What's Mine and Yours(16)

Noelle didn’t want to hurt her by saying it was different: the fuel needed to run a marriage, how exacting it was to be so close to someone, to see them with the same mixture of sympathy and scorn that you saw yourself. It didn’t even take an unkindness to feel let down by the person with whom you had vested your whole life.

“He can’t be everything to you,” Inéz said.

“I know, I know, never rely on a man.” It had been their mantra in college, even as Noelle had dated Nelson year after year. She didn’t believe it, but she knew it was what Inéz wanted to hear.

“No, no,” Inéz said, the light from the torches coloring her face. “It’s got nothing to do with that.”



Inéz slept beside her, her breath filling the bedroom with the kind of presence Noelle had been missing. Still, she couldn’t sleep. She ran a bath and brought her phone with her in case Nelson called. It was a new day in Paris.

She sank into the hot water, dropped in the rose and calendula soak she had bought to help with fertility. The dried flowers bobbed in the bath. Noelle didn’t believe they would ever work, but all the witchy remedies gave her, at least, something to do. She could drink primrose tea to soften her cervix, take fish oil and go for long walks, treat conception like a full-time job. It made her feel her odds were better. Nelson had said they could make another, but she wasn’t so sure. She’d never get pregnant if he weren’t around.

Nelson told her not to think of the miscarriage as a baby but rather a little maybe she’d been carrying around that had turned to a no. But her child had been the size of a mango when she lost him. He’d been anchored in her, by blood, a new organ her body had made. She knew that babies were conceived and died all the time when they were just the size of seeds or nuts, but that knowledge had made no difference. The little maybe had been hers, a life she was waiting on.

The phone rang and Noelle leapt for it. Finally. Nelson. She needed his voice, the sweet husk of it.

The voice that came through the phone was coarse and female. Her little sister Diane. She called every once in a while, usually on mornings she was alone on a long drive. They had kept up their small talk over the years, as if all they needed to know was that the other was fine. Noelle loved her sister, but she’d lost track of her somehow, while she was busy running from Lacey May.

“Chickadee, why are you up so late? Everything all right?”

“Mama collapsed this morning. She fell right off the front porch.”

A sick shock ran through Noelle. She remembered her mother had called earlier, and she had ignored her. If her mother was hurt badly, she’d never live it down—the prodigal daughter, now even worse than Margarita. “Is she all right?”

“She’s awake now. Bumped her head pretty hard though.”

“Well, all right. So she’s fine.”

“The problem is she fainted cause she’s sick, Noelle. They’re saying she’s got cancer.”

The word hit Noelle like a physical blow, a straight shot to the chest. “Not everybody dies from cancer,” she said.

“She’s been asking for you. She’s going on about how she knows you won’t come, even if she’s dying, cause you hate her that much.”

“Mama sure knows what to say to convince people of her way of seeing things.”

“Maybe you should come home. What are you so busy with anyway?”

“You call Margarita yet?”

“Yes. She was as indifferent as you are. Some sisters I have.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do, Diane? I’m not an oncologist.”

“Then come home for me, goddamn it. Did you ever think I shouldn’t be the only one to go through all this?”

Noelle could sense her sister seething on the line, little Diane who didn’t ask for things, who was good-natured and steadfast, the most peaceable Ventura.

“Fine, I’ll come, but I’m not staying at Mama’s.”

“You can’t stay with me—you know I’ve got a roommate. Things are tight around here.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll sleep on the couch. You and Alma can keep your rooms.”

“All right.”

“I’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Good. You better hurry up.”

“Come on, Diane, ease up. I don’t like the way you’re talking to me.”

“I don’t want to play peacekeeper between you and Mama once you’re here. Or you and Margarita, if she ever shows up. I’ve got my own life going on. My own problems. I don’t know why I always wind up stuck in the middle.”

“Little sis, it’s only cause you’re not like the rest of us. You’re one of the good ones.”

Noelle meant the words as a kindness, but Diane answered her with fury.

“Just get down here quick, and try not to cause trouble once you arrive. You might not care about any of us now that you’ve got a family of your own, but this is for real. Mama’s got a tumor in her brain.”





4



November 1992


The Piedmont, North Carolina

Jade put up a shrine to Ray in the kitchen. It was where he would have liked it to be. She hung his picture on the wall, potted violets underneath. She set out a fat black candle that smelled like tobacco when it burned, and nailed a wooden rosary to the wall. Jade didn’t believe in God, exactly, but if there were one, she wanted him to look after Ray. And so, each morning, she lit the candle in the early dark, squatted in front of the shrine, and tried to pray. She would start off talking to God and wind up talking to Ray. His voice was the one she wanted to hear. So far, she had heard nothing, but she went on kneeling at the shrine, expectant. If he had a spirit, he would still be around, trying to reach her. All she had to do was wait.