The Faded Photo

by Sarah Price

  Sharing memories. That was the reason why her mother said she did it.

  Frances often wondered if that was truly the reason.

  She remembered all too well how her mother would stress over every last minor detail. Her father would quip that no one would care, or even know, if something wasn’t exactly right. But Frances’s mother ignored his comments as she focused on placing the candles among freshly cut greenery so the wax would not drip onto the tablecloth, folding the napkins into decorative shapes, and adding subtle decorations that complemented whatever holiday they were celebrating, whether it be Christmas, Easter, or even the Fourth of July.

  “Don’t listen to your father,” her mother always told her. “When our guests compliment the decorations, he’s just as proud as I am.”

  But there was one thing she hadn’t learned from her mother: how to set a before-breast-cancer-talk table.

  Frances purposefully overlooked pink linens, which she suspected her mother would have suggested she use. Instead, white linens adorned the cherrywood table, hiding the chips and scratches from so many family meals. Her plain white-and-gold-trimmed wedding china looked especially graceful on top of the gold chargers it sat on. In the center of the table sat a bouquet of white and red roses, the white of the roses so deep, they appeared to match the napkins perfectly.

  “Well done,” she whispered to herself. Even her mother would have been proud.

  The phone rang, and she hurried to the kitchen, where she had set it on the counter. Glancing at the screen, she saw it was Charlotte.

  “Hey, Charlie,” she said as she held the phone to her ear. “Everything OK?”

  She heard Charlotte give a little laugh. “I suspect I should be asking you that question. How are you feeling?”

  Frances glanced at the clock. She still had two hours before anyone was due home. “I feel fine. Thanks again for being there for me.” She raised her free hand to gently touch the bandage under her right collarbone. “It hardly hurts at all.” That wasn’t entirely true. There was a dull ache where the doctor had inserted the Port-a-Cath, and she couldn’t touch the thin plastic tube that ran under her skin and up her neck.

  “So tonight’s the night, right?”

  Frances rolled her eyes, glad that Charlotte wasn’t there to see. “Yes, tonight.”

  “You’re telling them tonight.”

  Just the fact that Charlotte was repeating her irritated Frances, but she checked her temper. “I told you that today. Dinner is cooking, the table is set . . .”

  “Sounds like the perfect party setting for sharing such joyous news,” Charlotte stated in a flat voice. “Are you trying to impress them before you depress them? Is that the game plan?”

  Leave it to Charlotte. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that Carrie was taking lessons from her on the proper use of sarcasm. “I’m not trying to impress anyone.” She turned around and glanced at the timer on the stove. “I just . . . I just want to do it my way. They’re going to have a lot of questions. Besides, after tonight I don’t know how I’ll feel, and this might be the last family sit-down in a while.”

  Her comment was met with silence.

  “Charlie? You there?”

  Frances heard her friend sigh into the other end of the phone. “Yes, I’m here. And I’ll be waiting for you to text me later. I want to know how they take the news.”

  “Thanks, Charlotte. I’ll be sure to let you know. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to lie down for a little bit.” The truth was that she wasn’t all that tired, but she needed to relax for a moment. She knew that the evening would be long and stressful. And there was no amount of decorating that could make that feel any better.

  She was standing in the dining room when the front door opened. As soon as Nicholas entered, he jiggled his keys, then tossed them onto the front table and set down his briefcase. For once, she had managed to place the mail there, sorted into three piles: bills, junk, and other miscellaneous items. Even after all these years, she could never be sure if some of the sports-related magazines or catalogs might be of interest to Nicholas. Rather than discard them outright and risk upsetting him, which had happened on more than one occasion, she left everything perfectly organized on the hall table for him to sort through. She justified it as being one of the ways to show him how much she cared.

  “Frances?” he called out, walking past the staircase toward the kitchen. As he passed the open doorway into the dining room, he stopped short and peered into the room, a concerned look on his face. “What’s this? Company? Tonight?”

