Pretend I'm Your Friend

by MB Caschetta

  If anyone could pull it off, we can, she had said.

  Good-bye, darling, he’d whispered. Don’t call here again.

  In her most recent dream, Gerald arrived for lunch, as if no years had passed.

  How could she sit in a restaurant with Gerald Howe with tumors spreading like beach pebbles along the banks of her colon, her gut, and her pancreas? Could she order wine and laugh about the good old days, which—now that she’d had some years to think about it—might not have been so good after all?

  In the dream, she carried on gracefully, ordering chicken piccata, smiling over a white tablecloth and china plates.

  Wearing a black tuxedo, Lily brought their meal, which Mary-Kay ate with gusto. The plate held two small pieces of chicken stuffed inside two tiny wooden boxes shaped like little coffins.

  The aids came by to make Mary-Kay choke down a few driblets of applesauce and mashed potato, measuring every drop that went in and came out.

  Later, Mary-Kay brought up the soft substance in a mess on her gown.

  She suddenly remembered her father, now long dead.

  Once he’d taken her ice skating—she could see him kneeling at the foot of the bed to help her tie up her boots, a grown woman wearing Peggy Flemming powder-pink skates.

  Her father cared very little for her; that’s what she should remember.

  The present, not the past; that’s what she should catalog. She tore the IV out of her arm and threw it in the air.

  “Now, now, dear,” said the private day nurse Richard had hired, who had little patience for disturbances.

  “Yes,” Mary-Kay screamed. “Now! Now!”

  “We know, Mrs. Robinson,” Janet said. “No one likes this part very much.”

  Janet had taken to making grand pronouncements over hurried dinners of Chinese take-out. I don’t think Mrs. Robinson would want anyone giving up. And, We really ought to take turns rubbing her back and holding her feet. Mary-Kay couldn’t help being proud, even of Janet’s quirks. Who thinks of calling her own mother Mrs. Robinson in the fifth grade?

  Janet had come a long way since the divorce and her most recent nervous breakdown.

  The insult wasn’t the cancer, or treatments, futile radiation, failed surgery, Mary-Kay thought. It was a lazy mind producing some sentimentalized idea about what was happening. (Is this happening? Oh my God! Oh, God, please help me!)

  What was the experience of dying minus the violins?

  “What do you think it means, Daddy?” Lily said, watching her mother grimace.

  “I think she’s smiling,” Paul said.

  Lily leaned her head on Paul’s shoulder. He was so gentle, even when he was wrong. “Do you know what the last thing my mother said to me was?”

  She leaned in, smelled the familiar fragrance of his hair: sweat and soap. “Love hard, baby.”

  “Love’s hard?”

  “It was a command.”

  Janet checked the morphine drip.

  “What are you two whispering about?”

  There lay their mother, completely unembellished and bald.

  She seemed to disappear into the white hospital sheets. There was a certain comfort in having the moment finally arrive. During the last months, Lily had hated how normal it all seemed, how misleading. No more refusing to let anyone come in and sit with her during the treatments. He mother sat fully dressed and chatted with the nurse as if she were getting her nails done. Her mother had known everyone there by name and diagnosis. Tuesday had been her regular treatment day. (Today was Tuesday, Lily realized.)

  A year ago, Janet and Lily trailed her through the waiting room that last time, each with a cup of chocolatey coffee from Starbucks.

  Behind a white curtain, Mary-Kay motioned to the cup of coffee in Lily’s hand. “That stuff’s going to kill you.” Before Lily got a chance to pretend it was decaf, Janet motioned to the clear bag hanging on a silver post above Mary-Kay’s head. “Ditto, Mrs. R.”

  Mary-Kay smiled. “You always were the witty one.”

  “I’m serious. Why don’t you try something alternative: acupuncture or Chinese herbs? That stuff’s going to kill you before it stops any tumors.”

  “This is just the Benadryl,” Mary-Kay said. “The toxic stuff comes next.”

  Janet felt her mother’s arm. “It’s so cold.”

