Mothers and Daughters: An Anthology

by Deborah Bedford

  “It’s a fine excuse. Only it isn’t why.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “It’s because of your mother, Kate. Because she has cancer. Tiffany didn’t invite you because she was worried you might talk about your mother’s cancer. Her mom agreed with her, too. She thought it wouldn’t be fair, asking you to have fun when there was something so sad happening to your family. Tiffany’s mother said she wouldn’t know what to say.”

  To cry in front of your best friend is a disreputable thing. So Kate didn’t cry in front of Jaycee now. The muscles of her throat moved in a convulsive swallow. Why did stupid people always worry about saying the right thing?

  It wasn’t fair. None of it.

  Kate picked up the phone book and searched through it for Tiffany Haas’s number.

  Theia pushed herself up off the couch in the waiting area and watched Heidi through the one-way mirror in studio three. Heidi did her best to keep up with the other clowns, but it would take weeks for her to grasp this complicated dance. Even so, she bounded around the room to the strains of Tchaikovsky as if she’d been given a gift, springing forward in the circle and catching hands, grinning when she made a misstep, catching hands, trying it over.

  At one point when she made a mistake, Heidi gestured with wild animation toward her teacher. The instructor nodded. Theia watched as everyone took hands again, circled once, broke the circle, and then whipped into it backwards. The teacher pursed her lips and tilted her chin, then began slowly nodding again. “That’s great—” Theia could read her words through the glass “—Let’s add it to the dance.”

  Theia stood in the hallway the way she’d stood so many times before, her hand barely resting on the temporary cotton prosthesis beneath her blouse. Somewhere deep in her belly, the queasiness and the exhaustion that the doctor had predicted had begun.

  No one could tell her exactly how her body would respond to chemo or what to expect. Dr. Sugden had given her two IV drips, the first something supposed to quell nausea, and the second a liquid similar to red Kool-Aid that made her entire body hum like a guitar. They sent her home with a list of printed instructions. She was to call the nurse if she developed fever over 101, started bleeding or bruising, or if the nausea didn’t go away.

  Other people had been in the waiting room with friends, but Theia had brought no one.

  Why couldn’t I tell Joe that I was afraid?

  The door had opened upstairs. Four or five little dancers came trampling down the wooden steps, their snow-booted feet clattering as they came. Inside the studio, the instructor started the clowns on their cartwheels. Even though Heidi couldn’t hear, Theia whispered the same instructions her own mother had given her once, out in a grassy yard, somewhere long ago.

  “Hand. Hand. Foot. Foot.”

  Come on, Heidi. You can do it.

  “Hand. Hand. Foot. Foot.”

  Heidi moved across the floor like a gigantic broken turtle, shaking her head and laughing, trying to get her hands on the floor and her feet in the air.

  At her side, Theia’s fingers closed and then opened again.

  I should have been able to teach her. I should have been able to take her out in the front yard and tumble across the grass with her.

  At that moment, she felt like cancer had devastated her. Cancer had kept her from helping her daughter grow.

  It certainly hadn’t taken much time, calling the girls from Miss Rainey’s class and having them all over. “I know about your birthday, Tiffany.” Kate planted her hands on her hips and flipped her hair over her shoulder in defiance. “Next time your mother doesn’t want me to come to something, you can just tell me. You don’t have to talk to everybody in school first.”

  Tiffany tilted her head toward Jaycee. “You’ve got a big mouth, you know that.”

  “I can’t help it. Kate’s my best friend.”

  “I trusted you.”

  “If you didn’t want me to tell Kate, you shouldn’t have invited me in the first place.”

  Tiffany squared her hands on her hips, too. “Well, maybe I’m sorry that I did.”

  After all of the hurt and disappointment, Kate did her best to be the peacemaker. “It’s okay, Tiffany. I made her tell me. I bugged her and bugged her until she’d say what was going on.”

  Jaycee didn’t back off. “I’m going to stay here Friday night and spend the night with Kate.”