  Her smile faded. She glanced at the grandfather clock in the hallway and saw that it was only ten to seven. Nicholas was home early. However, it wasn’t because he remembered her request. In fact, he clearly forgot that she’d told him she needed to talk to him. Again.

  Forcing a small smile, she shook her head. “No. Only us.”

  He frowned as if searching his memory for something that he might have forgotten. “It’s not Carrie’s birthday, is it?”

  Trying to be upbeat, Frances walked toward him. Placing her hand on his shoulder, she leaned over and gently kissed his cheek. He smelled like a weaker version of the musky scent from earlier that morning. She could always recognize it: his day-old office scent. “No, it’s not her birthday.”

  “So . . . ?”

  Leaving her hand on his shoulder, she pulled back and gazed into his face. “So nothing. It’s a ‘just because’ dinner.”

  “Just because?” He repeated the words in a suspicious manner that made Frances fight the urge to cringe. “Just because of what?” he asked.

  “Just because I felt like it.” She paused, wishing that he would lean forward and kiss her, gift her with a small token of his affection. “Remember, I told you I needed to talk to you? I asked you to come home early? I thought we’d have a nice family dinner. It’s been a while.”

  For a long moment he seemed to consider this. She could see him trying to determine whether something was amiss. The dining room was usually reserved for holidays and company, not a simple family dinner on a weeknight. But the look on Frances’s face must have convinced him that nothing was wrong, because he finally forced a small smile back.

  “I suppose ‘just because’ is a great reason, then,” he said wearily while tugging on his tie. “Although it has been a long day.”

  His comment irritated her. Every day was a long day for Nicholas. Seeing him return from work before nine o’clock was shocking. During the week they rarely sat down together as a family. Frances had given up on that long ago. The more she pressured him to cut back his hours, the more time he seemed to spend at the office.

  He glanced over her shoulder toward the door that led into the kitchen.

  “Smells like you’ve been cooking up a storm. What’s for dinner?”

  “Lamb.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Lamb?”

  It was his favorite, mostly because she usually served it only on Easter and on Christmas Eve. His schedule was too chaotic to make such elaborate meals on a regular basis. Tonight, however, she’d decided to make everyone’s favorite—mashed potatoes for Carrie, corn casserole for Andy, and a Caesar salad with anchovies for herself. And she even picked up a bottle of wine, which was uncorked and breathing on the center of the table next to the fresh flowers.

  With a little shrug, Frances looked away, focusing on the kitchen rather than the quizzical look on Nicholas’s face.

  “Something you want to tell me?” he asked. His voice was flat and emotionless. She should have known that he would react this way: defiant, concerned, untrusting. Only, deep down, she’d hoped that he would go with the flow and enjoy the surprise. After all, it was the last supper they would share before she started to fight her battle with cancer. Frances didn’t know how long it would be before she would feel well enough to try to pamper her family again.

  “Later, Nicholas. Why don’t you go change,” she suggested, “while I finish up in t
he kitchen?”

  Perhaps she had gone too far. She had no idea what the future held, how her body would react to the chemotherapy. Her plan to try to maintain balance could abruptly end at any time. All she wanted was to have one more night of normal, even if her idea of normal wasn’t normal at all.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, followed by the patter of dogs’ feet. Not surprisingly, Frances heard Andy jump the last few steps, pounding onto the landing. Despite wanting to, she didn’t call out to reprimand him. Not tonight anyway.

  “Whoa! What’s this for? Carrie’s birthday?”

  “I must be a sorry excuse for a mother if everyone thinks it’s someone’s birthday when I cook a special meal for my family!” She swallowed the bitter irony that no one ever remembered her own birthday.

  Andy leaned against the counter and dipped his finger into the bowl of mashed potatoes. Playfully, she slapped his hand away, but not before he got a heap.

  “So, what’s the big deal, then?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing in particular.”

