Jasmine looked at her sports watch. “Oh no, I’m late.” She gathered her bag and reusable coffee mug. “It was so nice meeting all of you.” She rushed off before Doug could hop up to give her a hug. He seemed disappointed, but no doubt that was for the best.
Maddie whacked his leg as soon as Jasmine was out of sight. “Really! Really, Doug!”
He stuttered, “Wh-what?”
“And Sarah thought I was bad.” I laughed. “I only had tea with her and talked about Nazis. You were practically drooling, dude.”
Doug looked betrayed, as if I should have his back. I felt bad for him, but I wasn’t going to join ranks with him on this. Not when it was such a thorny subject in my marriage.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He jumped up and rushed to the bathroom.
“You want me to take him out back and give him a beat down?” I asked Maddie, feigning some boxing jabs.
She laughed. “I would love to see you try.”
When Doug returned, Sarah and Maddie were chatting about a new restaurant they wanted to try. They were becoming quite the gourmands. I blamed cable television. They really like the show Man V. Food: the one with Adam Richman, who entered all of these crazy food challenges, like eating dozens of oysters in thirty minutes. Yuck!
Doug took his seat tentatively. I gave him the “You’re in the clear” look, and he sighed and put his arm on the back of Maddie’s chair. She harrumphed playfully before turning to pat his cheek and continuing her conversation with Sarah. But the look in her eye suggested Doug wasn’t completely out of the woods.
* * *
The drive to see my mother was way too short. As I neared her home, a pressure tightened in my chest; I feared it would strangle me before the day’s end. What did you say to someone who had decided not to continue the fight? I couldn’t blame her. Her pain and suffering must have been overwhelming. And the chemo wasn’t working. I couldn’t picture my mother searching for alternative treatments.
Instead of taking her to appointments, lately I had been keeping Mom company a few times a week. Was that what she wanted? Would Peter take any shifts? Or was Mr. Important still too busy?
I sighed. Jesus, I needed to get a grip. Who cared about Peter? I needed to move on. I was pretty sure Peter wasn’t sitting around thinking about me.
My mother’s nurse opened the door.
“How’s she doing today?” I asked.
The nurse pursed her thin lips together. “She’s comfortable, for now. That’s all we can do.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s signed a DNR,” the nurse explained, putting her hand on my arm and giving it a gentle squeeze.
“DNR?”
“Do not resuscitate. It means we won’t intervene if she stops breathing or anything.”
“So you just watch her die?” I was appalled by the idea. Wasn’t that against their oath?
The woman squeezed my arm again. “It’s your mother’s wish.”
She tried to walk away, but I stopped her. “Does my father know about this?”
“Of course. I know this isn’t easy, but there’s nothing you can do.” She strode to my mom’s bedroom and motioned for me to go inside.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. It had been just days since I last saw her, and I knew cancer wouldn’t take her easily. It wanted to make her suffer. I knew it could take weeks or months to kill her. It was just a waiting game now.
Mom sat in a recliner positioned in a sunny spot in the bedroom. I almost laughed—a recliner! Not once had Mom ever bought a recliner. It must have been a punch to the gut when she realized she needed one, or had my father or the nurse surprised her? I hoped the latter, at least that would preserve some of her dignity.
Her eyes were closed, and she was listening to a novel on the Kindle. Finally, I’d found a gift Mom actually used. The nurse left us alone, and I stood motionless in the doorway. Mom looked so peaceful. I had never seen her peaceful. Maybe it was because her eyes were closed, rather than beadily searching for something or someone to shred.
That narrator was female and had a soothing voice.
“You going to just stand there?”
Mom’s voice startled me, and I jumped as if I’d seen a ghost.
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” I mumbled, slinking into the room. “What are you listening to?”
“Some book. I don’t remember the name.” She waved a hand dismissively.