  “Fine. You do whatever you want to do. The rest of us are going where we can have fun. Nothing fun ever happens around this place.”

  Megan Spence, who had been flipping through CDs in the corner, gave out a little laugh. “Tiffany. This reeks. Of course there’s fun stuff to do here. Kate has her own car.”

  “Yeah,” Jaycee echoed.

  “So what?” Tiffany was gathering up her things to go. “She can’t drive it yet.”

  “Yeah. But I can.”

  All three girls stared at Megan.

  She waved her billfold in the air. “I’ve got my hardship license right here.”

  Kate’s heart froze.

  “So.” Tiffany slid her arms into her coat. “Why are we all sitting around here? Let’s go somewhere.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “Why not? It’s your car, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t—”

  “You’ve been bragging about it for days.”

  “I know, but it’s not the way I’ve made it sound.”

  “Where can we go?”

  “The library?”

  “We can’t make any noise at the library.”

  “I could get a book for my book report though.”

  “We could drive up and down Elk Refuge Road and listen to KMTN.”

  “We could go to Dairy Queen.”

  By the time they’d all chimed in, Kate could not say no. Only Jaycee glanced back at her with some hint of remorse as they went outside, glanced in every direction to make sure that nobody was watching them, and Megan started up the car.

  “Where’s your grandpa?” Jaycee asked as Megan backed out.

  “I don’t know.”

  Kate fingered the door handle. A piece of silver peeled off beneath her nail. The inside of the precious Fairlane smelled musty and old.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be something special that Grandpa and I did together.

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “In his office. He’s got counseling appointments and stuff.”

  They stopped at the sign on the corner of Ten Sleep and made a right onto the highway. “Turn on the radio!”

  “It’s cold back here. Can you turn on the heater?”

  “Just a minute! I have to figure out how to turn everything on.” Megan turned on the radio, but it took a few seconds to warm up and start playing. “Kate, this car is really old.”

  “I know that.”

  They passed the turnoff to High School Road where the middle school and the high school sat side by side. They passed McDonald’s, the Wyoming Inn, the pawnshop, and the Sagebrush Motel.

  “I hate that song. Can you change it?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Did anyone bring any money?”

  They ended up at Dairy Queen. They pooled all their change and had enough to buy one Blizzard. They doubled back and drove halfway to Moose-Wilson Road. They honked at two different carloads of friends. They waved at the Teton County school bus bringing the Jackson Bronc JV football team home from a game. They hung a U-turn and started back toward the town square, heading for Elk Refuge Road.

  That’s when Megan glanced back over her shoulder at Kate and grinned. “It’s your turn. You want to try?”

  “Me?”

  “It’s your car, isn’t it?”

  Tiffany laughed nervously. “She can’t drive, Megan. You’re being crazy.”

  Jaycee sat beside Kate, her fists clenched at her sides, not saying a word.

  Kate stared at her friend, her pulse drumming in her th
roat. She squirmed in her seat. They were all looking at her.

  I can handle everything everybody’s throwing at me. I can. “Well, it isn’t a big deal.” She said it mostly to Jaycee. “If Megan can do it, so can I.”

  “You can?”

  “Sure.”

  Megan turned around again and eyed her from the front seat. “Kate, you’re such a goody-goody. A preacher’s kid. You know you don’t really want to drive this thing.”

  “I do.”

  For what seemed an eternity, nobody moved. Tiffany finally flipped down the sun visor, opened her little pot of Carmex, and smeared some across her mouth. “It’s not that big a deal. Everybody’s tried it by now,” she said with nonchalance. “Cheri Fraser walked home one day when her mom had gone to Dubois and drove us up to Yellowstone. We were gone all day.”

  “Driving ought to be easy,” Jaycee said.

  “You really want to try?” Megan’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror.

  “Yes.”

