Welcome to Hell: Rediscovering First Love

“I never want to leave here either,” she replied indignantly. “I heard that England has hoof and mouth disease again.”

“What does that have to do with us?” I asked knowing that I would regret it.

“They have all those animals in Kentucky.”

“What animals do we have that you don’t have in Michigan?”

This should be good!

“There are more farms in Kentucky than in Michigan,” my mother snapped.

“So does that increase my chances of getting hoof and mouth disease?”

“Gabrielle, Kerry’s mother is ill.” Switching topics once again. Always trying to throw me off guard. Again she was gauging my response.

Her sole purpose in the hoof and mouth conversation was to throw me off for this next subject. The name Kerry did start a nervous tingling in my stomach but I betrayed nothing to my mother. I lowered my eyes so she could not see any of the emotions I was sure were there. My mother was a devious one. Bait and switch but she wouldn’t get the best of me.

“Oh,” I replied keeping my eyes averted from my mother’s knowing gaze.

“She had a complete hysterectomy. It’s a shame. I don’t think I would feel right without my lady parts.”

“Yancy, I don’t think that Ester McCoy needs her parts any longer and she should feel just as womanly as before they were taken out,” I replied with a hint of exasperation. She had that effect on me. The woman could make me totally fucking insane crazy. Deep breaths. Remain calm.

“I wasn’t trying to say she should feel that way. She had to have them removed. C-A-N-C-E-R,” she spelled the word instead unable to say it as if the cancer were a bad word.

“Yancy, you can say the word cancer.” My mother was a nut.

“It is a scary word especially when…well you understand dear…tomorrow I could get the same prognosis.”

I rolled my eyes. She was ridiculous. She just said cancer yesterday. Why not today? “Yancy, how bad is it?” I asked.

“It is a horrible disease. You should see Ester.”

“Yancy, I know that cancer is a horrible disease.” I deliberately said the word. “When did you see Ester last?” I asked puzzled by her admission that she had seen my daughter’s other grandmother.

“Harriet did.” She was lying I knew that she had been to see Ester but I let it pass.

“How bad is Ester?”

“Bad. Gabrielle, they are giving her intense chemotherapy treatments. I’ve been told the treatments are so difficult for her that she’s been in and out of the hospital for months.”

“Who told you about her treatments?” I asked Yancy trying to trip her up.

“Harriet again darling. Who else?”

I should have guessed. The two biggest gossips in the town of Hell, Michigan were my mother and Harriet Mills. Between the two of them the entire town knew that Ester McCoy had her female parts removed and was now undergoing intense chemotherapy but I still didn’t believe her. She was lying. Yancy wouldn’t make a good poker player but still I didn’t push it too far.

“Yancy, how did Harriet find out all this information about Ester?” I asked curiously.

Rising from the chair I had been sitting on I dumped the remainder of hot chocolate into the sink and rinsed my cup afterwards. Then I placed the cup in the sink rim down as my mother had always taught me to do. Then I turned to face my mother to wait for her response.

“Kerry told Harriet when she asked him how his mother was. We haven’t seen her out recently. You know she’s always in church.”

Ester had attended the same Lutheran church my mother had for years. That didn’t sound like Kerry. At least not the Kerry I had known. He would have been more closed mouth than this to Harriet.

“Kerry’s in town?” I asked in a choked voice unable to hide my surprise.

“Yes dear he’s in town. Kerry is staying with Ester while she’s undergoing her treatment. Do you think Keegan would like to see her grandmother before she dies? Maybe Kerry too? I could arrange it you know?”