Five Days Left

by Julie Lawson Timmer

  And then Mara learned her CAG repeat was 48, and they stopped bringing brochures around. And started bringing casseroles and groceries, tools for the garden and cleaning supplies for the bathroom. Mara had been stubbornly shooing away her parents’ help since elementary school, insisting they let her “do it myself,” no matter what it was. She was as opposed to being treated like an incapable child again as she was to watching them sacrifice their golden years for her. So she made mild suggestions that they need not do all of her cooking and cleaning and gardening for her; she could still manage it herself. When that didn’t work, she turned to pleas, and when those failed, too, she finally resorted to giving strict orders that they knock it off, stop treating her like she wasn’t capable of running her own house.

  They promised they’d stop, but all they did was change their approach. It wasn’t that they considered her incapable, they told her; it was simply that they missed being able to vacuum a real house now that they lived in the small condo they’d moved to in retirement. It was such a pleasure to run the machine over a few rugs at her place, for old times’ sake. Also, it was good for them to keep moving at their age, and what better exercise than stooping to pull weeds in her garden? As for the food, everyone knew how difficult it was to cook for only two—easier to make a larger meal and share it.

  And this, Mara knew, is how it would be from now on. Because they would never, not even for a week, leave their sick daughter. And by the time she died, the Aztec ruins would need to be struck from the list because they would no longer be able to climb that far. The gondola trip in Venice would be out, too; they’d be far too unsteady on their feet by then to manage stepping down into a rocking boat. If there was a degree in Making Sacrifices for Loved Ones Without Complaint, the two people standing on her porch this moment would be the best-qualified professors on the planet.

  Mara hoped it wouldn’t occur to them later that in modeling such selflessness to their daughter, they had inspired the promise she made to herself four years ago. She hoped they would find her actions selfish, cowardly. She hoped they would never realize that as much as she didn’t want to have to live with HD anymore, she didn’t want them to have to live with it, either.

  Hanging on to the bitter end, which was of course what they wanted her to do, wouldn’t change the fact that they were going to outlive their own child. The only thing her hanging on would accomplish would be to annihilate any chance they had of living the rest of their years the way they had dreamed. The way they deserved, after everything they had done for her.

  No way in hell was she going to take that from them.

  On the porch, she kissed them both before fishing in her purse for keys. The key refused to steady itself long enough to slip into its spot on the door, and before she could object, her father broke free from his wife’s hold and helped Mara guide it into the lock. He stepped into the house first and extended a hand to usher first Mara, then her mother, through the doorway.

  “Oh, stop that, Pori,” Neerja hissed, rolling her eyes at Mara in an exaggerated and entirely fake display of disgust in her husband. She held the casserole dish out, forcing him to leave Mara’s side. “Take this, please, set it on the counter and let the woman walk into her own house. Leave the bag here and I’ll bring it in later.” Her mother was trying to make her voice sound cross but Mara caught the affection in the older woman’s eyes, and before Pori turned, Neerja crinkled her face into a smile. “Thank you, Puppa.”

  Turning to Mara, Neerja clapped her hands together, placing them under her chin as she surveyed the living room. “The house looks lovely, as usual, Beti.” It was a total lie, of course, and Mara knew the second she left the room, her mother would be doing a quick once-over with a duster, one eye on the doorway to be sure she wasn’t caught.

  “What’s in the bag, Mom?” Mara asked, frowning. She had told her mother to stop wasting her afternoons cooking for Mara’s family.

  “Oh, just some samosas,” Neerja said, looking guilty. Quickly she added, “Store-bought, obviously. I only made the casserole.” Mara arched a brow and her mother said, “I’m sorry. But it’s Laks’s favorite and your father insisted we bring—”

  “Fine,” Mara sighed. Store-bought samosas were a compromise, at least. “Let’s put them in the kitchen, and I’ll pour you and Dad a glass of wine.”