  “Did we win the lottery or something?”

  She laughed. “You know I don’t play that.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, I can always dream! After all, you gotta be in it to win it!”

  She tossed a towel at him, which he caught.

  She couldn’t help but wonder when the last time was that she’d spent a few minutes alone with Andy, casually bantering back and forth. He was usually busy after school with sports and friends, too old to be bothered with his parents, unless he wanted something. And she was usually too tired to deny his requests, no matter how great or small.

  But standing in the kitchen together, talking about nothing, meant everything to her. It was exactly what she needed tonight: a happy memory to hold on to before she began the day-to-day journey of defeating cancer.

  If she could only have this one last night of normal. A night where she could pretend she didn’t feel as if she were standing on the edge of a canyon, waiting for the wind to shift and push her forward into the abyss of the unknown. She only hoped and prayed that there was a bridge across that canyon, one that she could cross to reach the other side.

  She knew she would have to tell them after dinner. She wanted the dinner to be special, a time of sharing and laughing. Only then would she be able to break the news to Nicholas. After the kids went to bed, they would discuss how to tell Andy and Carrie. She hoped to be able to wait until after she started her chemotherapy.

  “Dad said to come downstairs,” Carrie said as she walked toward the kitchen. She stopped in front of the dining room. “Company?” She looked irritated and turned to glare at her mother. “Seriously, Mom? I have a test tomorrow, and I don’t feel like being all blah blah blah with your friends.”

  “Relax,” Frances said. “You’ll be happy to know that you only have to ‘blah blah blah’ with us, your family.”

  The expression on her face said it all. She frowned in disbelief. “What?” She looked around at the beautifully set dining room table and the lovely bouquet of flowers. “All of this for us?” When she returned her eyes to her mother’s, Carrie grimaced. “That’s almost as bad as company!”

  “Carrie!”

  Her daughter seemed unfazed by Frances’s response. “I really need to study, Mom. Can’t I just take a plate upstairs?”

  Frances winced as if she’d been stung. She had hoped to avoid just such a reaction from Carrie. Just once. Instead, Carrie had remained consistent in reminding Frances that, despite her own dreams of family, her daughter was still a product of the “generation of entitlements” with unrealistic expectations and very little consideration or compassion for others. It seemed that most of the teen generation felt as if the world revolved around themselves, with little respect for the hopes, dreams, and needs of others. Just their own demands.

  “You most certainly cannot.” Frances didn’t care. Not tonight. Not on her night. “You can study afterward. You can spare an hour to be with your family.”

  “An hour?” She sighed and then leaned against the counter, hanging her head forward so her hair covered her face. In a typical teenage fashion of overdramatizing everything, she mumbled, “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “You will, and stand up straight, please. You can start by carrying these into the other room.” Frances pushed two bowls, one filled with creamy garlic mashed potatoes and the other with an oven-baked corn casserole, toward her daughter. “Now.”

  With a huff and a puff, Carrie stomped toward the dining room, carrying the bowls and practically slamming them onto the table. Andy rolled his eyes and looked away.

  Frances did a quick count to ten, willing herself to remain calm. Up until Carrie’s outburst, everything had been going quite well. She couldn’t—no, she wouldn’t—let Carrie’s attitude ruin what would most likely be one of the last ordinary nights for a very long time. And even if Carrie normally behaved in an ornery and sassy manner, Frances would not permit it. Not tonight.

  With everything ready, Frances called up the stairs for Nicholas to come down when he finished changing. Andy took a seat while Carrie furiously texted on her phone, most likely complaining to one of her BFFs that she was being forced to join her family for dinner. Frances had to remind herself that, when she was twelve, she, too, often rebelled against her mother’s attempts at unifying the family around her ideals. The only difference was that her mother hadn’t been as patient with her as Frances was with Carrie. That was something Frances had always vowed to do better: create a unified family without being the family bully.