It almost made me smile. She was working hard at being her normal self, but she couldn’t quite muster enough rancor in her words and tone. “I need water,” she croaked. She motioned to the pitcher and cup by her bedside.
Several pill bottles were lined up next to the water. At least the nurse could still give her pain meds, even if there was a DNR. I couldn’t imagine babysitting my mother if she was in excruciating pain. Keeping my back to her, I asked, “Do you need anything else?” I didn’t know how to ask if she was in pain. She might infer that I thought she was weak.
“No,” she barked, but in a tiny voice.
I handed her the water and settled in the chair next to her. Secretly, I wished it was a recliner, too. My eyelids felt heavy. I would have loved to close them and listen to the book with her. Instead, not knowing what to say, I asked, “How’s Peter been?”
“Planning his wedding. He thinks I’ll be there.” She stared out the window, glaring at the leafless trees.
Peter’s wedding was six weeks away. So, Mom thought she had less than six weeks. Something clutched at my throat. Why hadn’t I poured myself a glass of water when I had the chance? If I poured myself one now, she’d know why. I couldn’t show weakness now.
Just fucking hold on, Lizzie.
“A Christmas wedding. How romantic.” I was desperate to focus the conversation on Peter, and not on what was actually happening in that room—the cancer slowly eating away at her, piece by piece.
She grunted. It was hard to decipher whether she approved or not.
“Does Tiffany have a large family?” I looked around the room, as if hoping Tiffany would magically appear and answer the question herself. Deflect. Distract. I was desperate for a distraction. As annoying as my brother’s new fiancée was, she did have some benefits.
“Peter always liked being the center of attention.” Mom ignored my question about Tiffany.
She hadn’t liked Peter being with Maddie either, but back then, she’d hid it more. Maybe Mom no longer felt like she had to hide her contempt. Just let it fly. It was a terrifying thought.
I chuckled softly, hoping it wouldn’t offend her. Peter, her precious child—the one who got all her attention. I wasn’t sure I could call it love. It was always difficult to associate that word with The Scotch-lady.
“You were difficult to know.”
Her words pulled me out of my head. “What?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly.
“Independent. Like your father. Neither of you ever needed me. Peter needed me.” She talked as though I wasn’t in the room.
I sat mute, my mouth open.
The Scotch-lady rolled her head to eyeball me. “I didn’t know what to do with an adult-child. Mother you? Be your friend? I felt robbed.”
“Robbed?” I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to pursue this conversation, but the question popped out. “What do you mean?”
“Peter was the perfect little boy. Just what I wanted: smart, handsome, friendly. He loved Hot Wheels, Legos. You…you were different. I thought I would be able to dress you up. I thought you would be a little girl. A real life doll for me to play with.” She looked away. “I don’t know what you were. You’d never wear a dress. One Halloween, I made you a princess costume. You cried and cried when I put it on you. You wanted to be a Smurf. Brainy Smurf,” she said with as much venom as possible, a sneer on her face. “You threw such a fit that it was your first and last Halloween.”
Brainy Smurf. I
couldn’t even remember watching The Smurfs, let alone remember the princess costume. Had she made me a costume herself, or did she have it made? She must have had it made. How come I didn’t remember any of this?
“For Christmas, I would buy you a Madame Alexander doll. Every time you saw what was in the box, you would get this pained expression on your face, but you never told me you didn’t like them. You never told me you didn’t like me. But I knew it.”
“I didn’t like you?” My voice started to rise. “What about you? For as long as I can remember, you antagonized me. The only attention I got from you was negative. Attack. Attack. Attack. And your precious boy, Peter, would join in. The two of you ganged up on me. Jesus! I was just a child.” I jumped out of my chair.
“No. You were never a child. I don’t know what you were. You always had an opinion of your own. Never wanted to be told anything. Never needed anything. You just…” She shook her head, unable to continue.
“I thought that’s what you wanted. For me to be self-sufficient and not need you. God knows you tortured me whenever I showed any sign of needing anything from you,” I snarled, through clenched teeth.