  Before Neerja could suggest they have Pori pour the wine to avoid certain disaster if Mara tried wielding the heavy bottle, Steph’s voice rang from the doorway. “Did someone just offer drinks?” She looked askance at Neerja. “And did people not answer in the affirmative?”

  Gina trailed behind Steph, a full foot shorter, and possibly a foot wider, than long, lithe Steph. They were like a cartoon pairing, Mara thought: tall, blond, confident Steph and her squat, dark-haired, timid sidekick.

  She’d known Steph almost twenty years, starting on the first day of law school orientation at SMU, when by fluke they ended up in neighboring seats in the auditorium for the dean’s welcome speech. From that moment on, they had been almost inseparable, to the amusement, and sometimes mild annoyance, of their husbands. They’d spent hours together in the law school library, bent over casebooks and outlines. They’d freaked out together over final exams. Celebrated together when they made law review. Shopped together for interview suits when it was time to trade their sweats and backpacks for heels and briefcases.

  They had summer interned together at Katon Locke at the end of second year, and that August they’d sat together on Steph’s balcony with a pitcher of Long Island iced tea, reading each other’s offer letters from the firm, only “consulting with” their husbands after they had already decided, together, that they’d accept. Over their almost twenty years together at the firm, they’d held countless “meetings” in the ladies’ room or in each other’s office to gripe about caustic opposing counsel and micromanaging clients. Or to complain about incompetent secretaries, Mara always patiently trying a “make it work” strategy before gently returning them to the secretary pool, Steph generally jumping pretty quickly to a “show ’em the door” solution.

  They had tried cases together. They had made faces at each other over the table at dull Bar Association meetings and litigation practice group “lunch and learn” sessions. They were godmother to each other’s children. Mara was in the delivery room when Steph had Christopher and then, two years later, Sheila. Steph was waiting at Tom and Mara’s house at three in the morning, a pot of coffee on, a freezer full of casseroles and a table covered in baby supplies, when they arrived home from India with baby Laks.

  “Hi, Mrs. Sahay,” Gina said politely, extending a hand to Neerja as Steph grabbed the woman firmly, kissed her cheek and said, “Mummy! Where’s that handsome husband of yours?”

  “Hello, you two!” Neerja said. She clapped her hands once and held them together under her chin as she watched them both greet Mara with hugs and kisses. “I always love to see Those Ladies together.” She turned, worried, to Mara. “I keep forgetting I’m not supposed to use that term anymore. Lakshmi isn’t home yet, is she?”

  Mara shook her head. “Tom picked her up from school and took her to get new ballet shoes. She was almost expelled last Saturday, or so she says, for having ‘falling-apart shoes.’ But she doesn’t mind us saying ‘Those Ladies,’ anyway, remember? It’s ‘Dose Yadies’ she was in such a huff about.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” her mother said. “I knew that. Anyway, let me get your father and we’ll get out from underfoot so you can visit with your friends.”

  “Please stay,” Mara said, gesturing to Steph and Gina. “They want to see you as much as they want to see me, anyway. I think Steph probably followed the scent of samosas.”

  “Samosas?” Steph asked, her face brightening. “Where?”

  Neerja held up the bag proudly and Mara’s heart broke to see how delighted her mother was to be praised, not criticized, for bringing food.<
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  23.

  Scott

  After the hearing the previous April, Scott had taken Bray and Curtis to LaDania’s apartment to pack Curtis’s things. Graffiti covered almost every inch of brick at the complex, and parts of the doors and windows. There appeared to be only one functioning car in the parking lot. The others were missing a wheel or two, their bare axles propped up on two-by-fours and cinder blocks.

  A few rusted grocery carts took up one parking space and a picnic table sat in another, three rough-looking teenagers sitting on top of it, their feet on the benches, bottles wrapped in brown paper in their hands. They called “Hey” to Bray as he, Scott and Curtis got out of the car. Bray called “Hey” to them, and under his breath said to Scott, “Lock the car.”

