by Pamela Morsi
Piney didn’t know what to make of that statement, so he left it alone.
“You’re going to need someone to help you, Aunt Will,” he said. “Jesse is here for a reason. Maybe that reason is you.”
“I do love that girl,” Aunt Will said. “And when the day comes for me to leave this world, I’d want her to be holding my hand. But there’s a lot of corn bread between now and then.” The old woman shook her head. “Losing people is hard enough when it’s death in a flash of an instant, like her daddy. Weeks or months of watching me go down… It’s not something that I want for her.”
“But is what you want all that matters?” he asked. “What about what Jesse wants? There is no better comfort for those left behind than knowing that they did all they could. You know that’s true.”
For a long moment Aunt Will didn’t answer. Finally she heaved a huge sigh, looked up at him and almost smiled. “When did a heart-on-his-sleeve, shirttail kid like you get to be so wise about the world?”
Piney took her hand in his own. “Trailing along behind you, I guess.”
22
Jesse paced the confines of Onery Cabin until Piney finally tiptoed out of the old woman’s room as she slept. He crossed to the fireplace where she was standing in front of a crackling blaze. She couldn’t resist walking into his arms. He held her tightly as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. She buried her forehead in his neck and willed his embrace not to loosen. She felt safe here. Secure and safe. An inexplicable response to a person with whom she was merely starting a fun, lighthearted, great-sex-only affair.
With that reality in the back of her mind, it was Jesse herself who finally stepped back. His arms slid from around her waist to clasp her fingers.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Jesse nodded. “Is it…like Alzheimer’s disease?”
“No.”
“Well, thank God for that,” she said. Then she noticed that Piney didn’t share her relief.
“What is it?”
“Aunt Will has asked me to give you the news. But she’s promised me that she’ll talk to you about it herself tomorrow. I want you to hold her to it.”
“Will she be able to tell me? This…this mental break—is it like a stroke?”
“No, it’s not a stroke,” he said. “And it’s not so much a break as it is a…a fogginess. More than likely, she’ll be much better in the morning.”
Jesse nodded. She felt relieved. Knowing was much better than not knowing, she was sure of that.
“Let’s sit,” Piney said.
He moved the chairs closer together in front of the fire. They were angled so that they almost faced each other. It felt intimate, but Jesse could almost see him donning his professional demeanor.
“Your aunt Will has liver failure,” he said.
“Liver failure?”
He nodded. “Cirrhosis. It’s irreparable scarring of liver tissues. The liver becomes so damaged that it can’t function.”
Jesse couldn’t believe it. “Cirrhosis is what alcoholics get,” she said. “Aunt Will doesn’t drink. She doesn’t even approve of drinking.”
Piney agreed. “Alcoholics aren’t the only people who can get cirrhosis,” he told her. “So do people with hepatitis. And it can show up as an adjunct to other problems like diabetes or autoimmune disorders. Sometimes it’s idiopathic. It simply develops and we can’t point to a cause.”
“Is that what happened to Aunt Will? Is hers idiopathic?”
“No, I think her pathology is probably pretty obvious,” Piney said. He gestured around the room. “She’s spent her whole life grinding, processing, dispensing and basically living with medicinal plants and herbs.”
Jesse looked around the interior of the cabin with new eyes. The shelves were laden with dusty jars, bunches of drying herbs hung from the ceiling rafters. Crocks and tins of salves and oils were a part of the granny woman’s stock and trade.
“Roots and herbs can damage the liver?”
“These can be very potent substances,” Piney pointed out. “To affect human health, they’d have to be. Exposure to them is not going to be risk-free.”
“Do you think she tested them on herself?” Jesse asked. “Was she her own guinea pig?”
“Maybe,” Piney replied. “But even if she didn’t, minute amounts would have been inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Decade after decade of exposure and all of that had to be processed, neutralized and rendered harmless by her liver. That much detoxification can’t help but do damage.”
