Let's Do It

by Ann Christopher

  “Reeve?” she gasped, stepping out onto the porch and letting the screen door bang shut behind her. “Is that you?”

  “Oh, my God.” Reeve's jaw hit the floor. She'd prepared for all sorts of possibilities, contingencies and outcomes, but this particular one had never crossed her mind. “Alyssa?”

  Laughing, they grabbed each other up in a hug that had them both swaying on their tiptoes. Then they held each other at arm's length for a good look.

  It took two seconds for Reeve to see that the last few years hadn't been kind to Alyssa. Her light brown skin had the washed-out appearance of someone who never sees the sun. Her black ponytail had a messy-around-the-edges look that announced she'd been sleeping in it and ignoring her brush. No makeup. Tired brown eyes nearly hidden behind outdated glasses with giant frames. And she wore a baggy blue T-shirt with baggier running shorts that revealed thin arms and legs and a thirty-pound weight loss, if not more.

  “You look great,” Alyssa said.

  “No, I don't! I got caught in the rain earlier, so my hair's a rat's nest. You look thin!” The clinician portion of Reeve's brain kicked in, demanding answers. “Have you been trying to lose weight?”

  Alyssa's smile dimmed. “No. A lot's been going on.”

  “Yeah? Can I come in and hear about it? I've got a lot of stuff to tell you, too.”

  Alyssa took a furtive glance over her shoulder, past the screen door and into the darkened interior of the house. “Now's not really a good time,” she said, her voice lowering. “I don't want to just spring you on Mama.”

  Reeve had expected as much, but it still took a heroic effort to keep her expression from falling. “Can you meet me for dinner later, maybe?”

  “It's tough for me to get away right now,” Alyssa said. Another furtive glance, after which she took Reeve's elbow and firmly steered her toward the steps. “Do I have your cell number? I can call you—”

  “Alyssa?” called a wheezy but imperious female voice from inside the house. “Who's that?”

  Alyssa flinched and shrank in on herself, creating the effect that her clothes were swallowing her whole. With an apologetic sidelong look at Reeve, she crept to the screen door with as little movement as possible, as though she was afraid her shadow would yell at her if she moved too quickly.

  “No one, Mama,” she answered. “I thought I heard the mailman, but it wasn't him.”

  “Don't you lie to me, girl.” An endless fit of coughing followed, dry and hacking and so persistent that all the fine hairs along Reeve's arms went into full doctor's alert. “I heard a woman's voice.”

  Reeve met Alyssa's questioning gaze. Then, with an increasing sense of dread, she edged her out of the way, opened the screen door and stepped inside the house, which was dim, with afternoon shadows filtering through the wooden slats of the blinds.

  It was like entering a time warp where nothing had changed because things in Mrs. B's universe simply were not allowed to change. The arrangement of dried blue hydrangeas in their blue Oriental pot still graced the round table, which still stood on its Persian rug, all of which still fronted the elegant staircase as it rose to the second floor.

  The living room and adjoining dining room, off to the left side, were exactly as they'd been the last time Reeve was here, the day of the funeral, minus the teeming throng of mourners crowding the buffet table as they murmured bullshit platitudes about the deceased being too good for this world and God needing another angel.

  The house's smell, though.

  Now that was different.

  Reeve diagnosed it as she turned right, into the great room, which was the only room in this brittle house where anyone was allowed to sit comfortably without fear of breaking/wrinkling/scratching/smudging some valuable piece of furniture. She'd spent far too much time in the hospital's cancer wing not to recognize the sickly sweet smell of the disease as it triumphed over another victim.

  There were allied smells, too: rubbing alcohol; a bleachy cleaner; the lingering stench of a fifty-year, two-pack-a-day habit; and Mrs. B's cloying vanilla potpourri, which had never disguised the cigarette smoke and was now no match for something as insidious as a malignancy.

  Reeve crept closer, knowing what she'd see and not wanting to see it. Still, there it was: a hospital bed wedged between the silk-draped corner windows and the Steinway concert grand, as obscenely out of place among all this mahogany and chintz as an assault rifle in a bridal salon.