  Everyone at the treatment center loved Mary-Kay, praising her for being brave, for remaining in the fight against all odds. The other patients stopped in behind Mary-Kay’s curtain, patting Lily and lighting up at the mention of twins, as if the treatment room were one big family den. Cancer reunion, where some relatives died chatting about weather.

  The only proof of reality was the tube dripping poison into her mother’s arm. Sometimes she just wanted the whole thing to end.

  Do something, hold her hand, tell her a secret—anything!

  “Paul wants to name the babies Daniel and Annabel,” she finally managed.

  “Danny and Annie?” Mary-Kay snorted.

  Janet looked alarmed. “Don’t do that horrible rhyming thing, Lily. You’ll totally regret it.”

  “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Well now, let’s see,” Mary-Kay said.

  Lily cleared her throat in the silence.

  Janet sighed. Mary-Kay leaned forward, patting Janet’s hand. “Buck up, sweetheart. All men are shits.”

  “You might have mentioned that earlier. Like before I got married.”

  “Never too late to become a lesbian, dear.”

  A passing nurse chuckled.

  “You don’t mean Daddy, though, do you?” Lily was suddenly panicked. “Daddy’s not a shit.”

  “No, no, not Daddy,” Janet and Mary-Kay said.

  “Of course, Daddy is a little absent at times,” Mary-Kay said.

  “Yeah,” Janet said. “Like when you really need him.”

  Lily’s eyes filled with tears: pregnancy hormones.

  Then someone else stepped behind the white curtain to deliver the bad news.

  *

  After several days, as the hospice tech came to thread tubes down Mary-Kay’s throat, she realized that dying was like living but with fewer obligations. Death was like life but without banking, dishes, and radio stations. No Q-tips. No terrorism or auto insurance payments.

  “Is she trying to say something?” Janet asked.

  “Maybe we should take our dinner out to the hall?” Lily, ever timid.

  “Nonsense,” said Richard. The only word he’d spoken all day.

  Richard thought all this was somehow his fault, Mary-Kay knew. This afternoon he’d ordered another day on the feeding tube, an act of love, even if he couldn’t figure out how to let go.

  He was only now just catching up with her, a race he’d been losing since they’d had the children.

  A part of her wished she could confess her sins and be forgiven.

  All these years, standing at her side so solidly, Richard really might be wonderful. Maybe she did understand something about love, finally. Love and pain—and the space in between—Richard and Lily, Janet, and Gerald Howe.

  Mary-Kay’s family gathered around the bed trying to read her lips.

  “It must be important,” Lily said.

  “She’s saying she loves her family,” Paul said. He held Lily’s wrist, a carton of broccoli with garlic sauce in his other hand. “Maybe she wants you all to know.”

  “That’s not it,” Lily said softly. “Not our mother.”

  “Lily’s right,” Janet said. “Daddy, I think she’s saying your name.”

  Richard stood: “It’s okay, darling. I’m here.”

  “No, wait,” Janet said, “it looks like something else.”

  Even diminished, Mary-Kay commanded them: They could feel her desire to communicate, see it in the way she thrashed her head. Her hand stayed in the air for no apparent reason, pinky slightly extended.

  She was still raw, still sexy, even in death. Anyone could see it.

  S
he shifted in the bed, opening her eyes suddenly.

  God! The thought came against her will, but it was right, the only thing she had before her now. Please. Yes. Please.

  Janet was still clutching a pair of plastic chopsticks. Paul still glancing down at the Chinese food.

  Lily watched as Mary-Kay’s mouth opened and closed, parched and searching, lips puckering noisily, once and again, as if she were blowing her final kisses good-bye.

  Marry

  me

  Quickly

  Through the window Will can see the little crowd of smokers on the doorstep. Each wears a watered-down version of his fiancé’s face.

  When he opens the door, they startle collectively like a flock of geese.

  One of them says, “We were starting to think the bell was broken.”

  Stammering, Will points behind him. “We’re just in the middle…”

  The youngest smoker pushes a cloud through her nose, her hair a parade of yellow curls. Will should step aside and let them in. For some reason he is unable to.

