"Some people like their privacy, Alice. You forget that she's a guest, not one of your disciples."
Penn slipped an arm around my waist. "It's okay. They don't mean any harm."
I looked up at him and blinked hard. "I don't want you to think I'm a liar."
He leaned close so no one else could hear. "You're not a liar. We just don't know each other that well. Yet."
"Shh," I whispered. "Isn't the whole point to pretend like we do?"
"Exactly, and thank you for doing that." He kissed the top of my head and then cleared his throat. "Isn't it about time you start lecturing me on my tattoos, Mother?"
Alice rolled her eyes. "Yes, please. Why don't you tell the circle how well your tattoos have changed who you are?"
Penn chuckled. "They changed how people looked at me, and that was what I wanted. Like you said, some people's images are like armor. Well, these tattoos are my shield."
"You can't hide who you really are," his mother said.
I ran a hand over the intricate tattoos on his arm. "I don't think they're a shield. They are such a part of you that sometimes I hardly even see them."
That confession startled Penn almost as much as me. "I thought you didn't like them."
"I hardly even see them anymore." I was amazed, but it was true.
Alice smiled at us and then cleared her throat. "So, Corsica, you are starting to see Penn for who he really is underneath his image. When are you going to offer him the same? Why do you hide behind your dresses? Why do you
style your hair after the movie stars and models? Why do you insist on wearing clothes like that when you'd really be more comfortable in something else?"
"Are you really comfortable in the suits you wear?" I asked Xavier in a plea for help.
This time, he nodded his head. "I am comfortable in my suits. I know it seems strange, but this is how I feel most like myself."
I was jealous. Even sitting on the packed dirt at the edge of a campfire, Xavier Templeton looked impeccable in his gray, tailored suit. It didn't stop him from lounging against Alice's knee. And he was right. He looked perfectly comfortable. My sundress pinched at the fitted waist, and I felt like I couldn't take a deep breath.
Still, I had to defend myself and my choices. I needed to keep my armor in place. I stood up and shed the heavenly quilt. "I've earned these dresses, and I'm proud of them. I came from nothing; I never had anything, not even a proper name. So, I think it's perfectly normal for me to want everything."
"Your name?" Penn asked.
"Corsica," I snapped. "It's not a name; it's just a place. Corsica, South Dakota. Just a nothing place where I had nothing."
Alice was beside me, her thin hands pulling me into a fierce embrace. "But you kept your name. That means there is something there."
I tried to pull away from her, the hot tears embarrassing me.
Penn stood up. "Mother, I think that's enough."
"What emptiness are you trying to fill?" Alice asked, ignoring his interruption. "You've been trying and trying, but nothing's working. You must be exhausted."
It was all there, spilling over in my uncontrollable tears. My mother's illness, my father's drinking. The lonely, little, two-bedroom house on the edge of town. The broken shutters, the overgrown yard littered with rusted car parts. My mother's sweet singing as she hung up the laundry. Those long summer days way back when I believed that nothing would ever mar the beautiful blue sky or the happiness I felt.
I pushed it all back and blinked hard. Alice Brightwater was nothing but a wisp in my arms. I could feel how cancer was eating away at her strength. I knew how it could chip away at a person until they were nothing but a husk, and then nothing but a memory.
I took her shoulders and pushed her back. "Stop using me as a shield," I snapped. The tears stopped, and I felt a swell of frightened anger. "We're here to talk about you, about how to help you get well. You need to be considering other treatment options. You have to fight this, and to do that, you have to use every weapon modern medicine has for you."
Alice's brown eyes held mine in a long stare, but I did not look away. Then, I saw the same golden flecks glow to life that Penn had in his eyes. "Maybe it was a good thing that Penn brought you along. Good for him, but hard for you?"
I shied away from the question I knew she was asking. "I know the treatments often seem worse than the cancer, but you need to try. Your son is here to ask you to try. That's what this conversation should be about."
"My son should know better," Alice said.