Jesse was stunned with the truth of what he was saying. Every chemistry lab in the country, from middle school to corporate high tech used protective gear, masks, gloves, respirators. Aunt Will tied her hair up and put on an apron.
She nodded slowly. “Okay, I get that. But how does the liver cause dementia?”
“It’s not dementia,” Piney said. “Dementia is a loss of cognitive ability. This is going to be more of an intermittent fogginess.”
“Intermittent fogginess?” Jesse repeated. “Like it’s only going to happen off and on?”
He nodded. “Depending on what she’s doing, what she eats and how well her liver is able to function.”
Piney’s body language and the tone of his voice slipped into his professional demeanor. He was no longer speaking to her as a friend—a sexually intimate friend—she was a family member of his patient.
“One of the byproducts of our body’s metabolism is ammonia,” he said.
Jesse’s science degree had included classes on biology and human physiology, but if she’d known that, she’d forgotten.
“The intestines produce about four thousand milligrams a day of the stuff. It gets absorbed into the bloodstream and then goes to the liver to be turned into urine, so we can get rid of it.”
“Okay.”
“When the liver is not able to do its job, then the ammonia stays in the bloodstream and circulates throughout the body. It does damage everywhere it goes, but because it’s susceptible to gravity, the brain tends to get more than its share.”
“So the fogginess is ammonia.”
He nodded. “More typically you’d see sleepiness or irritability. But full-blown confusion and disorientation happen, as well.”
“What can we do for it?” Jesse asked.
“Low protein diet is what she’s supposed to be doing,” Piney said.
Jesse would have laughed if it were at all funny.
“She eats a big slab of meat at every meal.”
He sighed. “I was afraid of that. It’s always hard to motivate that kind of change, especially with our seniors. While you’re here, maybe you can nudge her in the right direction.”
“Of course I will,” Jesse easily agreed.
“The less protein she has to digest, the less ammonia that she produces and the less her liver has to eliminate.”
“Okay, I think I can manage that, at least for a while. I guess if she eats better she’ll get better?”
Jesse phrased her words as a question, needing reassurance. It did not come. She watched as Piney hesitated before slowly shaking his head.
“This is part of the end game for Aunt Will,” he said. “The liver is the only organ in the body that can regenerate itself. And humans can survive with only ten percent of it functioning. But you’ve got to have that function. Once it’s gone, it’s merely a question of which vital system shuts down first. A damaged heart muscle stops beating. Lungs lacking immunity pick up an infection. The kidneys quit altogether or the brain becomes so saturated with ammonia that she slips into a coma.” He paused to take a deep breath, as if bolstering his determination to be truthful. “Beyond cleaning toxins, it’s the liver that produces the clotting factor that prevents excessive blood loss. As that production slows down, internal seepage from veins and arteries can go from a trickle to an irreversible loss. All of those scenarios lead to the same place. Aunt Will doesn’t have a lot more time with us.”
The lurch in Jesse’s
heart was more intense than she would have expected.
“She’s not going to get better.”
He shook his head. “Aunt Will is eighty-five,” Piney reminded her. “With so many younger people waiting, she didn’t even want to be considered for the transplant list. So…” He hesitated. “So this is what it is.”
Jesse couldn’t get a handle on what she felt. She saw her aunt only every few years. The woman had lived a long and productive life. Everybody has to die. At her aunt’s age, that should be expected. But the sense of personal loss overwhelmed her. Why hadn’t she spent more time with Aunt Will? Why hadn’t she made the old woman a priority? Jesse wanted a world where Aunt Will was here, here in this place. She didn’t want to lose this tenuous thread.
Professionalism gone, Piney opened his arms to her and she fled into them. Sitting on his lap, held tightly against his chest. She didn’t cry. She felt numb. Disbelief. Regret. Even anger. The emotions jumbled in her mind in a way that was painful, but also familiar.
