to be over,” Ross said. “I want to turn off the machines sooner rather than later. Maura has already said good-bye. There’s no way I’m letting her see her mother this way.”

  I nodded. Ross needed me to be sympathetic. He needed me to not hurt him more than he was hurting already. But I needed something, too. I needed more time with Claire, and I didn’t care—seriously, I did not care one bit at this point—whether she was brain-dead or not. I wasn’t ready to let her go; I wasn’t ready to never touch her again.

  “That’s not Claire anymore,” Ross said. “My wife, Maura’s mother—she’s gone.”

  I nodded. “I know, Ross. I know,” I said as compassionate
ly as I could. I squeezed Claire’s hand more tightly and looked at Ross. “Can we just not make the decision today?”

  “I don’t want to see her like this.”

  “I’m begging you, Ross,” I pleaded. “Please. Just not today.”

  Ross turned and left without saying good-bye.

  I stayed by Claire’s side for two more days. I slept in her bed, applied lip salve to her cracked lips, and rubbed lotion into her hands. I brushed her hair and dotted cream rouge on her cheeks. I massaged Tiger Balm into her back, in case it hurt her the way our mother’s had. On the last day of April, when it was certain that the miracle I had prayed for hadn’t come, the doctors turned off the machines, and I covered her body with mine until the last breath had left her.

  Two days later, on the morning of Claire’s funeral, just as Sam and I were stepping out of the bathtub, the phone rang. The caller identification informed me that it was the Genetic Counseling office of Fairfax Hospital. I exhaled a stream of breath and answered it, holding tight to Sam and the towel wrapped around us.

  “Mrs. Francis, this is Michelle from the Genetics office. I’m calling to let you know that we got back the results of your blood test.”

  For a split second, I wanted her to say that I was predisposed. I wanted her to say that I would share Claire’s fate. For a split second, I wanted her to hand me a one-way ticket to seeing my sister again.

  “And?” I asked.

  “Good news. The cancer gene did not show up in your blood work.”

  “Oh, thank God,” I said, and started to cry because what I had thought a second before wasn’t true. As much as I wanted to see Claire again, I wanted to stay here even more. One of us needed to be here for Sam and Maura. I hugged Sam tightly in her towel bundle.

  “So, again, good news,” Michelle said. “But still, please remember to make your follow-up visit in six months.”

  “That’s great,” I said, rubbing Sam’s back. “Thank you for the good news. Um…”

  “Do you have any questions?” she asked.

  “No,” I hesitated. “It’s just that…”

  “What is it?”

  “My sister died,” I said, though I wasn’t exactly sure why. Maybe I wanted to test-drive the words, see if I could form a sentence out of my pain. “Her funeral is this morning.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Francis,” Michelle said. “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “I don’t want to get it,” I said, sounding like a six-year-old worried about catching chicken pox.

  “Some women with extensive family history get hysterectomies to reduce their chances,” she said. “I’m not advocating it, I’m just saying.”

  “Thanks, Michelle,” I said. “For listening.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  We buried Claire on a crisp May morning. Father O’Meara presided over the service. A friend of Claire’s from college—Sarah, who I remembered from Claire and Ross’s wedding—sang “Ave Maria.” Claire would have loved to hear her friend sing, I thought, listening to the haunting, pure tones of the song that meant so much to my sister. But Claire was gone, dead. She couldn’t hear it. But that was just me and my lack of faith. If Mom were here, she would have seen it differently. She would have believed that Claire was able to hear the timbre of her friend’s voice, see Maura straddling her father’s lap, feel the love of those who congregated to remember her.

  After the service, we drove to the cemetery. Tim drove and Larry sat next to him in the passenger’s seat. I sat in the backseat, with Sam in her car seat on one side and Maura adhered to me on the other. I had whispered to her earlier that it would be nice for her to go with her father, but she clung tightly to me and shook her head no. Ross said that it was fine, that he wanted her to do what was most comfortable. His brothers were with him; Martha was at his side. We were all statues, buckling under the weight of it; we all needed our scaffolding to hold us up.

  At the cemetery, we climbed the hill to the manicured plot. My mind felt fuzzy and unreliable. The surroundings seemed exceptionally vivid. The sky was strangely blue, as in a child’s painting. Cotton-ball clouds scattered above us. The hillside was too perfectly sloped, as if Maura had drawn it: a steady line, an exaggerated hump, more steady line. The gladiolus that draped my sister’s casket were perfectly shaped trumpets, their colors almost too vibrant. It occurred to me that my senses were piqued, heightened perhaps to compensate for the grief tunneling through my body, digging in, taking root. I’ll be here for a while, the angry pain seemed to be saying. Distract yourself with the lovely flowers.

