Winter Garden

Nina came up to the bedside and stood beside Meredith.

“But who will take care of you two?” Mom asked.

Meredith started to answer and stopped. It dawned on her both that this was the most caring thing Mom had ever said to them, and that she was right to ask it.

Mom would be gone someday, and only they would be left. Would they take care of each other?

“So,” Nina said when they went out into the hallway, “how much of the story have you secretly been listening to?”

Meredith kept moving. “All of it. ”

Nina followed her down the stairs. “Then why in the hell did you stop her?”

In the kitchen, Meredith put water on to boil. “I don’t get you,” she said to her sister. “When you look through a piece of glass the size of my thumbnail, you see everything. ”

“Yeah. So?”

“Tonight you sat in the room with Mom for all that time and didn’t notice that she was fading right in front of you. ”

“Says you. ”

Meredith almost laughed at the immaturity of that. “Look. It’s been a hell of a day and I can tell you’re itching for a fight, which I definitely don’t want to have. So I’m going to go home to my empty bed and try to sleep through the night. Tomorrow we can talk about the fairy tale, okay?”

“Okay. But we will talk about it. ”

“Fine. ”

Long after Meredith had gone, Nina remained alone in the kitchen, thinking about what her sister had said.

You didn’t notice that she was fading right in front of you.

It was true.

If Mom had been fading, Nina hadn’t noticed. She could blame it on her interest in the words, or the darkness of the room, but neither answer was quite the truth.

Long ago, Nina had mastered a simple survival skill: she’d learned how to look at her mother without really seeing her. She still remembered the day it had begun.

She’d been eleven years old, and still trying to love her mother unconditionally. Her soft ball team had won a spot in the statewide tournament, to be held in Spokane.

She’d been so excited, unable to talk about anything else for weeks. She’d thought—foolishly—Now she’ll be proud of me.

Nina was surprised by how much it hurt to remember that day. Dad had been at work, so Mom was in charge of getting her to the train. They had ridden with Mary Kay and her mom, both of whom talked excitedly all the way to the station. There, Nina remembered slinging her backpack over her shoulder and running forward in a herd of girls, giggling all the way, yelling, “Bye, Mom. I’ll wave from the train!”

Once on board, all the girls clustered at the windows to wave goodbye to their parents, who stood on the platform.

Nina’s gaze searched the crowd, but her mother wasn’t there, wasn’t standing with all the other parents.

She hadn’t even cared enough about Nina to wave good-bye.

From then on, Nina became like Meredith, a daddy’s girl who hardly spoke to her mother and expected nothing of her.

It was the only way she’d found to protect herself from pain.

Now that habit would have to be reconsidered. For years, she’d seen her mother without really looking at her, just as she and Meredith had heard the fairy tale without really listening. They had taken for granted that it was a lovely bit of fiction; they’d listened only to hear their mother’s voice.

But everything was different now.

To fulfill the promise she’d made to her father, Nina would have to do better: she’d have to really see and really listen to her mother. Every word.