  “I’m Wilhelm…Will.” In his bowtie and boutonniere, who else could he be? “I’m Andy’s…”

  The blonde interrupts: “Yeah, we know. I’m his sister. This is our mother, Rusty.”

  Rusty is nervous and quick, a fragile bird. She steps forward to crush out her cigarette on the face of the mail slot, where Will has recently spelled out his and Andy’s new last name in gold sticky letters: Wojak-Livingston.

  Rusty points behind her. “That over there is Marion Carroll.”

  Will nods at the old man in the brown fedora, who waves a pipe, wafting a stream of cherry-flavored air.

  Rusty adds: “He needs to use the john.”

  She seems to blow into the house through front door, making Will wonder just how easy it would be to shoo her back out.

  “The head?” Marion Carroll says. “If you don’t mind.”

  Will turns toward the back of the house, where all the guests are waiting, where the ceremony has begun. Andy’s sister hauls a long, rectangular package inside with her. He tries to step out of her way, but his soon-to-be-husband’s eyes stare out of her pasty face, unnerving him.

  “This is a gift,” she says. “A wedding gift.”

  He can’t discern if her tone is irony, mockery, or something else.

  She prods: “So…Marion would like to use the facilities.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Will shows the strange skinny man to the bathroom, politely pointing at the elegant silver paper towels.

  “I’m very grateful for the kindness,” Marion Carroll says. “And I hear congratulations are in order.”

  “Yes,” Will says. “Any time. You’re welcome.”

  Back in the foyer, Andy appears, looking like the handsome groom he is, in the beautiful dove-grey designer suit Will helped him pick.

  “What’s going on?” Andy stops cold when he sees the late arrivals.

  The sister steps back as his mother rushes forward, a small unpleasant breeze. “Andy!”

  From the hall, Will can see the minister check her watch. This is my wedding day, he thinks. Andy lifts his mother off the ground in an enthusiastic hug, then starts to apologize before she’s even opened her mouth. “We waited as long as we could, Ma. The minister has another ceremony to get to.”

  “Oh, Andy, what a wonderful house!” she says. “Just like you described.”

  Marion Carroll flushes the toilet and reappears. Andy looks at Will, mouthing, Who’s this?

  Will shrugs.

  Rusty explains, “This is who drove us here. A kind stranger who didn’t leave us stranded on the roadside.”

  “But what about Bo and Ginny?” Andy says. “I thought they were coming.”

  Will runs through a file of family names, the ones he’s heard about for years now, trying to pinpoint first Marion Carroll, then Bo, then Ginny, until it all comes back. Ginny is the missing sister, the one in the middle, the one Andy loves best. Bo is the missing husband of the missing sister, the favored brother-in-law, who paid for Andy’s college.

  “Yes, where are Bo and Ginny?” Will asks, proud of his memory.

  From the hallway: “They couldn’t make it.”

  “Alice-James,” Andy calls his sister out of the shadows. “Look at you!”

  Will eyes the large blonde woman, wondering what he’s supposed to see.

  Will paces the hall outside the bedroom. After some hushed phone calls, Andy’s family members reemerge, refreshed, Rusty in a tailored navy silk suit, the sister glum but presentable in a pink brocade dress. Her hair is styled into a soft cascade, her prominent face made up in natural colors.

  She looks at Will blankly. “Well? Aren’t we late for something?”

  Will ushers them down the stairs. In the living room, the situation has been explained: Andy’s family has arrived at last, better than not arriving at all.

  “What about you?” Rusty says to Marion Carroll, who has made a go at the coffee urn in the foyer where the receiving line will be.

  “Me?” He places his cup on the fresh white tablecloth, leaving a faint circular stain underneath. “I’m game.”

  He offers Rusty his arm.

  Andy herds them to their seats. The guests are quiet, still cheerful despite the interruption.

  The minister continues where she left off, asking if Andy would please now read his vows. Andy takes Will’s hand. He says, “I, Andrew Wojak, commit myself to you, Wilhelm Livingston.” His voice is quiet, serious.