  We stood before the casket—Tim, me, Sam in my arms; Ross, now holding Maura; the grandparents. I was there, but my awareness was skewed as I stared at the grave, the casket. That’s Mom, I thought as a wave of a fourteen-year-old’s insecurity and need pulsed through me. That’s Claire, my adult mind reminded me. You’re all that’s left. You’re the mom now.

  Somehow, we made it home, back to our house. Though Claire’s house would have accommodated the crowd better, Ross asked if we could come to ours. He was sure that Claire wouldn’t have wanted people at their house in the shape that it was in, messier than normal, a hospital bed in the family room, prescription bottles everywhere. She had been so proud of her decorating and housekeeping.

  Our house had the feeling of somehow being whipped, frenzied. Delia and Martha zipped around, tending to the girls, answering the phone, accepting flowers, preparing food. I was aware of Davis playing cards with Maura. Go fish, her helium-balloon voice said. Then later, there was Larry, scooping up Sam and taking Maura by the hand into the backyard to show them a bird’s nest perched in the crook of a tree, housing three new hatchlings. Maura brightened at the sight of them, her eyes widening. That’s what I remember, that Larry was the first to make Maura smile.

  The guests left and the sky grew dark. Maura asked for pillows. She was on the floor, watching a movie. I went upstairs to Sam’s room, sat on the bed, and a wave of sadness overtook me with such ferocity that I had to lie down and cry into the sheets. Later, Tim said that he’d come up to check on me, only to find me asleep. By his clock, I slept for twelve hours.

  We all, collectively, made it through the next week. The week after. The first week without Claire. It was a cobbled effort where everyone pitched in, worked, and contributed until they reached their breaking point, then withdrew until they were ready to join in again.

  In the mornings, Sam and Maura and I would watch kid television for hours, we’d read a mountain of books, we’d eat dry cereal from the box. Maura would color, Sam would scribble, and together, they’d piece together puzzles or stack LEGOs. It astonished me to watch the two of them. I had just assumed that the age difference between Sam and Maura would be too big for them to get along. I had just assumed that a one-year-old and a five-year-old would be in completely different spaces, mentally, physically, academically. But while it was true that Maura was in a completely different space, her added maturity didn’t preclude her from playing with Sam. They enjoyed the same things, just in different, age-appropriate, ways: Tim’s Matchbox cars, stuffed animals, and arts and crafts. They were happy companions. It was an odd thing, how we were nourishing each other, how I was bonding with Sam, how Sam was finding a companion in Maura, how Maura was accumulating the affection she so desperately needed to restore to her life.

  As they played, I’d sit at my computer, checking e-mail. Amy DePalma wrote daily. Her oldest sister’s breast cancer had recurred. It didn’t look good. But in Amy’s usual fashion, she had found peace. She was like Claire in that way, which was a trait in both of them that I still didn’t understand. Claire was the most principled person I’d ever known, the type who would fight a ten-dollar parking ticket given erroneously, just to right a wrong. Amy, too. At the airport in China, she had argued with a Chinese official who claimed that her suitcase was overweight, when Amy knew that it wasn’t. She ended up with her suitcase on the plane and a twenty-dollar voucher for snacks. How, then, did these two
women, who stood for everything and put up with nothing, accept cancers as if they were fated in the stars? Of course, I knew. It was their faith. I just wasn’t there yet.

  Each day, around lunchtime, we’d go downstairs. Delia would fix whatever the girls wanted: grilled cheese, peanut butter and jelly, soup. Then I’d let Delia and Davis, or Martha, or Larry, or Tim, or Ross take the girls outside for a while, just to get some fresh air. Ross tried, but he was struggling. He would play a game with Maura and she would smile or laugh; then his eyes would fill and he’d have to excuse himself. I’d watch him walk away, suck in the air, throw sticks into the woods.

  At one point—it must have been Wednesday or Thursday—I looked out the window to see Larry sawing down a dead tree in our front yard, Tim standing next to him holding a beer, Maura riding a scooter on the driveway, Sam toddling behind her, Martha and Delia pulling weeds from the beds. Only months ago, I was a girl with a scrawny family tree. Now in the midst of losing another branch, it was regenerating.

  While the girls spent time with their relatives, I’d go upstairs alone, turn on the shower, and stand under the water. I’d make it hotter than was comfortable and let it beat down on me, turning my skin red, curling my toes, while I cried until I was doubled over and coughing. I’d sink to my knees, pull at the hair on my head, and pound my fists on the tile floor. That would be enough to get me through the rest of the day, a temporary patch that would allow me to put on a brave face for Maura and Sam.

  I no longer asked Maura where she wanted to sleep. It was clear that she needed me to provide what was now missing from her life—a warm, maternal body. Maura would sleep in my arms, and Sam, now used to having her older cousin around, slept next to her. Each morning I would find the two asleep, touching somehow—a tangle of legs, an overlap of arms, two mouths puckered, only a centimeter apart. The girls were comforting each other; they just didn’t know it. They didn’t know that they were one and the same, that each in her own way had been left.