  And there, lit by several flickering candles and standing in its place of honor atop the piano's closed lid, was Adam's shrine. It'd grown in the four years since his funeral, Reeve saw dispassionately, noting the collection of high-school football trophies alongside the mementos and framed photos cataloging every stage of Adam's too-short life: Adam's gap-toothed smile on his first day of kindergarten; Adam with his first car; Adam and Reeve posing at the senior prom and on their wedding day (Mrs. B hadn't blacked out Reeve's face with a marker, Reeve saw; what a shock); Adam in his Marine dress uniform and a hard-ass stare as he posed in front of the flag; the triangular case that held the flag the honor guard had taken from Adam's coffin, folded and presented to Reeve, and which she had then immediately presented to Mrs. B.

  And there, leaning on her walker as she came in from the kitchen, her arm tethered to an IV stand and her nose tethered, via the cannula stuck in her nostrils, to the oxygen tank strapped over her bony shoulder like a purse, was Mrs. B.

  Taking a giant breath, Reeve looked her in the eye, tried to smile and kept her voice upbeat. “It's me, Reeve, Mrs. B.”

  Mrs. B, because when you disliked (hated?) the woman your son insisted on marrying, you refused permission for her to call you Mom or Mama or anything remotely affectionate.

  The woman who'd been her mother-in-law and was now more dead than alive, more skeleton than a flesh and blood person, glared back, her eyes narrowed into slits of rage.

  “Get the hell out of my house,” she snarled.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  Another thing that hadn't changed around here? Alyssa's role as peacemaker.

  “Mama!” she cried, coming up behind Reeve and hurrying over to help Mrs. B with her oxygen tank as she shuffled the last few steps to her bed, sank onto it and swung her feet up. “You don't mean that!”

  “Of course she does,” Reeve said flatly, settling on the edge of the nearest chair.

  “You're damn right, I do.” Mrs. B's eyes flashed as she waved Alyssa's fluttering hands away and adjusted the oxygen and IV line herself. “What'd you think? That cancer'd mellowed me out enough to be happy to see you show up out of the blue?”

  That unlikely image almost made Reeve smile. “I didn't know you had cancer. And I know you well enough to know that nothing mellows you out.”

  This pronouncement, perversely, seemed to mollify Mrs. B, who nodded, exhaled a shaky and serrated breath, closed her eyes, and leaned her head back against the raised pillows.

  Reeve took a good look at her.

  The face that'd been so haughtily beautiful years ago was now nothing more than sagging yellow skin over sharp cheekbones, a steep nose with flaring nostrils and filmy brown eyes sunk so deep into their sockets it was a wonder the woman could still see anything. The eyebrows and glorious waves of sleek black hair were gone now, and a silk Burberry scarf was wrapped around her head with one end trailing alongside her neck. Rather than pajamas or sweats, either of which would be unthinkable in the middle of the day, impending death or no, her frail body swam inside a melon twinset that Reeve remembered from the day Adam shipped out on his final tour—the fatal tour—of Afghanistan.

  Without warning, Mrs. B's eyes flicked open again. “I'm dying,” she told Reeve without the slightest hint of emotion of any kind, least of all self-pity. “I guess you can tell.”

  Reeve nodded.

  “Hospice is coming to help take care of me. Alyssa”—as always, Mrs. B put a slight negative emphasis on her daughter's name—“says she can't do it a
ll by herself.”

  Alyssa, who was now hovering around the head of the bed, checking the IV pump, kept her gaze lowered and said nothing. Her beaten-down silence sparked all kinds of protective impulses inside Reeve.

  “I'm sure she can't take care of you by herself,” Reeve said. “She's not a medical professional and it's a big job to manage someone's care twenty-four hours a day. Hospice is equipped to make you as comfortable as possible.”

  “Which you know because you're a medical doctor now, right?” Mrs. B asked.

  A coughing fit followed. Alyssa snatched up a box of tissues from the nightstand and passed one to her mother, who used it to cover her mouth while the hacking spasms wracked her body. When Mrs. B lowered her hand, the tissue was flecked with blood.