“You sure can’t tell it by how often I’ve shown up here,” she whispered against Piney’s collarbone. “But I love Aunt Will.”
He nodded. “I know you do,” he told her. “And, more important, she knows that you do.”
“I already feel like I’ve lost her,” Jesse said. “And losing her is like… It’s like losing my dad all over again. I miss him so much.”
Piney was stroking the area between her shoulder blades, as if comforting a child.
“My dad was so close to Aunt Will. When I’m with her, she talks about him. It’s almost like he’s alive again.”
Piney seemed to understand. “It’s a connection,” he said. “Part of our way of dealing with loss is holding on to those connections.”
“I guess so.”
“I know so,” he assured her. “That’s why I live here, why I raised my son here. We could have lived easier, more affluently in town. But this is where my parents lived, this is where my memories of them are. That’s why I came back.”
“You can carry memories with you anywhere,” she pointed out.
She felt him smile against her forehead. “By the time I’d figured that out, I realized how much I was needed here.”
As the fire burned low, he held her in his arms and they talked and questioned and slowly Jesse came to grips with the roller coaster of emotions the day had brought.
“I’m staying here with Aunt Will… I’m staying as long as she needs me.”
“I’m glad,” he told her. “And I know that, ultimately, Aunt Will will be, too.”
They sat together in silence for long moments. Holding on to the now for fear of what the future would bring.
“I’ve got to go home,” he said, finally. He kissed her on the cheek.
She smiled at him. “Is that all I’m going to get?”
“I never start anything I can’t finish,” he teased. “And I’m afraid my son might ground me if I’m out too late.”
Piney’s smile was genuine, but the giddiness that had so consumed them earlier had been dampened.
“I guess this puts the nix on our plans for tomorrow,” she said.
“I’ll come up here,” he promised. “Maybe we’ll find a chance to be alone.”
“As long as Aunt Will doesn’t wander off.”
Piney nodded. “Speaking of that, have you got a spoon?”
Jesse found one in the kitchen.
“Tomorrow I’ll bring some kind of bell,” he promised. “But tonight I’ll wedge this in at the top of the door and I’ll put that bucket out there beneath it. If Aunt Will opens the door for a walk in the middle of the night, it ought to make enough clatter to wake you up.”
“Okay.”
Piney hesitated in the open doorway and then reached out to snake an arm around her waist, pulling her up against him. He brought his mouth down to meet hers. It was a sweet and tender kiss, too much so for two people who were barely friends and mostly sex partners. Jesse chose not to question it or analyze it; instead she enjoyed it and responded to it.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yes.” Somehow that hope made her feel better.
23
The best news about having Tree at her house for dinner, Camryn thought, was that her mother had a hard time being mad at him. Tree was polite, respectful and helpful, all the things that moms found difficult to resist.
He was a quiet, easygoing guy. In class he was never the one vying for the center of attention. He was grinning on the sidelines and keeping out of trouble. Still, when trouble showed up, he was always the one to step forward to make an explanation or an apology. He was the guy everyone counted on to keep the peace. But he could hold his ground if he needed to. Fortunately, when you’re the tallest guy in school, it wasn’t often that anyone tried to pick a fight.
Camryn watched him as he and her mother conversed about sports drinks and energy boosters that relied on caffeine, one of Mom’s favorite subjects. He managed to sound interested and informed, though she knew he couldn’t be much more than bored. He was like that and she admired, loved him, for it.
But she sure could have loved him more if her mother didn’t approve of him so much.
After the meal, she and Tree were clearing the table, when they heard an exasperated complaint from her mother.
“What’s wrong?”
“The sink is backed up again,” her mother announced with a frustrated growl.
The two teenagers walked across the room to view the damage. Sure enough two inches of yucky water showed no interest in going down the drain. With dishwashing now an impossibility, Camryn stifled the impulse for high fives all around.
“Darn it! It’s always something!” her mother complained.