Mom waved my words away. I was exhausting. Her eyelids drooped. Luckily, the nurse appeared in the doorway, mouthing whether it was okay for her to enter.
I nodded, feeling like an asshole. Why was I yelling at my tired and obviously in pain mother?
“How are you feeling?” the nursed asked in a singsong voice.
“I need more.”
The nursed padded over to the nightstand to retrieve Mom’s medicine. “Would you like some soup?”
The Scotch-lady pursed her lips tightly, like a child refusing to take its medicine. She shook her head.
I wondered whether she was eating at all. She had never been much of an eater. Before all this, scotch provided much of her sustenance.
“Maybe when you wake up, then?” The nurse waited for an answer, but never received one. She smiled brightly and left us alone again.
My mother hit play on her Kindle again and closed her eyes. I slumped into the seat and listened with her. Our conversation was done. Nothing was resolved, but it was done.
I had an insight, but I still hadn’t said my peace. I wasn’t sure if Mom had said all she wanted to either. Yet, try as I might, I couldn’t force any more words out. What more could I say, really?
She’d made it clear I was a disappointment for her right from the start, not just because I was a lesbian, but also because I was like my father. Did she despise him that much that she had to hate me as well? Everyone always said I looked like my father. Did she see him whenever she glimpsed me? It seemed so irrational to me: to hate me for that.
All these years I had tortured myself and tried to win my mother’s approval. And now I knew there was nothing I could have done. My fate was sealed as soon as I popped out. I was like him, and therefore a mortal enemy. And then, when I announced I was a lesbian, well, it really was the perfect storm.
Chapter Fifteen
The doorbell pulled me out of my stupor. I’d been standing in my kitchen, staring out the window, although my intention had been to fix some lunch rather than to stare uselessly.
I needed to pull my shit together. Seriously, people dealt with tragedy all of the time.
Stop being a pussy, Lizzie.
I swung the front door open with more gusto than I intended and almost whacked myself in the face.
“Easy there, tiger. Don’t knock yourself out.” Maddie sashayed in, not bothering to wait for an invite.
“Please, come on in.” I bowed like a butler letting in a princess.
“I’m starving. Do you have anything to eat?” she demanded.
“Actually, I was just thinking of having lunch. Will a sandwich do?”
“I’m so hungry I might eat Hank. Where is the little bugger?”
“Probably in my office, sunning on a cushion in the window.”
Maddie wandered toward my office to give the cat some love. I headed for the kitchen to fix lunch. I guessed the princess didn’t plan on helping prepare the sandwiches.
When she eventually joined me, she was cradling Hank in her arms. Usually, he protested being held, but few could ignore Maddie’s charm—not even my cat. He enjoyed her attention briefly before launching himself onto the counter, knocking off some papers and then scurrying back to my office.
Maddie replaced the papers and eyed me suspiciously. “What are you doing?”
“Making your sandwich, your highness.” I bowed.
“I can see that, but why are you folding the pita like that?”
I stared at her. “How else will the turkey, cheese, lettuce, and tomato stay on it? You want it like a pizza?”
Maddie let out a snort of laughter. “Oh my God! Don’t move! I need to snap a photo.” She whipped out her cell phone. “Doug’s going to love this. He thinks I’m a bad cook!” She grinned, shaking her head.
I gazed at her. What was she on about?
“They’re called pita pockets for a reason, Lizzie.” She dumped all of the fillings off the pita and sliced it in half before I could stop her. To my astonishment, she separated the pita, creating, well…a pocket.
“That’s so neat!” I started shoving the sandwich stuffing into it.
Maddie shook her head, chuckling. “Let me guess, Sarah does the grocery shopping?”
“Yep. And we’re trying to eat healthier, so she got me these for my lunches.” I bit into my pita pocket. “Wow, this is much easier.”
“Can we sit down and not eat over the sink?”
