The Names They Gave Us(54)

“Aunt Rachel!”

I fly at her, arms wide open, and she turns to catch me just in time.

“There’s the bird,” she says, laughing into my hair.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know. Engaging in a power struggle with your mother.”

“Where’s my milk shake?” my mom calls from the family room. “I drank all my water, so I get the milk shake. Bring more chips, too!”

“She’s hungry?” I whisper.

“Yep.” She twists the lid back on a plastic container of protein powder.

“How’d you do that? She said most food doesn’t taste right anymore.”

“Oh, I have my ways.” She thrusts a bag of potato chips into my hands. “Take these.”

My mom’s curled up on the couch, feet tucked beneath her. A loose caftan billows around her, bright blue and embroidered with birds and flowers along the neckline. Rachel’s doing, I’m sure.

“Hi, honey.” She reaches out to me, clasps her cool hand in mine. “I’m so glad you’re here. Rachel is driving me nuts.”

“I’d pipe down if I were you, Jenkins!” Rachel has always called my mom by her maiden name, a remnant from swim team in college. “I’m in control of what goes in this shake.”

“How was your week?” my mom asks me, ignoring her.

“It was good. Really good.”

“Your Highness,” Rachel says, tucking the milk shake in the crook of my mom’s arm. “She’s been a tyrant, Luce. Guilted me into watching Titanic last night. Why did we do that?”

My mom twists on the couch so she can reach Rachel’s hand.

“I’ll never let you go, Rach,” she says solemnly. “I’ll never let you go.”

Then, with no ceremony, she drops Rachel’s hand.

Rachel’s eyes dart to me. “See how dramatic she’s being?”

My mom slurps at her milk shake and shoves a handful of chips in her mouth. “These are the best chips I’ve ever tasted.”

“When you’re done terrorizing the snack food, we’ll go swimming.” Rachel pushes my mom’s leg with her foot. “Don’t give me that look, Jenkins. I didn’t come all the way out here just to cater to your every whim while you whine about having cancer.”

I gasp. “Rachel!”

But my mom explodes in laughter. Hands over her mouth, rocking forward with her eyes squinted shut. She’s laughing so hard that it’s silent at first, but then she lets out a howl of it and Rachel does too, both of their faces red and teary.

“Yeah,” my mom says, her voice barely held together, “it’s just cancer. No need to overreact.”

Rachel wipes her eyes. “You always were a drama queen.”

This sets them off again. Maybe it’s more like hooting, I don’t know, but it’s primal and uproarious. I’ve heard them do this a hundred times.

“Okay. Swimming it is.” My mom shakes her head. “The things I do for you. Sacrificing more of my hair.”

The laughter, suddenly, feels very far away. “Swimming will make you lose more hair?”

She smiles sadly. “It comes out more in the shower. On my pillow too. It’s okay, Bird. It’s normal. It’ll probably be all gone by the time treatment’s done. We knew to expect that.”

“You want me to just clip it down now?” When my mom and I say nothing, Rachel scoffs at us. “What? Why not? I cut the boys’ hair all the time.”

“It’s already so patchy and wispy . . . I guess you can’t make it much worse.” My mom touches a hand to the flyaways. “All right. I guess so.”

Rachel has this way of nudging her right to the borders of her comfort zone. She won’t push her over, and my mom knows that.

“We’ll do it later,” my mom decides.

“Why not now?”

My mom’s gaze flicks to me, then back to Rachel. Like I’m a small child who’s not going to notice nonverbal communication.

Rachel understands before I do. “I think Lucy will be fine, ?Jenkins.”

“Me?” I exclaim. “Wait! What?”

My mom folds her hands on her lap. “She doesn’t need to see her mother getting her head shaved down. I don’t want that memory in her mind.”

“Mom, I—”

“Lucy,” Rachel says brightly—too brightly. “Can you run out to the car and grab the tote bag out of the trunk? It has my swimsuit in it.”

She tosses me her keys. My startled hands somehow catch them, metal nipping my palms.

Mom and I both eye her. We’re being played. I’m going to get her swimsuit as a pretense, and she’s going to convince my mom it’s all right for me to stay. Still, I trudge out to the car in the heat, find the bag, and sling it over my shoulder.

By the time I return, Rachel has moved a kitchen chair to the bathroom and my mom is sitting there with a towel wrapped around her shoulders.

I give my mom a decisive look, one that I hope says: I’m seventeen. I can handle it. “Mom, I’ve thought about it, and I can shave my head too, okay? Solidarity! And we’ll both—”

“You,” she says evenly, “will do no such thing, Lucy Esther. God gave you those gorgeous curls, and I like looking at them. Besides, your hair will be my beacon of hope as mine regrows.”