The Winter Sister(21)
I hadn’t prepared myself for her deterioration. Every time I’d imagined seeing her again, I’d pictured her looking the same way she had when we were last at Jill’s together—curveless as a cigarette, heavy bags beneath her eyes, but still, even through her bitterness, familiar. I never once considered that the bones of her wrists would stick so closely to her skin, or that the shape of her head would seem so alien. I hadn’t thought to equate her illness with something that would vacuum her up inside.
“So.” Mom’s voice halted my thoughts, and I wasn’t sure how long or how noticeably I’d been staring at her. “What do you think? Will I be gracing the cover of Elle magazine soon?”
My eyes widened. My mother had just made a joke. A dark, mirthless joke, its tone laced with acidity, but a joke nonetheless. What’s more—she was speaking to me, and without Aunt Jill’s prompting.
“Um . . .” I struggled for an appropriate response. “Not Elle, no. But maybe Marie Claire. And only if all the regular models are busy that month.”
I winced, pulling the coat I was still holding even closer. Mom chuckled, though, and while it was a deeply cynical sound, it was the first time I’d heard any kind of laughter from her since before Persephone died. She rocked lightly in the recliner, her slippered feet pushing gently against the floor, and she was looking at me like she was performing an evaluation. I regretted then not having cut my hair like Lauren always urged me to do. It hung shapelessly down to my shoulders and, according to Lauren, gave me a look of “pathetic self-negligence—like a cat that’s given up licking itself.”
“Let me take your things,” Jill said, reaching for my coat and scarf. As she padded out of the living room, I crossed my arms and looked around, pretending to be interested in whatever changes had been made to the house’s decor over the years. But there were none. The couch was the same dusty brown it had always been, and the bookshelves of paperbacks and photo albums appeared unchanged. Even the TV had never been upgraded; it was small and boxy—nothing like the 48-inch flat screen that Lauren and I had in Providence—and on the wall beside that TV, Persephone’s constellation. It was twenty-six years old, but somehow, the painted stars still held their shine; the slash of silver where Persephone’s hand had angrily swiped was as vivid as the day it had happened. In smaller dots, like metallic snowflakes, the disappearance dust was scattered around the astral points of Persephone’s body.
“You kept this,” I said to Mom.
She’d been picking at the sleeve of her sweater. “Hmm?”
“Persephone’s constellation.”
Her lips tightened as she continued to look at her sleeve. She was plucking at something I couldn’t see, and as the seconds passed by, heavy and slow, I realized she wasn’t going to respond.
“So,” Jill said, entering the room again, “should we go over everything? I need to get going in a little bit. I told Missy I’d be in Boston by dinnertime.”
My heart quickened at the thought of Jill leaving, but I nodded and followed her into the kitchen. The small space, barely big enough for the table and chairs that were stuffed into it, was open to the living room, and I kept my eyes on Mom as Jill ticked off instructions.
“I’ve written everything down over here,” Jill said. She spread out a few pieces of paper on the counter, and I watched as Mom continued her light rocking. “This is Missy’s cell phone number, which I know you already have, but that’s okay. This is the number for the cancer center at Brighton Memorial, just in case you have any questions. They’re really great over there. During the first cycle of chemo, I was calling them up every other day, and they never got annoyed. This is the number for the pharmacy—try to talk to Fran if you can; she’s the nicest of the three—and this is . . .”
The litany of numbers, the orderly way in which she’d prepared me for almost any kind of emergency—it felt like I was babysitting. Still, I was grateful. I didn’t know the first thing about taking care of a sick person, and Mom was no child that I’d be watching for just a few hours.
“. . . But they’ll give it to you if you ask.” Jill clicked the top of her pen. “Now, her appointments each week are on Monday and Wednesday. Her chemo always starts at ten a.m., but they draw blood first and take her vitals and everything, so you have to get there at nine on Monday, okay?”
But today was only Saturday, which meant I had nothing to do on Sunday but be alone in the house with my mother.
I looked at her, still rocking gently in the living room, her eyes focused on nothing. She seemed so fragile, as if by pushing her feet too forcefully against the floor, her bones would shatter. So why did I feel so afraid of her? What could she do to me now, in her weakened, skeletal form, that she hadn’t ever done before?
“She should have a light meal before you leave on Monday morning,” Jill said. “I usually make her scrambled eggs, but cereal would be fine, too. Whatever you want.”
“And what about what I want?” We both looked over at Mom, who had turned her head toward us, the first indication she’d given that she’d even been listening.
“Well, okay,” Jill said. “What do you want, Annie?”
Mom made a quick scoffing sound. “Not eggs,” she said. “Not cereal.”