“Gabrielle?”
“What?”
“If you need me honey. I’m here just like before.”
Other than her occasional rude comment when I was pregnant with Keegan she had supported me financially but most of all emotionally. She attended every doctor’s appointment. Yancy heard Keegan’s heartbeat before Kerry had. Yancy held Keegan in the first few minutes of her life. She had been supportive of me. Even though Yancy was sick she still was thinking about how to help me. Bat shit crazy ass woman. God how I loved my mother.
“I hope this won’t be as hard emotionally or physically.” I said this thinking about her chemo treatment and my pregnancy. “I’m here if you need me.”
“I wonder how Kerry will feel about this pregnancy. You know dear someone is trying to tell you something.”
“You can say that again.” I wanted to tell her that what they were trying to tell me was that I needed to grow up and think about the consequences of my actions before jumping into the freezing water without a wetsuit but couldn’t. “Love you,” I told my mother the emotions of the moment evident in my voice before pushing the talk button on my portable telephone to end the conversation.
I sat up feeling better but not quite myself so I stayed on the sofa. Keegan and James finally left me alone. I called Michaela first.
She told me what she got the children for Christmas. She was babbling. She was hiding her misery. I knew my sister well. She asked if I liked what she had gotten me. I told her Keegan loved the CD’s she had sent. Then she started to cry.
“What is it Michaela?” I asked softly.
“Yancy. It’s hard watching her suffer. She is still in a great deal of pain. I don’t know how she will start chemo next week. She was so quiet. We are used to Pop being quiet but never Yancy. Gabrielle we missed you.”
“I missed you too. It’s time for me to get my life straightened out so we don’t have to spend holidays apart,” I told her hoping no one would hear me.
“The therapy isn’t working,” she sobbed.
Yancy was right.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Whenever the therapist starts to get somewhere with us Byron takes offense and storms from the room swearing we are out to get him.”
“He can’t handle that he’s the problem in your marriage.”
“Gab, he’s not the only problem in our marriage.”
“Micki you haven’t done anything.”
“Gab, I have. I stopped caring. I let him do so many things to me that he never should have been able to do. I have to accept responsibility for my unhappiness and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the next twenty years unhappy.”
“Good for you,” I told my sister.
Finally Michaela said, “You need to call the others. I’ll let you go.”
“Bye Micki.”
Troy answered the telephone when I called Gemma. He talked for several minutes before handing the phone to my sister. I was smiling thinking that Gem had found a nice man when my sister finally said hello.
She relayed similar information to me. Everyone was fine except Yancy. I was told what she received from Troy for Christmas. They had enjoyed themselves at Michaela’s house. Yancy was very pale.
“Even Byron couldn’t get Yancy’s temper stirred up which had surprised Michaela,” Gem told me.
“Did he try?” I asked.
“Not deliberately but he called Micki slow in a nasty way then said if she would lose weight she could move her fat ass a little faster. Any other time Yancy would have had a comment for him.”
“But she didn’t.”
“Nope. She sighed and turned away. Adin thought she was crying. Yancy never cries.”