by Karin Cook
I scowled at her. “You’ve been looking in my things.”
“I’ve never even seen it,” Elizabeth said. “Mama told me you had it. She wanted to know where you got it from.”
I jumped out of bed, crossed the room to my closet and pulled the drawstring for the light. Deep at the back of the closet, I’d hidden Ivy Shaptaw’s copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, on the bottom shelf with shoe boxes stacked on top. I crawled under my longest hanging clothes, my heart pounding in the dark. As I pulled the book out, I felt Mama’s Christmas present. I was safe; it was unopened.
I had wanted to give her something funny, something that hinted at the future. Samantha had told me about reconstructive surgery, and helped me piece together a miniature photo album filled with pictures of breasts that we’d collected from magazines and pamphlets. I had even cut out some from Nick’s Playboy. But something that Christmas night had told me how stupid my idea was. Thank God Mama had only unearthed Our Bodies, Ourselves.
“Open it,” Elizabeth said, peering at me behind my parted clothes.
“I thought you just wanted the book,” I said, threatening her.
“I do,” she said. Then, her eye went to a bright spot of silk amidst the rubber soles and leather uppers of my shoes: the underpants that Uncle Rand had given me. They still had the tag on them.
“Can I have those too?” she asked. “You never wear them.”
• • •
Our Bodies, Ourselves was the only book I ever saw Elizabeth actually try to read on her own. We got into the habit of alternating ownership, sneaking it out from each other’s rooms in an unspoken nightly exchange. Elizabeth was a heavy reader, staining the pages with chocolate and grape juice; she used bobby pins to mark her spot.
The school called twice. Ms. Penny thought Mama should know that Elizabeth seemed unusually distracted by medical matters. Mama got defensive, told her that if the school district had a responsible health education program, Elizabeth’s research wouldn’t be necessary. But when Mr. McKinney, the school principal called, Mama had to give Elizabeth an official warning.
“No matter how good your intentions,” Mama said, pulling Elizabeth aside after dinner, “you cannot go around diagnosing your classmates.”
“I didn’t diagnose Eddie Kramer. I just told him that in my opinion it looked like scabies.”
“Mr. McKinney says that you’ve set off a panic about an epidemic.”
“He should panic,” Elizabeth said, “scabies is highly contagious.”
Nick smiled at me and Uncle Rand. “Looks like we’ll have ourselves a doctor in the family,” he said proudly and started to stack the dinner plates.
“Please try to keep your medical opinions to yourself,” Mama said to Elizabeth, “or I’ll have to punish you.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Uncle Rand said, “it’s just a skin mite.” He lowered his voice, “It’s those blood-sucking crabs you gotta watch out for.”
Nick seemed not to hear him. He jiggled the silverware in a glass and stepped away from the table.
Later, when Elizabeth and I read the section on infestations, we fell into a silly mood, imagining Uncle Rand with a mite burrowed deep in his skin, causing raised red bumps and intolerable itching. Together, we collected dead bugs from the windowsills, picking them up with a paper towel and spilling them into a cup. There were flies with shiny green armor and netty wings, long-nosed mosquitoes and daddy longlegs spiders—all dry and stiff. But when we blew on them, their wings and legs shimmied as if in movement. Elizabeth had the idea to sprinkle the shelled bodies on Uncle Rand’s down comforter. After we made a buggy nest at the edge of his pillow, we cleaned up all traces of our work and ran howling from his room.
DUTY
It was Elizabeth who saw it first—the small, shiny red bump jutting out from Mama’s neck, just above her collarbone. Elizabeth didn’t say anything directly to her. She waited until I lumbered down the stairs and then cornered me in the pantry.
“Mama has a lump,” she announced, all panicky and out of breath. Her face was creased with worry. “It’s on her neck,” she whispered and pointed to the indented place near her own collarbone.
“A lump?” I felt a hollow ache in my chest. “How do you know?”
“I saw it,” she said, starting to cry, “it looks like a cranberry.”