  “You must be happy to be a doctor, eh?” Mrs. B continued. The only sign that there'd been an interruption was the raw rasp of her voice now, as though someone had taken a nail file to her vocal cords. “Since that was the most important thing to you. Going to medical school. That was way more important than staying on the base and building a home for Adam, wasn't it? Way more important than giving me any grandbabies. Wasn't it?”

  Reeve, who was beginning to see the merits of Alyssa's policy of keeping her gaze on the floor and hoping Mrs. B's frequent storms would pass over her head as quickly and easily as possible, fought back her anger. She would not feed this fire-breathing dragon. She would not answer malice with malice. No matter how much she wanted to.

  “I'm not getting into that,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “My marriage was between Adam and me.”

  “Except when he came crying to me!”

  Mrs. B's voice rose at the end, kicking off a coughing fit that doubled her up on the bed.

  “Mama.” Alyssa reached around to the tray table for a plastic cup of water, stuck a flexible straw in it and offered it to her mother.

  Mrs. B's withered hand lashed out, as precise and destructive as an eagle's talons snatching a fish from a lake, and the water went flying, hitting her gleaming hardwood floor with a splash. “I don't want any water!” she bellowed while Alyssa immediately grabbed a towel and dropped to her knees to sop up the mess. “I want you to tell me why you showed up here to disturb me!”

  Reeve hesitated, wishing she had a good answer to that question. “I wanted to see you,” she said simply.

  “Why?” The old woman heaved herself up until she sat straighter against the pillows, a maniacal light in her eyes as she gasped for the breath to accuse Reeve. “You haven't wanted to see me for my birthday or Adam's birthday or Christmas or any other holiday for four years! You haven't wanted to see me to lay flowers on his grave with me! Not one time! You haven't called me! Not one time!”

  The hurts and slights of the last ten years, dating all the way back to the first time Adam brought her home to meet his mother, suddenly popped inside Reeve, exploding like a balloon overfilled with helium. Oh, how she remembered that auspicious day. How excited she’d been. How nervous. Until Mrs. B, a high-school English teacher in the next town over, had made a snarky comment about how it could possibly be safe for Reeve's family to live in the rundown apartments on the outskirts of Journey’s End.

  “You've never called me!” Reeve shouted.

  So much for not feeding the dragon.

  “You've never liked me! Not ever!” Reeve continued. “And not because of me personally, because you’ve never tried to get to know me! It was because your family had money and mine didn’t! Was it my fault Adam was a judge’s son and I was a janitor’s daughter? No! But that didn’t matter to you! You never made an effort! Not even when Adam died and we were both hurting and we could've comforted each other!”

  Mrs. B cackled bitterly, and the cackling turned into an endless coughing fit that soaked her tissue with blood. “Why would I want comfort from the woman who killed my son?”

  “I didn't kill him!”

  “The last time he was home from the war, you made his life a living hell! Didn't you?”

  “Mama.” Alyssa, now finished with wiping up the water, straightened and put a restraining hand on her mother's arm, which was now convulsively clutching the white sheets. “You need to calm down and rest.”

  Mrs. B glanced around at her, incredulous. “Rest? For what? So I can be bright-eyed when I die?”

  But the interruption had cooled some of Reeve's temper (if not the guilt, because nothing ever worked on the guilt), and she realized what she was doing. The woman was dying, for God's sake. Reeve didn't need to help her do it any sooner.

  “Alyssa's right.” She jumped to her feet, grabbed her purse and wished she could use the rest of Mrs. B's water to splash her overheated face and wash the welling tears from her eyes. “I didn't mean to upset you like this. I'm not sure what I thought would—”

  Mrs. B, who also seemed to realize she needed to calm down, closed her eyes, pressed a hand to her chest and held up a wait-a-minute finger to stop Reeve from leaving while she took several deep breaths.

  “Just tell me,” she said when she finally opened her eyes again. Her voice was quiet, but no less accusatory. “Why you broke my son's heart. Why you wouldn't have children with him. Why you let him leave this earth without leaving any of himself behind for the rest of us. Why did you do that?”

