Mothered (70)

“I’m really thirsty. My mouth’s gummy.” Hope made a face, emphasizing how gross it felt.

Grace plucked the sports bottle from beside her bed. “I’ll get you more water.”

“Could you put a lemon wedge in it?”

Grace stopped at the archway and gave her a smirk. “Where did you learn to be such a diva?”

“Lemon helps.”

“We don’t have any. Do you want some tea?”

“Okay.”

Hope started coughing as Grace headed back to the kitchen. It was a phlegmy, deep cough, and Grace wondered if she was contagious. Maybe it was better, after all, if Grace didn’t spend too much time in there.

When the water in the saucepan was near to boiling, Grace turned off the flame. She poured the steaming water into a travel mug, only filling it halfway, and dropped in a peppermint tea bag. While she waited for the tea to steep, she filled her sister’s sports bottle with fresh cold water and then stood there leaning against the counter. With her back to the midnight window, she pondered the rest of her No-Mommy evening.

There was a show Grace wanted to watch at seven. She was supposed to finish her homework first. And if the television noise bothered Hope in any way, Grace was supposed to turn it off. As if Hope would be sleeping. Grace rolled her eyes at Mommy’s rules. The do-your-homework thing was kind of a joke. And Mommy was clueless if she really thought Hope would sleep or stay in bed through any mildly interesting activity. Regardless of a fever or a cough, Hope was not one to let life pass her by.

If Grace turned on her show, Hope would want to join her in the living room. If (when) they heard Mommy at the door, it would take a lot longer than a few seconds to transfer Hope from her wheelchair back into bed, so Grace’s real dilemma—if she chose to turn on the TV—was accepting that they (she) would get in trouble when their mother came home. Was the show worth hearing Mommy yell at her about how irresponsible she was?

Mommy believed her list of rules qualified as Parenting, and thus she expected Grace to fully follow those rules, making Mommy in charge by proxy. But Hope wasn’t that easy to boss around, and it wasn’t fair that Mommy pretended otherwise. Even while sick, Hope wouldn’t die from eating supper in the kitchen or watching a little TV—but she absolutely would be a royal bitch if Grace didn’t help her get out of bed. One way or the other, someone was going to be mad at Grace; she had to decide if tonight it would be her sister or her mother.

Maybe the soothing tea would put Hope to sleep, then Grace would be off the hook. When the tea was a shade too dark, she took out the tea bag and filled the rest of the mug with cold water: sipping wasn’t exactly something Hope had a lot of control over. Grace made sure the lids were tight on both containers, and with one in each hand, she left the kitchen. She moved the curtain to Hope’s room aside with her elbow—and almost dropped the beverages.

Her sister was covered in blood.



Grace lurched to the table to deposit the mugs and grab a towel. “Why didn’t you call for me!”

Blood dripped down Hope’s chin, yet she was smiling. Blood dribbled down the front of her nightshirt and pooled in the blanket across her lap.

“We need to call nine one one!” Grace frantically mopped at the blood, and Hope laughed.

“Scared?”

Yes, Grace was scared. She pivoted toward the kitchen, where they always kept one of the cordless handsets plugged in.

“It’s not blood, you wimp,” Hope called after her, laughing.

Grace stopped, spun back around. “What?”

“I coughed up my tomato soup.” Hope tossed her head and laughed.

“Why is that funny?”

“The look on your face.”

Grace’s panic morphed into something else. She imagined herself a pissed-off bull with a pike in her back, huffing out fire-hot breath. This was why she could never feel sorry for her sister. Grace spent the next fifteen minutes washing the reddish goo off Hope’s face and neck and helping her change into a clean nightshirt.

“You’re a fucking diva bitch,” Grace mumbled.

“It’s good practice.”

“For what?”

“For when I’m a famous designer.”

“You don’t have to act like a bitch,” Grace said.

“No. But if my assistants are too impatient for my words, at least they’ll get my tone.”

On another day Grace might have burst out laughing at her sister’s moxie. But it was an exceptionally trying night, and Grace was tired. After covering Hope with a spare blanket, Grace took the soiled one into the cellar and stuffed it in the washer. The basement was the worst part of the house—darker, colder, diseased with shadows—and as soon as the load was underway, she fled upstairs to watch her show.



“Grace!”

Grace sat cuddled in the ever more ragged mommy-cat chair, leaning toward the glow of the remaining lamp—a twin to the painted-lava blob in Hope’s room. She studiously watched the television and ignored her sister.

“Grace!”

Just in case Mommy asked when she got home, Grace kept her schoolbooks half on the wobbly end table beside her, half on her lap and did a couple of minutes of homework during the commercials.

“Grace!”

It wasn’t like she didn’t know what Hope wanted. Having decided to let her sister be the angry one, Grace hiked up the volume with the remote, trying to blot her out.