“Stay here,” I said and left her leaning against the shelves to see for myself. By the time I walked into the kitchen, Mama had draped a dish towel around her neck.
“Good morning,” she said. She scraped two grilled cheese sandwiches off the skillet. “Time to eat.”
I stared at her neck, waiting for the towel to move as she handed me my breakfast. The ooze of American cheese made its way down the crust and onto the plate. I felt sick to my stomach.
“Where’s Elizabeth?” Mama asked, putting down the second plate. She stood in front of me, her hands on either end of the towel, twisting them together into a knot.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
I could feel my chin starting to quiver.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
I slumped over, dropping my face toward my chest and heaving. Mama moved closer and hugged me to her. “You can cry if you want to,” she said, “it’s okay. I feel like it too.”
“Is it more cancer?” I asked between sobs.
“I don’t know,” she said, “I’m still waiting for some test results. I’m sure it’s nothing.” She loosened her grip on me and stood up a bit. I could feel that she was about to pull away, so I held on tightly to her hand. She paused, waiting for me to release her. “Don’t say anything to Elizabeth,” she said, squeezing my hand, “it will only upset her.”
It was such a relief to be included in one of Mama’s secrets that for a split second I forgot that Elizabeth was in the pantry, listening to us. I knew that she was waiting on the other side of the wall for me to tell Mama that she already knew about the lump. Caught between Mama’s desire for secrecy and Elizabeth’s hope for inclusion, I stayed silent, choosing Mama for myself.
Elizabeth had been too upset to come into the kitchen for breakfast, so Mama went upstairs to check on her. By the time I got up there to brush my teeth, Elizabeth had pressed Mama toward the truth. They were frozen in a tearful embrace when I reached the hall. I waited, toothbrush in hand, hoping to catch Elizabeth’s eye. But the damage had been done and I could feel it, thick as smog, between us. Elizabeth’s hurt and my selfishness bound up together in Mama’s secret.
Within a week, Mama had to be hospitalized overnight for an infection in her lungs. This forced a truce between me and Elizabeth. We used our collective energy to demand more information, cornering Nick in the foyer and trading off in our questioning.
He took a deep breath, pushed his hands into his pockets, and exhaled loudly. “It’s probably pneumonia.”
“What’s that?” Elizabeth asked.
“A very serious cold,” he said, “in the lungs.” He shifted his weight. “They just want to be careful.”
“If they’re so careful,” Elizabeth asked, “why does she keep getting sick?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “I just don’t know.”
“That’s what you said last time,” I said.
He could tell that I blamed him for not doing more.
“It’s true,” he said, his voice faltering, “this time I don’t know.”
We fell quickly into position around the uncertainty. Elizabeth became the private eye, taking nothing at face value. I did the research, turning to books and magazines for a second opinion. Together we confronted Uncle Rand, waiting until late that night when, with wineglass in hand, he was sure to be the most talkative.
We found him reading Time magazine, a country-and-western station playing in the background. He had on a T-shirt and gray sweatpants, his bare feet crossed at his ankles. Elizabeth and I stood at the foot of his bed and fired questi
ons, using new vocabulary words such as reoccurrence and metastasis that I’d collected, but didn’t understand.
He pulled himself upright and set the magazine on his lap. His hair was mussed at the side of his head, his eyelids seemed heavy. “I wish I knew,” he said, “nobody tells me anything around here anymore.”
I didn’t believe him. He and Mama were in a childhood habit of keeping each other’s secrets. “What if it is cancer?” I pressed.
“Well, if that’s the case,” he said, “then we’ll all have to be strong … for her.” He took a long, slow sip of wine and stared absently at the wall between us. Elizabeth and I stood quietly, afraid to disrupt his gaze, until he blinked hard and looked up at us. “But we don’t know that yet.” He opened his arms and pulled us into a clumsy hug. “Let’s not panic,” he said, rubbing his hand over my back. His breath smelled of rotting fruit.
My body churned fear and hope into a rapid pulse, making it difficult for me to stand still. I broke away and ran down the hall to my room. I refused to answer the door, rejecting Elizabeth and Uncle Rand’s attempts at comfort. It was easier to do my hoping alone.