  The smell in the hallway made Scott gag: a combination of sweat, vomit and urine. The graffiti continued on the inside walls and up the stairwell. The stench carried into the stairwell, too, the confined space making it even stronger. He was glad Laurie hadn’t come. Over the years, he had dropped Bray off outside many times, but had never been inside. He always offered to walk Bray in, but the boy always quickly declined. Scott had guessed why, but never guessed it was this bad.

  When Bray unlocked his mother’s apartment, the smell of spoiled milk hit Scott before he could see anything. It was worse than the vomit and urine in the hallway. When Bray turned on the light, Scott saw at least a dozen roaches scurrying across the counter and floors.

  “Visitors,” Curtis announced casually, as he gingerly stepped over them.

  “He doesn’t ever want to kill anything,” Bray said to Scott. “But you can’t let them stay, Curtis. Where are those traps I got you?”

  The boy shrugged and Bray brushed the roaches off the counter and stepped on as many as he could. Some escaped into the space between the counter and the small grime-covered stove. Curtis watched them go, looking pleased they had dodged the stomping. Scott took in the rest of the kitchen, which overflowed with dirty dishes. There was a cereal box on the counter, tipped over, its contents spilled out. A blackened, oozing banana sat nearby and beside that, the source of the offensive odor, a half-full container of milk.

  Bray shook his head in disgust but put a gentle hand on his brother’s head. “Curtis, you’ve got to put stuff away. Remember how I showed you?”

  He picked up the milk, shoved some dirty dishes to one side of the sink and poured the liquid down the drain. But when he turned the tap to wash it down, only a clanging noise came out of the faucet. He turned to his brother, a confused look on his face.

  “That’s why I couldn’t wash the dishes,” Curtis said. “We haven’t had water in a while.”

  Bray sighed and turned to Scott. “This is the reason I picked Michigan over all those other schools. So I could stay close by. And I still wasn’t close enough. I never knew they didn’t have water.” Turning to Curtis, he asked, “What about the money I made Ma promise to set aside for water and heat and electric?”

  Curtis looked at the floor, plainly unhappy about telling on his own mother. “Think she used it for something else.”

  “Where’ve you been taking showers?” Bray asked.

  “Johnsons’.”

  “Have they been feeding you, too?”

  Curtis shrugged. “Sometimes. They don’t always have a lot of food at their place, though. So I usually tell them I already ate.”

  Scott tried to conceal his shock but Bray caught his expression. “You don’t get fat living here,” he said, flashing a quick smile and patting his lean stomach. “Those rich kids from the suburbs, they’re all too heavy to keep up on the court. Eight Mile diet, that’s what every athlete needs.”

  “Maybe Pete should move in, once your mom gets back,” Scott said. He and Bray had been chiding Pete about his weight since Scott and Pete started coaching Bray at Franklin.

  Bray laughed, and Scott handed Curtis the duffel bag he had brought from home. “Little Man, why don’t you grab your things? Then we’ve got to let your brother get on his way to school.”

  “Little Man,” Curtis giggled. “I like that.” He grabbed the duffel and disappeared as Scott and Bray stepped into the living room. Scott noticed only one door leading from the room and guessed the place had only one bedroom. A glance at the couch confirmed it; there was a pillow on one end, a sheet crumpled up on the other.

  Bray followed Scott’s gaze. “My mom sleeps there,” he said. “She used to sleep in the bedroom, and Curtis was out here. But I made her switch with him. She gets home too late, I told her. She needs to let him sleep in there so she doesn’t wake him when she gets in.”

  Scott couldn’t hide his surprise.

  “She goes out after he’s asleep,” Bray said, clearly not happy about it. “I’ve told her a hundred times, you can’t leave a kid that age on his own, but she says the Johnsons are right here if he needs them. Only Mr. Johnson’s asleep by eight, and Mrs. Johnson can’t really get up the stairs anymore. Those kinds of details don’t really interest my mom, though. So I’ve been having a friend down the hall check in every night, to make sure Curtis is okay, gets to bed on time.” He shrugged. “Best I know to do. Should’ve told him to check on the water, too, I guess.”