  Kate had thought her positive answer would send them running from the car screaming, but it didn’t. They sat right where they were, except for Megan, who pulled the car to the side of the road, got out, and gestured for Kate to scoot in behind the steering wheel. “Go ahead. I’ll teach you.”

  Kate climbed out of the backseat, came around, and slid inside. She put her hands on the steering wheel. In her mind, the car grew ten times bigger. Kate leaned against the bench seat and felt the ancient upholstery crackle beneath her. She checked the rearview mirror, but all she could see were her own eyebrows, her own pale forehead.

  “I don’t think I want to do this.”

  “Just turn it on. Put the car in gear, and it’ll go forward. That’s all there is to it.”

  From where Kate sat, she could see Tiffany stretching her arm along the door beside the window, flicking her nails against the grid where the heat flowed.

  Tiffany, who hadn’t wanted Kate at her overnight party because having her might spoil the fun.

  At this one moment, driving this car became a declaration of liberty for her, a way to show the whole world—God and her parents included—that she could handle growing up.

  I don’t need my mother! I can do things on my own.

  Kate turned the key. The engine roared to life at first try.

  It felt incredible sitting here, a powerful engine throbbing beneath the hood, as if Kate controlled the whole world.

  “Put your foot on the brake first. Then you put it in drive.”

  Which one was drive? Kate manhandled the shift and moved the red line to R, which she decided must stand for “regular.” They rolled backwards, bumping up over the curb.

  “No. No! That’s reverse,” three girls hollered to her all at once. “Put it on the D. That’s drive. That makes you go forward.”

  She pulled the stick down, felt a clunk beneath her.

  “You’re doing fine. Fine. Now press down on the accelerator. That other pedal down there.”

  “There’s another pedal?” Almost as fast as she asked the question, she found it with her foot. The Fairlane lurched forward. Jaycee grabbed the door handle. Megan screamed.

  Just try to take my mother away, God. Do what You want to do, but You can’t scare me!

  She thought she was laughing, but then she realized she was choking on her tears. Her chest heaved, expanding for the air it wasn’t getting.

  “You’re driving in the bike lane.”

  She yanked the wheel and went too far, jerking the car left, across the yellow line into the turn lane.

  “Put the car in park, Kate. Put it on the P!”

  A pickup truck loomed in the turn lane, coming right at them. They all three screamed at her, “Move over! Kate!”

  She craned her neck over her right shoulder to check the lane. A Suburban roared past. “I can’t.”

  Brakes squealed. For precious seconds, Kate sought the brakes in the Fairlane and found only air.

  Bumpers came together in a terrifying crunch of metal. The girls pitched forward. Gravel flew.

  When the car stopped, Kate moved the red line to P.

  She ignored the tears of frustration and defeat as they coursed down her cheeks. Instead, she switched the key off like an expert and sat taller.

  Chapter Eight

  Harry had never been one for tearing up good boxes. He retrieved a table knife from the drawer in his little kitchenette, made one clean slice through the right end of the box, then the left. He cut across the center seam in the box, making a clean dissection. He laid the knife beside him on the carpet and steeled his heart against what he knew he would find inside.

  He expected to throw open the panels of cardboard and have the scent, the very essence of Edna, come pouring out at him. But it didn’t. Instead, when he bent back the lid, everything inside smelled bitter and brittle, decayed with age.

  He recoiled.

  How fresh and painful these treasures once had been. How old and lost they seemed to him now.

  He sat high on his old haunches, allowing himself, for the briefest of moments, to feel cheated. For this he could blame no one but himself.

  There could be no hurrying the grieving process.

  Sealing this box had been his one desperate attempt to contain an unbearable, devastating hurt. A hurt that had proven impossible to escape. Harry had journeyed in its shadow for a lifetime.

  Would that he had not locked away these memories, these precious belongings of the woman who’d slept beside him and held him and nursed him and encouraged him for thirty-one years.

  Would that he had touched these and cherished them while they still bore the fresh scent of her, the recent grip of her hand, the rare allusion of her presence.