Early the next morning, Nick called Elizabeth, Uncle Rand, and me into the kitchen. Elizabeth and I took our places against the counter while Uncle Rand leaned against the sink. Nick paused before speaking, his mouth open, but wordless. He tapped his hands against his pockets, jangling the loose change.
“We’re going to lick this thing,” he said finally. He closed his right hand into a fist and opened it, slapping his thigh. Uncle Rand pivoted, turned on the faucet loud enough to drown out anything else Nick would say, and began washing the dishes. I watched as the cuffs on his sleeves soaked up soapy water and darkened.
Dread lifted away from my skin, but never vanished. The truth hovered somewhere between what my mind knew and my heart hoped for, like an apparition. It was the uneasy feeling of a broken promise.
Nick kept talking, but not about sickness. He wanted to marry Mama properly, late in June, just after school was out. He could kick himself for not having done it sooner. It just seemed so natural, as if they’d been with each other always. His voice strained as he made bold, overly enthusiastic suggestions about the wedding. Neither Elizabeth nor I were listening. Nick was acting as if getting married would cure her somehow, as if a wedding would change everything.
Elizabeth stepped away from the counter, stood in the middle of the kitchen, and asked, “Is she sick enough to die?”
Nick moved toward Elizabeth, took each of her shoulders in his hands, and bent down to look into her face. “Promise me something,” he said, giving her a little shake, “promise me you won’t think such things. It’s not good for her.” He looked up at me. “We have to stay positive … pray, even.” He nodded at Elizabeth. “You can do that, can’t you?”
Uncle Rand released the drain and shook his hands over the sink. He palmed the kitchen rag and hung it, limp and damp, over the nozzle, before walking past us and letting himself outside. The birds scattered when they heard the back door. I watched as he walked by the picnic table. Normally, he would have stopped to fill the bird feeder, but he kept going down the driveway, leaving the hollow tube to swing, empty, under the charged weight of sparrows and blackbirds.
Throughout May, Nick clipped articles about Lady Diana and Prince Charles and hung them on the refrigerator. There were weekly updates about the dress, the jewelry, the cake. The extravagant wedding was scheduled to be televised live at the end of July. Nick took to calling Mama his princess, said that she was more regal than Lady Di would ever be.
Mama was not fazed by the hubbub around the royal wedding. She wanted a small, private ceremony, involving just our immediate family and someone understated to officiate. Nick thought that their love should be pronounced in nature. The blooms of spring were all around us—bright yellow arms of forsythia, aromatic sprays of lilac. They agreed to exchange vows quietly in the backyard.
Before Mama and Nick knew it, their marriage was the focus of other people’s conversations. The guys at TransAlt wouldn’t hear of a private event. Some of them had known Nick for over ten years. They had waited a long time to see him tie the knot and they’d be damned if they’d let him do it without some kind of ceremony. Lainey didn’t care what happened as long as she was included. She suggested that the TransAlt guys put their talents to building a lattice arch for Nick and Mama to stand under in the yard. Mrs. Teuffel wasn’t quite as accepting. She thought theirs ought to be a church wedding, considered an outdoor service to be more the way of hippies and outcasts.
When Keith Rogers heard the news, he offered his landscaping services at no charge. He was accommodating, weeded three feet past the property line, even asked permission to plant a couple of azalea bushes. He had acquired his own equipment, which seemed to give him more confidence than I remembered. When Uncle Rand came around, Keith tried to redeem himself, making more conversation than high school boys usually make. He was nice to me, too, even slipped me a business card. On Elizabeth’s, he drew a heart. She hung back in a constant blush, watching from a distance. Uncle Rand had made it clear to her that Keith Rogers was there to get a job done. He was not to be distracted or disturbed.
This was our first wedding, and falling as it did, a month before Prince Charles and Lady Di’s meant that Elizabeth and I had high expectations. We threw ourselves into the ceremony, imagining bouquets and veils. We wanted everything—matching dresses and responsibilities, the garter and rice.