  Frances gave her daughter a stern look. “Phones off, Carrie.”

  With a groan, Carrie slammed her phone onto the sideboard and slid into her designated seat across from her brother. In virtual silence, the three of them waited for Nicholas. Almost five minutes passed before he finally joined them. He gave a quick, tense smile to Frances and took his place at the head of the table, but she could tell that he was somewhere else. The way that he served his food, barely looking at Andy when he passed the casserole to his left, clearly indicated he was still at the office.

  “Everything OK, Nicholas?” Frances questioned.

  “Huh?” He looked up and met her gaze. “Oh, yes. Just thinking about something that happened today at work is all.” He glanced at the children, then added, “I’ll talk to you about it later.”

  She knew what that look meant. He didn’t like to talk about work in front of the kids. She never understood why, but as with other things, she didn’t challenge him.

  “So how was everyone’s day?” she asked. Her voice sounded forced, the question rehearsed. She imagined it was a normal topic of discussion most families talked about while they sat around the dinner table. But for her family it sounded . . . artificial. This type of dialogue was reserved for other families, families that didn’t have competing schedules and self-serving interests that interfered with—no, superseded—the attention and concern most households shared. Regular families like the one Frances always dreamed of obtaining.

  “You’ll never guess what happened at school today!” Andy offered enthusiastically. “That Michael kid got busted for having Xanax!”

  Carrie’s eyes widened. “The same one that called in the bomb threat last month?”

  “What bomb threat?” Nicholas asked.

  “Dad! Don’t you remember?” Carrie rolled her eyes. “It was in the paper.”

  With his lips pressed together and a scowl on his face, Nicholas shook his head. “I don’t understand why that kid hasn’t been kicked out of school. He’s nothing but trouble.”

  Andy made a face. “It’s because he’s white. If he was Hispanic or black, they’d have expelled him long ago.”

  “Racist!” Carrie shouted.

  “Am not! It’s just the truth. Everyone knows that.” He poked his fork at the mashed potatoes. “Doesn’t make it right, and I don’t agree with it. But that’s
the way it is.”

  Inwardly, Frances groaned. When she planned the meal, she’d envisioned the children sharing details of their day. Now, however, Andy had given Carrie the fodder she needed to begin jumping onto her typical platform for social reform.

  “That’s disgusting,” Carrie said. “And we just sit by and let it happen? Might as well go back to the days of segregation and different water fountains for different colors!”

  “Carrie . . .”

  Her daughter looked at Frances, a fierce and determined expression on her face. “No, Mom. If we don’t stand up for the rights of others, we’re basically condoning oppression.”

  Nicholas reached for the wine and poured himself a healthy glass. He set the bottle back onto the table and then, as an afterthought, grabbed it again to pour a glass for Frances.

  “Can we change the subject, please?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  Nicholas leveled his gaze at Carrie. “We aren’t going to solve the wrongs of the world in this room. Not tonight, anyway.” He let his words sink in, then reached for his wineglass and took a sip. “Besides, your mother made this lovely meal, and I don’t think she intended that the dinner conversation revolve around social issues that are outside our purview.”

  “I don’t get it.” Carrie sank back into her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “You two always act like everything’s just fine, shutting your eyes to things that are happening all around us.”

  “Dad said to stop,” Andy cautioned.

  Clearing her throat, Frances turned her attention to her husband. “Everything all right at work? You looked a bit”—she hesitated, trying to find the proper word, one that wouldn’t irritate him—“preoccupied when you got home.”

  He set down his wineglass, a few red drops spilling onto the white tablecloth. Frances fought the urge to grab the salt and shake it over the spots to prevent staining. But she didn’t want to call attention to it.

  “The Brineman deal is back on the table. I’ve got two really long days ahead of me,” he said. He lifted his glass to his lips and took a long sip. “I might as well just tell you.” Another quick glance at the children. “I have to go to Chicago for all of next week.”