“Jeez, you’re demanding today,” I teased. I pulled two red plates from the cupboard. “What do you want to drink?”
Maddie padded to the fridge and helped herself to a Diet Coke before grabbing a regular Coke for me.
“Sarah filled me in on your latest conversation with your mom.” She sat down at the kitchen table and leaned over to place her hand on mine. “I’m sorry. Really. That must have been tough to hear.”
“Yes and no. I mean, it’s not fun knowing I was a disappointment from the start.” I took another bite of my sandwich. Since my conversation with Mom, I’d had a ravenous appetite, my body craving all sorts of food. I made a mental note to make an appointment to get my thyroid levels checked, just to be safe. Whenever my appetite seemed uncontrollable, I automatically feared my Graves’ Disease had come out of remission.
I swallowed and continued. “But it was a relief to find out she didn’t just hate me solely for being a lesbian or for studying history instead of going into the family biz like Peter did. Not that those two factors helped my cause.” I shrugged. “At least I didn’t try to be someone I thought she wanted me to be. Marry some dude and work for Dad and then find out that wouldn’t have made a difference.” I let out a sigh.
“That’s a very mature response. I’m impressed.” Maddie slurped her soda out of the can.
I flashed a sheepish smile. “Well, my therapist may have helped me realize some of those points. I would be remiss to take all the credit.”
Maddie shook her head. “Remiss.” She rolled her eyes. “I hope you don’t make flashcards to improve your child’s vocabulary. The only people I know who talk like that are you and Peter…and I don’t talk to Peter anymore.” She glared at me as if it was my fault that I reminded her of him.
“Flashcards!” I snickered. “Who still uses flashcards?” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and showed her my word-a-day app.
She grabbed my phone. “Hir-sut-e,” she said, butchering the word hirsute.
“It’s pronounced her-soot.”
“What does it mean?”
“Hairy,” I said with a shrug, as if it were common knowledge.
She tsked. “Please don’t turn your child into a freak.”
I put both palms up. “Sarah already lectured me when she found out I downloaded a bunch of apps for the ba
by,” I confessed.
“What kind of apps?” Maddie finished her sandwich and licked her fingers. I handed her a napkin, but she waved it away.
“Learning apps. She was okay with some, like the animal noises. But she deleted the math and vocab apps.”
“You want to teach your baby math before he or she can walk? What’s with you Petries? Always so competitive about everything.”
“I hope we have a boy.” The sentence popped out before I could control what I was saying.
“Don’t tell Sarah you said that. She’ll kill you. Why a boy, though? To carry on your family name?”
“No. I just don’t know anything about girls.”
“Lizzie, you’ve never said a truer statement in your life,” Maddie said, before she laughed her ass off, or should I say derriere?
* * *
The house phone jarred me out of an uncomfortable slumber. I fumbled for the phone, wondering why I was sleeping hunched over my desk in the library. Was it night or day?
“H-hello,” I slurred into the receiver.
“Elizabeth?” Peter’s voice shook me awake.
“Yes.”
“She’s dying.” I heard zero emotion in his voice.
Before I could respond, I heard a click. Peter had hung up. Why?
And why did he say, “She’s dying,” and not, “Mom’s dying?”
Part of my job was to analyze rhetoric. Word choice was crucial to understanding and interpreting a person’s motive. Had Peter been too upset to say Mom? Was he distancing himself? Or was Mom out of the picture already in my brother’s path to become even greater than our father?
Sarah’s footsteps sounded on the staircase and then she stormed into the library in various states of dress and undress. Tugging a shirt over her bra, she asked, “Why aren’t you getting ready?”
“She’s dying,” I stated.
Her face softened as Sarah tugged on a pair of jeans and crossed the room to reach me. “I know, sweetie. I picked up the phone in the bedroom and heard. We should get there as quickly as possible.” She leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
A Woman Ignored (A Woman Lost Book 2) Page 17