  Harry edged close again and, with a sense of desperation, peered inside.

  Lord, will You show me? What is it that You intend for me to find here?

  With one tentative hand, he began to remove items from the box.

  Edna’s favorite polka-dot apron. A tiny bowl she’d kept on the kitchen windowsill where she laid her wedding rings when she took them off to wash the dishes. Her darning thimble, kept in the wooden sewing basket beside her feet, worn so thin where she’d used it that daylight shone through the tin. The monogrammed mint green towel he’d found in the bathroom the day of her funeral, right where she’d left it, folded and lopped over the side of the tub. He lifted it high, let it fall open, seeking Edna.

  He found only dust.

  Harry refolded the towel and laid it aside with her other things. He reached in again. Touched leather. And knew.

  Edna had always loved the feel of this Bible. He’d watched her when it was new, balancing it in one hand and running a palm over it with her other, enjoying the limber weight of it, the gold foiled pages, the way, when she dropped it open, it fell right to a place in the middle of Psalms.

  He held it in both hands and stared at it.

  It’s only her Bible, after all. This is no surprise. I’ve known it was here ever since I closed that box.

  Harry couldn’t put it down. He remembered how she read every page of this book as if it were a treasure, lifting the page from the bottom right-hand corner, turning it slowly, smoothing the center of the leather-bound volume with the flat of her hand.

  Father, what do You want from this?

  As if to answer him, the Bible plopped open.

  When he glanced down, expecting Psalms, he found something more. A vaguely familiar onionskin envelope with pink rosebuds and scalloped edges, like lace…

  What was this? Harry was afraid to touch.

  Edna had such stationery once. He remembered her writing notes on it.

  He picked up the envelope and turned it over. What he saw made chills run up his spine.

  “To Theia,” it read in Edna’s bold, slanted script.

  In his own mind, Harry began to play devil’s advocate, thinking of all the reasons this letter might not be what it seemed. Perhaps it had already been o
pened. Perhaps it was something Theia had already read, something day-to-day and childlike, not significant at all.

  Harry flipped the envelope over again and checked the flap.

  Still sealed.

  Harry’s chest went tight with anticipation. He understood the full truth. Theia had not read this letter.

  She might never have seen it, if not for his digging in the box.

  Emotion clogged his nostrils, misted his eyes. Harry closed the Bible, leaving the letter exactly as he’d found it so his daughter could discover the envelope the way he had discovered it, the way Edna had intended it to be discovered all along.

  He laid his wife’s Bible with great care on the floor beside him.

  Then he rocked back on his heels and whispered words of praise and gratefulness up to the sky.

  Theia had just slammed the car door, opened the hatch of the Taurus, and lugged groceries to the kitchen counter when Joe came crashing in through the garage door. “Theia, did you hear from Kate this afternoon? Did she leave you a note or anything?”

  Theia moved several grocery bags and checked the kitchen table, where they always left notes for each other if need be. “Nope. Nothing here. Where is she, Joe? Is something wrong?”

  “Yes. She’s been in an accident. A car accident.”

  “Oh, Joe, is she hurt?”

  “Apparently not. Who was she with? Why didn’t she leave a note to tell you she was going somewhere?” Joe gestured toward the car. They climbed in, and Joe backed out of the driveway, bumping over the wedge of snow that the plow left every time it cleared the road.

  Theia buckled her seat belt. “I have no idea. She’s always so good about that.”

  “She was with some friend. Jaycee maybe? I don’t know who else would have come over after school.”

  “Joe, I—” Theia leaned her head back against the seat. The nausea she’d been battling all afternoon came upon her full bore. Her stomach roiled. “Joe, I’m going to be sick.”

  He pulled over for her at the corner of Ten Sleep Drive, yanked the door open, leaned over her, and held her head while she gave in to the effects of chemotherapy. She retched onto the graveled shoulder, gasping for air. “We’ve got to get there.”