“What kind of gown are you going to wear?” Elizabeth asked Mama one day, fingering the lace hem of her cotton nightie.
“I’m thinking about getting something practical,” Mama said, “something I can wear more than once. Maybe something one of you can wear someday.”
Elizabeth’s face fell. “But why?”
“Well …” Mama started, considering her words, “after the first time all that stuff isn’t quite so important.”
Elizabeth was horrified. There was already something shameful about a second marriage, but for Mama to refuse to wear a gown seemed to make a mockery of tradition. “What about Nick?” Elizabeth pressed, “it’s his first marriage.”
“Nick won’t mind,” Mama said.
“Nick won’t mind what?” Nick asked, entering the room, his shirt untucked, his hair overgrown and messy.
“Do you care if Mama doesn’t wear a real wedding dress?” Elizabeth asked.
“She can wear whatever she likes,” Nick said. “She’d look like a queen in overalls.”
Elizabeth sighed and kicked her legs out to stand up. Mama reached over, cupping her shoulder and pressed her back to the couch.
“We thought it might be a good time …” Mama started and then turned to Nick. “There is something important we want to talk to you about.”
“It’s completely up to you of course,” Nick interjected, “we want the choice to be yours.”
Elizabeth looked up, impatient, “What are you talking about?”
Nick watched Mama, a long stare full of weeks’ worth of conversations. I could feel where they were heading. It was inevitable. I let my mind go blank—a safe, familiar place.
“Nick would like to adopt you as his own,” Mama said, finally, her words like pennies slipping into a pond. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Nick, it wasn’t really anything to do with Nick. What I worried about was losing Mama.
Nick shuffled his feet side to side. “Only if you want,” he said, “you girls think it over.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Mama said, starting to get defensive.
She hunched her shoulders anxiously and nodded her head. “This way we can stay as we are, like a family, no matter what.”
“Why can’t things just stay the way they’ve been?” Elizabeth challenged.
“They can,” Mama said, “this is just Nick’s way of showing us how much he loves us.”
“But,” Nick started, “if you want to take some time and think about it y
ou go right ahead.” He smiled directly at me, his face open and warm, but I noticed that he was gripping his fingers into his palms.
I smiled halfheartedly and looked away. I always knew that the time would come when Mama would invite someone else to become our father. But somehow I thought it would be different. I imagined that I would first know my real father and would then be in a better position to choose someone new. Not knowing him made it difficult to be sure I was making the right choice. In some ways I had kept a small space open, hoping that he might come back. In my fantasies, he was busy and wild, daring and important. His return was always dramatic, full of loud voices, exotic presents and screeching tires. Nick seemed so regular. It felt more like settling than choosing.
“Would we have to change our names?” I asked.
The next day at school, I practiced writing my new name, saying it aloud and imagining hearing it called. The O of Olsen would shift my status from the beginning of the alphabet to the middle. The B of Burbank had always entitled me to front rows and early attention. I was usually among the first to get report cards or tests returned. But O, I realized, would seat me closer to Samantha.
My friends interpreted Nick’s offer of adoption as a symbol of love.
“It’s not like he has to do it,” Jill Switt said, “it’s extra.”
Christy Diamo thought that there was a bit of mystery associated with a sudden name change. She said it was what the government did when they were relocating top secret witnesses.
“Where’s your real father?” Libbie Gorin asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Nowhere, I guess.”
“Then definitely do it,” she said.
Samantha was the only one to say I should watch it. “He gets to skip being your stepfather and go directly to being a father,” she warned, “without any experience.”
Uncle Rand recommended that Elizabeth and I go along with Mama’s wishes. He took us one that night, after Nick and Mama had gone to bed, and told us that the adoption was what Mama wanted most in the world. He sat on the edge of my bed, drink in hand, tapping the mattress on either side for us to join him. It took him a long time to get to his point, pausing and repeating himself, he kept picking up and putting down his glass. I could see he was drunk, the kind of drunk that made time slow up on itself.
