My first thought, aside from the gut-stabbing reminder that Mom might be seriously ill, was, Oh God, it’s started. The late-night talks where we figured out what to do with old Mom and Dad, now that they’re getting on in years. We used to joke about it, how they’d better treat us right because we’d be picking their nursing home. I didn’t think I’d have to face this for real for another twenty years. No, thirty years.
Stubborn, I said, “Oh yeah, and she isn’t going to guess that we’re up to something when she gets here on time and sees that I’m actually early.”
Cheryl set Jeffy down in a playpen, where he immediately found something plastic and colorful to bang against the bottom. She straightened and ran her hands through her hair, pulling strands out of the ponytail. All at once, she looked ten years older. She looked tired. Of course she looked tired, she was a mother.
“I know, I know,” she said. “I just thought it would be better if we could plan—”
“Scheme behind Mom’s back, you mean?”
“Okay. Yeah. It was stupid. I’m sorry.”
I leaned on the counter. Couldn’t help but smile. “When we were kids I always thought I’d be the one to settle down, house in the suburbs, two point five kids, and that you’d do something crazy like sing in a rock band or something. Now look at us.”
Cheryl had almost been a punk in high school. She’d missed the height of the old school real deal by a few years, but she listened to the music and wore the surplus army jacket and combat boots. Lost more safety pins than most people see in a lifetime. Four years younger, I’d worshipped the ground she walked on and borrowed all her tapes, locking in my musical tastes forever. Halfway through college, she’d grown out of it. Finished a degree in computer science and did the IT management thing. Met Mark and became a suburban statistic. Mostly she’d grown out of it. I occasionally caught her wearing a Ramones T-shirt, as if to say, I wasn’t always like this.
Today, her T-shirt was plain blue, faded from many washings, like her jeans.
“It’s funny how meeting Mr. Right can change your perspective.”
“I guess so.”
“This Ben guy—is he Mr. Right?”
I wished I knew the answer to that. I shrugged. “Who knows.”
She said, a sly and knowing lilt to her voice, “There’s still time. You may still get sucked into that suburban two point five kids thing.”
My expression froze into a polite smile. I didn’t want to tell her. I wasn’t ready to tell her about the kids thing. We had more important things to talk about.
“So what about Mom?” I said.
“What are we going to do?”
“It’s not really up to us, is it? She’s a big girl.”
Cheryl started pacing. “I know, but she’s going to need help, we’re going to have to help her, if she has to have more surgery and chemotherapy we’re going to have to look after her, aren’t we?”
“I think you’re jumping the gun here. Why don’t we wait until we know how serious it is before we start freaking out.”
“So we can make important decisions while we’re freaking out?”
“Bridges, Cheryl. We’ll cross them when we get to them.”
“We have to be ready for the worst, we have to be ready to help.”
“We will be,” I said. “We totally will be, whatever it takes.”
“Then you’re staying? That means you’ll be around, you won’t go zipping off across the country at the drop of a hat, without telling anyone.” She didn’t ask this casually; she leaned in, glaring with a kind of desperation, almost but not quite jabbing her finger at me.
This wasn’t about Mom at all, I realized.
“Cheryl, what are you asking? You want to make sure that if Mom needs help it won’t all be you? Is that it?”
We stayed like that, staring at each other. It was almost wolfish.
The door opened, and Mom’s voice called, “Hello, Cheryl? Kitty? Is that your car out there?”
How could she sound so damned cheerful? She ought to be mentally curled up and quivering like the rest of us.