What could I say to that?
In fifteen minutes I had Kitty refreshed with a sponge bath and slipped into a clean, pretty pink gown. She stared at me sleepily, with a kind of wonder in her fuzzy gaze, then drifted off into sleep. What a relief to see those strange eyes closed.
Downstairs in a pleasant living room we all sat while Cal explained Kitty's strange illness that no doctor could diagnose. Reva Setterton's lips curled upward to display contempt. "Kitty was born complainin bout everythin. Neva could fix nothin up right enough fer her t'like. She neva liked me, her pa, or nobody else--unless they were male an handsome. Maybe this time I kin make up fer all my failures in t'past . . . now that she kin't answer back, an make me madder'n hell."
"True, true," volunteered Maisie, clinging like a burr to my side. "Ain't nothin but trouble when Kitty comes t'stay. Don't like nothin we do or nothin we say. Hates Winnerrow. Hates all of us, yet she keeps comin back . . ." And on and on Maisie rattled, following me to my room, watching me as I unpacked, and she soon was gasping at the display of all the fancy lingerie and pretty dresses that had filled my closet once Kitty was too sick to care how much money Cal spent on me.
"Bet she's awful hard t'live with," pried Maisie, falling flat on the yellow bedspread and staring at me with admiring green eyes. She lacked something that Kitty used to have, the vitality, and the toughness. "Kitty's never been much of a sister. She was off an married up time I was old nough t'remember. Neva liked Ma's cookin. Now she'll have t'eat it, like or not." Maisie smirked like a satisfied cat. "Neva likes nothin we do or say. She's a queer one, our Kitty. But it makes me feel sad t'know she's lyin on a bed, unable t'move. What did it t'her?"
That was a good question, a very good question that the doctors had asked many times.
When Maisie left, I sank into a tub chair covered with a chintz yellow print and gave it more thought. How had it all begun? After Chuckles was killed? I thought backward, closing my eyes and concentrating, trying again to find a clue. Perhaps it had started the day when Kitty came storming home, furious because half her clients had shown up late for appointments. "Damn crappy women!" Kitty had bellowed. "As if they thinks they're betta than me, an kin keep me waitin like I don't have nothin betta t'do. I'm hungry, got me t'worst kind of appetite--an I keep losin weight! Wanna eat, an eat, then eat some more."
"I'm hurrying as fast as I can," I'd answered, racing from sink to stove.
"Goin up t'take a bath . . . ya be finished time I'm back."
Clickity-clack went her high heels up the stairs.
I could almost see Kitty up there, ripping off her pink uniform, letting it fall to the floor, stripping off her undergarments, letting them fall as well. Clothes that I'd have to pick up, wash, and take care of. I heard the water in the tub running. Heard Kitty singing in a loud voice, the same song she always sang when she was bathing.
"Down in t'valley. . . . valley so low. . . owww, owww . .
Late in t'evenin . . . hear t'train blow . . . owww, owww . ."
Over and over again, until the song ate into my brain, chewed on my nerves. Just those two lines, repeated until I wanted to stuff my ears with cotton.
Then the scream.
That long, horrible scream.
I'd gone flying up the stairs, expecting to find Kitty had slipped in the tub and cracked her head on the tile . . . and all I found was Kitty standing nude before a bathroom mirror, staring with wide, appalled eyes at her naked right breast. "Cancer, got me a breast cancer."
"Mother, you'll have to go to a doctor. It could be just a benign cyst, or a benign tumor."
"What t'hell does 'benign' mean?" she'd yelled. "They're gonna cut it off, slice me with one of those scalpel knives, mutilate me . . . an no man will want me then! I'll be lopsided, half a woman, an I've neva had my baby! Neva gonna know what it feels like t'nurse my own child! . . . Done tole me, they have, I don't have no cancer. But I know I do! Jus know I do!"
"You've already been to a doctor . . . Mother?"
"Yes, damn you, YES! What do they know? When yer on yer deathbed, that's when they know!"
It had been crazy and wild, the way Kitty had carried on, screaming until I had to call Cal, asking him to come home immediately, and then I'd gone back up the stairs to find Kitty lying on her wide bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, just staring at nothing.
Darn if I could really remember . . .
After our first meal in the Setterton home, which was really very good, I helped Reva and Maisie with the dishes; then all three of us joined Mr. Setterton on the porch. On a glider I managed to remind Cal of that day while Reva Setterton bustled about upstairs, forcing food down Kitty's mouth. "She ate it," she said when she was back, sitting stiffly in a reed rocker. "Ain't nobody in my house gonna starve t'death."
"Reva, a few months ago, Kitty said she found a lump in her breast. And she said she went to a doctor who reported she didn't have a malignant growth--but how can we know if she really went? However, when she was in the hospital for two weeks, they went over her thoroughly and they didn't find anything suspicious."
For some odd reason, Kitty's mother got up and left the porch.
"An that's all, all?" asked Maisie, her green eyes wide. "What a dope to clam up until she knew. . . but then again, she's sure got some great ones, ain't she? With that kind, could hardly blame her for not wantin t'know."
"But," said Cal, sitting close at my side, "her doctors checked her over, Maisie."
"Wouldn't make no difference t'Kitty," Maisie said with surprising complacency. "Breast cancer runs in our family. Got a whole long history of it. Ma's had both hers taken off. Wears fake ones now. That's why she walked away. Kin't stand t'hear people talk about it. Neva would know it, though, would ya? Our ma's mom had one off. Pa's ma had one off, then died before they could ctit bff t'other. Always Kitty's been scared t'death of losing what she's so proud of." Maisie looked thoughtfully down at her own small breasts. "Ain't got much myself, compared t'hers, but I'd sure hate losing one--sure would."
Could this be it, explained so simply?