  There was no stopping the tears that leaked from Reeve's eyes, so she just swiped them off her cheeks. “Because our marriage wasn't as strong as it should have been.”

  “And?”

  At this point, the guilt really kneed Reeve in the ribs. She hesitated, then told the truth.

  “And I wanted to go to med school first.”

  Mrs. B's crooked smile sparkled with triumph and spite. “Well, now you have what you wanted. So you can leave and never come back.”

  Reeve stared at her. Seeing not a glimmer of softness or regret, not a hint of kindness or warmth, she nodded, turned away and took a step toward the foyer.

  At the gracefully carved archway, though, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder.

  “I don't want to fight with you,” she told Mrs. B quietly. “I just want peace. For once. I just want peace.”

  And there, at last, was a glimpse of some emotion—discomfort? sadness? regret?—on Mrs. B's desolate face. With a sigh of utter exhaustion, she leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes again.

  “You won't find any peace here, Reeve,” Mrs. B said, the rare use of her name catching Reeve by surprise. “I'm going to have to die to get mine.”

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  It was about nine that night when Edward rolled into DeGroot Street's Pub 221B for a beer, which was the least he felt he deserved after the suck-ass day he'd had. First there'd been the whole ugly breakup scene with Amber, followed by the kick in the teeth of Reeve's rejection.

  The real high point had come at the barbecue at his parents' house, where he'd manned the grill, trash-talked with his brothers, including James, played and swum with various little kids, including the twins, and fielded endless questions about Amber and why she wasn't there. A vague, oh, she's spending the day with her family had satisfied most people, which was good because he hadn't been in the mood to explain why they'd broken up. But his mother, who had never yet, to his knowledge, been fooled by anything or anyone, had studied him with a speculative gaze and tight lips, which was a big clue that she was about to get all into his personal life as soon as she got the chance.

  He'd deal with her later. Probably tomorrow.

  For now, he needed some peace. And a drink.

  The place was dark and wood-paneled, with tufted leather, gleaming brass and a thirty-foot mirrored bar, a perfect stereotype of an English tavern. It was also, thankfully, quiet and low key at the moment, with green billiard lamps glowing overhead and tea lights dotting the tables. Although there were a few other couples there, their murmurs low against the Celtic guitar playing in the background, Edward's favorite corner booth was available. Nodding at t
he couple at the table nearest it as he passed, he slid into the booth and signaled to the bartender for his favorite draft—Guinness, naturally—and checked his watch. In a little while, once the fireworks were over, people would start streaming in like African antelope visiting their favorite watering hole, so he needed to enjoy the mellow mood and think about his life while he could.

  “Tell you what,” he said, when the server, a college kid named Ralph, put a bowl of fancy pretzels and a tall and foamy glass on the table in front of him. “Bring me a couple shots of whiskey, if you don't mind. Irish. The good stuff.”

  “Fish and chips?”

  “Not tonight. I've already killed about five hot dogs. Just the shots.”

  “You got it,” Ralph said, heading back to the bar.

  If he was going to think about his life, Edward decided, taking a grateful sip, he'd need something a lot stronger than this.

  So.

  Where was he?

  Well, he had his health. His career, which he loved, and his fledgling animal clinic, which was thriving. Having never moved in with Amber—yeah, that was another sign that things weren't headed in the right direction between them, wasn't it?—he still had his own house, and he was immensely glad he didn't have to find a hotel or, God forbid, crash with his folks while he found a new place to live.

  All great news and a decent bright side to look on.

  He didn't have Reeve, though, he thought moodily, grabbing a pretzel and crunching it with no real interest.

  Wouldn't have her if she didn't call him, and, let's face it, man, he had no reason to think she would. Although...just to be certain, he pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and checked the display.

  Nothing.

  Goddammit.

  He put the thing on the table, screen side up, just in case, thinking that if this pins and needles crap was what women went through every time they gave their number to some loser who never called, he was damn glad he'd been born with a dick.