  On his face he wears an open expression, as if behind his eyes a shade has been pulled up in daylight. He runs through a list of remarkable promises, which include cherishing Will and always being honest; knowing he will be braver with a husband at his side.

  For a moment Will forgets about the strange little mother and big brooding sister in the back of the room, the man with the woman’s name.

  The minister blesses the grooms and their life together.

  Andy smiles, tilting his head and softening his expression to kiss Will full on the mouth. Everyone claps. As they walk through the crowd, friends tug at their arms and deliver kisses, transforming Will into the bride his mother always feared he’d become.

  “Thank you,” he says. “Happiest day ever!”

  Will’s own mother did not come to the wedding; his parents had had him so late in life that now they are too old to travel. This makes him feel strained and attentive around Rusty, technically now his mother-in-law. She steps into the aisle at the very end of the folding chairs, and he imagines thanking her for creating a son who makes his life complete, but she looks exhausted.

  Then she catches a scuffed heel on the carpet and stumbles, pitching herself clumsily toward Will’s arms. Before he can catch her, she plunges face-first to the carpet.

  “Mom,” Will says, choking slightly on the word.

  Will’s own German-born mother does not approve of romance.

  “Married?” she said over the phone. “What for?”

  Born in Hamburg, she met his father, an American soldier, after World War II. She was working downtown in a U.S. Central Intelligence office, translating Russian messages into German.

  She looked like Joan Fontaine, so Will’s father asked her to the opera.

  “I only agreed to go because it was Butterfly,” his mother liked to say.

  His father, who knew nothing about opera, talked through the entire performance. Over coffee and dessert, he asked for her hand in marriage.

  “It was the chocolate cream pie at the restaurant that made me do it,” he liked to say.

  His mother’s version is different: “I married your father because we lost the war.”

  All Will’s life his mother has reminded him that the German people—her people, and by extension his—were the victims of abominable luck and bad leadership. They lost everything: their shirts, their houses, their spirit.

  When a war is lost, it’s the people who pay.

  “We h
ad no choice. And so we were punished. Do you understand what this means?”

  Oma worked for the war, but only by sewing buttons on those abysmal brown shirts. Opa hid out at home in protest, listening to the radio. According to Will’s mother, not a single person in the family—not even a cousin—was a true member of that unspeakable party. Only Will’s uncle, a mere boy at the time, was forced against his will to join the Hitler Youth, forced to act as messenger, delivering codes across enemy lines. He rode his bike to deliver messages, scared to death to defy any orders.

  “A mere child,” Will’s mother says. “We were pacifists.”

  Now, sitting in the living room with Andy’s family gathered around to watch them open presents, it comes to Will that his mother’s story, the story he has lived all his life is a lie. Someone did those horrifying things.

  Someone let it happen.

  “We brought you this present,” A.J. says.

  The guests have already made their toasts, eaten cake, danced to the three-piece orchestra. Now most of them are somewhere on the Interstate driving home.

  Rusty sits shoeless on the sofa and holds a melting ice pack to her face, courtesy of the two lesbian doctors in attendance at the wedding.

  Her lip is swollen, a slight purple bruise beginning to form.

  A.J. leans forward. “I’ll tell you this, little brother, it was hell getting this thing here.”

  “Thank you for coming, Alice-James,” Andy says. “I know it was a lot of trouble.”

  Will’s mouth goes dry.

  “Trouble is only the beginning of what we had,” Rusty says, barely audible through the Ziploc baggie of ice.

  “Oh dear,” Andy says. “I’m sorry.”

  Will thinks better of speaking, but says it anyway: “What are you sorry for?”

  “Willy!” Andy says, but it’s too late.

  “They barely even got here. Why are you the one who’s sorry?”

  “Please,” Andy says. “They had car trouble.”

  A.J. says, “Bus, actually.”

  “Seriously, Andy? You offered to fly them in. You tried to reason with them. They could have come yesterday and been here today. But instead they chose to drive hours through the mountains in the snow, arriving just in time to interrupt everything.” Will’s voice echoes. The fire crackles and hums in the hearth. “And somehow you’re the one apologizing?”