“Do you want me to snake it for you?” Tree asked.
Camryn glanced up at her boyfriend sharply. She quickly made a surreptitious throat-slashing gesture. He didn’t notice.
“Oh, that’s so sweet, Tree,” her mom said. “But I don’t think you can snake through the garbage disposal.”
“No, ma’am,” he agreed. “It has to be done through the p-trap.” He nodded as if he never expected anything less. “I can do that, Mrs. Broody,” he assured her. “If you’ve got a pipe wrench around here, I’ll save you calling a plumber from town.”
Camryn wanted to kick him. So much for their romantic reunion snuggled up on the couch together.
Tree found both the snake and the pipe wrench in the work shed and encouraged Camryn’s mom to put her feet up and watch TV.
“I’m sure you’ve had a long day. Cammy and I will take care of this.”
Her mom was delighted at the prospect.
At least, Camryn thought, the two of them would be alone in the kitchen.
She helped him remove all the bottles and boxes of housekeeping products from under the cabinet. Then they put an old washtub into the space. Once the connection on the pipe was loosened, the dirty water quickly splashed into it.
He gave Camryn the job of getting rid of it, which meant carrying it down the stairs and out the back door. She dumped the contents, rinsed out the tub and left it sitting on the step.
When she returned upstairs, her boyfriend was underneath the sink, whistling as happily as he worked. Camryn walked around the kitchen a few times, waiting for him to finish, waiting for their evening to begin. Tree seemed oblivious, taking his time.
Camryn walked past the door to the living room to see her mother leaned back in the recliner. The contestants from Dancing with the Stars were gyrating across the screen in front of her, but her mother’s eyes were closed, her mouth was open and a definite snore could be heard.
It was the perfect time to make time. Unfortunately, her boyfriend was otherwise occupied.
Camryn glared at the narrow waist and long, muscled legs stretched out across the kitchen. The memory of those long legs tensing beneath her suddenly turned her annoyance into mischief.
Very quietly she closed the living roo
m door.
Tree had missed her, she knew that. He’d admitted that after their last fight, when he couldn’t get her on the phone, he’d worried. Camryn was pretty sure that timing was everything in relationships. And so far, timing had worked against them. She’d been trying to reroute it to her advantage. Once basketball season was over, Tree would be looking toward graduation and going off to college. She needed to secure him. She needed to secure him, now.
Momentarily the memory of those moments together in Aunt Will’s barn flashed into her mind. Camryn had been in control. All the sexual power was hers. And then suddenly it had shifted. She didn’t like that. She didn’t understand it. And it frightened her. That’s what had happened to her mother, she imagined. That’s what had happened to her cousin Jesse. A man might want you. A man might love you. But once the man had the power, the woman…the woman could end up alone. Camryn had to cement her place in Tree’s life, while she still had the power to do so.
She took a deep breath, steeled herself with personal confidence and walked over to her boyfriend stretched out across the kitchen floor. She planted a booted foot on either side of those slim, masculine hips and sat down on his lap.
Tree jolted up, attempting a sitting position. It was an unwise move that resulted in a painful banging of his forehead on a water pipe.
“Dammit, Cammy! What are you doing?” he complained as he ducked out from underneath the counter, rubbing his injury.
She wiggled suggestively atop his penis. “I thought I’d remind you that I have some interesting plumbing for you to ‘snake’ and you won’t even need a pipe wrench.”
She grinned at him in a way that she hoped was both saucy and suggestive.
Tree cast a glance toward the door and asked in a furtive whisper, “What are you trying to do, get us caught?”
“They say the danger of getting caught makes sex more exciting. I don’t think I could get much more excited. And I’m totally ready to have sex. And if I’m not mistaken…” She wiggled against him once more. “You seem to be up for it.”
Tree drew up his legs, unceremoniously dumping her onto the floor. “Are you completely deranged?” he asked. “Your mother is ten feet away and could step through that door at any minute.”