  He looked at the couch again and shook his head, as though his mother were sitting there. “I was thinking last night that her going to jail might be the best thing that’s happened to him, you know? I know it isn’t great for you and Laurie. But it’ll be better for him. When she gets out, he’ll be one year older, more ready to take care of himself. I can find a way to get him a cell phone, so he can let me know when this sort of thing goes down.” He gestured to the kitchen sink and shook his head again. “I can’t wait to get him out of here for good. He shouldn’t have to live this way.”

  Scott was about to speak when Curtis ran into the room. “Done!” he said, holding up what appeared to be an empty duffel bag. Scott motioned for him to hand it over, and he looked inside. There was one T-shirt and a pair of socks. Scott opened the bag toward Bray so he could peer inside. “You don’t have more clothes than that?” Bray asked.

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “What about that stuff I bought you over Christmas break?”

  “Ma sold it to a lady.”

  Bray knelt, a big hand on each of the boy’s small shoulders. He hung his head and shook it slowly from side to side, and Scott knew Bray was blaming himself for the conditions in which his younger brother had been living. Bray leaned forward until his forehead rested against his brother’s. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered.

  “Ma said not to.”

  The muscles in Bray’s jaw flexed and he turned to the couch again. He took a few deep breaths to control himself before he stood, picked up the bag and walked toward the door, a hand on Curtis’s shoulder. “Let’s get you some clothes before I head back to Ann Arbor.”

  “Please don’t,” Scott said. “Laurie loves kids’ clothes. She’ll be ticked if you deprive her of the chance to shop.”

  Bray looked at him skeptically.

  “Really. She’ll love it. Don’t take that away from her.”

  “Sorry, Coach,” Bray said. “It’s more of a mess than I thought.”

  Scott had told his online friends about the apartment a few weeks before, when he was listing for them all the reasons he was struggling with the thought of sending Curtis home. “Dude,” 2boys had written, “you’ve gotta keep the kid away from that. Permanently.” Which was the same thing Scott had told himself countless times beginning that day a year ago, when he drove Curtis from Detroit to Royal Oak and allowed himself to think about how much better off the boy would be, living in the Coffmans’ large, clean house, with all the running water and clean clothes and extra food he wanted, and all the parental supervision and guidance he needed.

  But it wasn’t that simple. Scott suspected it then and he knew it with cer
tainty now, after a year’s worth of discussing the issue with Janice, of personal messaging about it with FosterFranny and reading about it in every book and article he could find on the subject. Children were better off with their parents—that was the bottom line.

  There were exceptions, of course—abuse, neglect. But while LaDania may have been exceptionally careless about her young son in the final weeks leading up to her incarceration, she hadn’t always been that way. According to Bray, she had always kept it to the “light stuff” and always had it under control, able to pick it up and set it down again without an issue. Last year, she had hit a streak of bad luck—a lost job, a breakup—and feeling lonely without the comforting presence of her elder son, she had turned to something “more serious” to get her over the rough spot.

  It was bad judgment on her part, but Bray felt confident she had learned her lesson and wouldn’t repeat it. She had promised him as much. And despite his anger at her over getting herself locked up and upending her sons’ lives for the year, he admitted to Scott and Laurie that for the most part, LaDania had made an effort to be a good mother. A good enough one, anyway—he didn’t think she had set out to win any awards. She was a little selfish at times, choosing to sleep late over getting up in time to see her children off to school, to make sure they ate breakfast before they left or had money in their pockets for lunch.

  She was a little careless with money, and the fairly frequent sight of an empty fridge for the last few days of the month, and two hungry boys standing in front of it, hadn’t done anything to make her more responsible. She was a little too willing to leave the boys to their own devices for long periods of time while she went out with her questionable friends. She wasn’t the best at holding down a job, wasn’t the most nutrition-minded cook and had never been particularly interested in keeping her apartment clean. As for setting rules and making her children follow them, she saw no point; they knew soon enough if they’d stepped out of line.