Bloodline(32)

But this time, she’d been awake. Watching me.

Her gaze was gentle, cloudy.

“Mom.” I reached for water and held it to her. “How are you?”

Her eyes traveled to the pack of cigarettes at her nightstand. She’d stopped smoking a year earlier, before the cancer was diagnosed. Now that it was consuming her bit by bit, she insisted on the cigarettes always being nearby.

I want to curse those damn things every remaining day of my life.

“Dying,” she said, but there was a spark in her eyes. “You?”

The barest smile creased my cheeks. “Fine. Work was fine.”

“You get your byline yet?”

“No, but I will, Momma.”

“I know you will.” She closed her eyes. I set the water down, thinking she was falling back asleep, but then her lids snapped open. “I want you to remember the good things.”

I didn’t tell her she’d already said that. “I know, Momma.”

“The traveling. All the places we got to explore together. How I kept you safe. Remember that.”

I stroked her thin hair, a by-product of her medication, the one vanity she’d allowed herself now more gray than red. We really had had grand times, been everything to one another. When I got offered a scholarship to the University of Minnesota, she moved to live near me.

I met Ursula and Libby there.

All that moving meant I wasn’t particularly good at making friends, but I wanted to so bad. I stopped spending time with Mom, except for the occasional dinners and phone calls. I landed temp and secretarial jobs when I graduated with my journalism degree, but then I got hired at the Minneapolis Star when I was twenty-five—my dream job. They had me working in the women’s section, but I was going to claw my way up, I knew it, and I was always looking for my big break even though I felt dirty having that much ambition. I tried to hide it, but I think I failed. A lot. I was bad at being a person, but Mom was always steady, and I’d been ignoring her, acting like she wasn’t everything to me.

And now I was losing her.

“I’ll remember, Momma,” I murmured. “Always.”

“I don’t want a funeral,” she said, so quietly that I could have imagined it if she hadn’t continued. “I only have you, Ursula, a couple coworkers that I go out with after work. It’d be a waste of money.”

The coughing took her then. She lasted another week.

When she passed, I honored her wish not to hold a funeral, but I made sure the whole world knew how much I’d loved her. I had only a handful of photos of her—her family had been from Florida, she said, either long passed or too far removed to make a difference, and they hadn’t been good to her, and she’d had a Mr. Harken (my dad) for only about five minutes—so it didn’t take me long to pick one for the obituary.

The obit was my finest writing to date, but I felt alone in the world. I moved back in with Ursula, but I didn’t feel like she was enough. I needed someone who was just mine.

That’s when Deck came into my life.

And we were going to have a child, a baby that Dr. Krause thought I might harm. I may not have planned to become pregnant, but I would never hurt my baby. He had no right to enter that in my notes.

“Joan!”

The grip is firm on my arm.

“Catherine,” I say, turning to face Clan’s wife. Migrant Mother.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Catherine is smiling, but her eyes are pinched. “I’ve been chasing you down Augusta Avenue for nearly two blocks! I was visiting family at the nursing home across from Dr. Krause’s office. I saw you come out.”

I wish I’d brought my sunglasses. The morning is bright. “I was getting a checkup.”

Catherine is suddenly standing beside me, her arm caping my shoulders, her head too close. “The whole town is so excited about your baby,” she whispers. “Certainly those of us who live on Mill Street. It’s been so long since we had an infant in the neighborhood. Now, you must tell me all the details.”

I push her arm off and step away. I know it’s rude. “There’s not much to share. The baby is healthy. I’m healthy.”

Her jaw hardens. “Forgive me.”

A horn honks up the street. I run my hand across my face. Breathe. Realize I must appear even-tempered or people will talk. More than they already are. “No, it’s me who should be apologizing. I’ve felt a little off recently, is all. The baby is truly fine. Dr. Krause seems very nice.”

Catherine immediately returns her arm to my shoulders. She’s herding me down the street. Is she leading me toward Schmidt Insurance? “Dr. Krause is a gem,” she agrees. “We’re so lucky to have him. He’s not originally from around here. Did you know that? He came to us from North Dakota back in the ’40s. We’ve since made him one of our own.”

“His offices are very modern.”

Catherine laughs. It’s a high, tinny sound that draws some glances. “I know you think this is the boondocks, but Lilydale is not some backwater town.”

How can Catherine possibly know what I think? We’ve spoken only the one time she dropped off a casserole. I am no open book.

Catherine leans in again, even though she’s already too close. We’re almost at the Ben Franklin. Her tone is conspiratorial, naughty. “I was with your husband on Friday.”