by Isobel Bird
“I think you could paint me faster than you’re taking that picture,” Aunt Netty joked.
“Just a second,” Kate said. “I want it to be perfect.” She focused the lens and pressed her finger down on the button. The camera whirred to life, and Kate lowered it. “Okay,” she said. “I think that shot will definitely make the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.”
“I’m glad I went for the thong bikini then,” said her aunt.
Kate was having another great day. She and her aunt had spent the morning shopping, trying on clothes and behaving like a couple of best friends. That was one of the things Kate liked best about Aunt Netty—she didn’t treat Kate like a kid, the way her parents sometimes did. She treated her like an equal, asking her opinions about things and seeking her advice on what she should wear or what colors of makeup would look best on her. They’d had a wonderful time, and each of them had emerged from the stores with several new items.
Now they were taking pictures. As always, Aunt Netty had brought her camera with her. For as long as Kate could remember, she’d been asking her aunt to teach her how to take good photographs. But Aunt Netty had always been too busy, or there were other things to do instead. Now, though, she was showing her niece how to use the camera she herself used on many of her assignments.
“You want to look for interesting juxtapositions,” her aunt said as she came over and stood behind Kate. “Look over there, for instance. See how that cloud swoops down and looks like it’s touching the ocean?”
Kate looked in the direction in which her aunt was pointing. Sure enough, she saw the cloud Aunt Netty was talking about. It really did look like a hand reaching out of the sky to stroke the surface of the sea. She raised the camera and was going to snap a photo when she felt her aunt tapping her on the shoulder. She turned and saw her pointing silently at something behind them.
Kate’s eyes followed her aunt’s gaze, and she saw what had caught her attention. A little girl was standing at the side of the wharf, holding an ice-cream cone. But she wasn’t paying attention, and the cone was tilting toward the nose of an interested black Labrador retriever who was sitting beside her. The dog was sniffing the air, and his tongue was perilously close to the girl’s treat.
Kate quickly lifted the camera. She focused in on the little girl and the dog just as the Lab, unable to wait any longer, reached over and took a big lick of the cone. The little girl turned and shrieked happily just as Kate clicked the shutter. She took several more shots as the dog quickly consumed the ice cream, and the girl’s mother and the dog’s father both watched, startled, before breaking into loud laughter.
“Those are the kinds of moments you can’t plan,” Aunt Netty said as Kate handed her back the camera. “But now you’ve caught it forever, and every time you look at those pictures you’ll remember how that little girl looked and how happy the dog was.”
Kate looked at her aunt’s face as she spoke. There was a look in her eyes that Kate couldn’t really read. It was as if she was thinking about the thing she loved most in the world, but instead of being totally happy about it she was kind of sad, too. Kate almost asked her what she was thinking, but something told her it was a moment her aunt wanted to keep for herself.
“Why don’t we go get some lunch?” Aunt Netty said, breaking the silence. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
They walked to the end of the pier to a restaurant that had a big deck with tables that overlooked the water. The waiter led them to one that was partially shaded by a big umbrella, and they sat down. As Kate perused the menu, she felt the sun on her skin and smelled the sea breeze and decided that it was going to be the best summer ever.
“Any idea what you want?” asked her aunt.
“The clam strips sound great,” Kate answered. “But I think that’s an awful lot of fat. Maybe I should just have the grilled chicken salad.”
“Go for the clam strips,” replied her aunt. “Life’s too short to worry about a little bit of fat. In fact, I insist that you have the clam strips and the cheesecake afterward.”
“Well, if you insist,” Kate said, closing her menu.
The waiter appeared, and Kate gave him her order. When it was Aunt Netty’s turn she ordered grilled red snapper.
“Oh, so I’m supposed to order the fattening stuff while you eat healthy, is that it?” Kate said when the waiter had taken their menus.
Her aunt put her arms on the table and leaned forward. “When you’re thirty-four years old and can’t fit into your favorite jeans anymore, then you can worry about what you eat,” she said. “Until then, enjoy yourself.”
Kate giggled. “But you look great,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so thin before.”
For a moment it looked as if Aunt Netty’s smile faltered. But then she perked up again. “So tell me about your life,” she said. “And I don’t mean what you want to do this summer or anything like that. Tell me all the stuff you don’t tell your mother.”
Kate leaned back in her chair and took a sip of iced tea. What should she tell her aunt? It was true that they were more like best friends than relatives. She had always told Aunt Netty everything, even the things she was afraid to share with her parents. She never worried that her aunt would tell anyone else, and she’d always believed that she could tell her anything.
But was that true? Could she, for instance, tell Aunt Netty that she had been studying Wicca for almost four months, and that she’d gotten into it because she’d done a spell that landed her the boyfriend she’d so recently dumped? Could she tell her aunt that she had a makeshift altar in her bedroom, and that sometimes when no one else was home she did rituals to the Goddess? What would Aunt Netty think of her then? Would Kate still be her favorite niece, or would everything change? Kate didn’t know, and for the first time in her life she’d found something she couldn’t tell her aunt about.
“Well, you know about Tyler,” Kate said, trying to buy time. “Things are going really well with him. And Annie and Cooper are okay, too. I hate to sound boring, but everything is pretty much fine. I don’t throw up my dinner. I’m not using any controlled substances. And I haven’t sent anyone naked pictures of myself over the Internet in a couple of months now.”
“Very funny,” Aunt Netty said. “But there must be something going on in the life of Katherine Elaine Morgan.”
Kate rolled her eyes. She hated her full name, and her aunt knew it. She only used it when she wanted to tease Kate. Now Kate wished more than anything that she could tell Aunt Netty about her involvement in witchcraft. But she just couldn’t. She wasn’t ready to take that risk. Not yet.
“I’m serious,” she said. “There’s nothing going on. I’m going to be the most boring junior at Beecher Falls High School. But what about you? What’s this assignment you’re here on? Something good, I hope.”
Her aunt took a long drink and looked out over the water for a minute. When she turned back to Kate she sighed and said, “There’s something your mother and I have been keeping from you,” she said. “She didn’t want me to tell you, but I think it’s time you knew.”
“Don’t tell me you’re getting married,” Kate said excitedly, remembering how her mother had seemed so nervous about Kate’s asking personal questions the night before and putting two and two together.
Her aunt laughed. “No,” she said. “I’m not getting married. At least not any time soon. You kind of need a man for that anyway.”
“I don’t get it, then,” Kate said. “What’s the big secret?”
“There’s something I want to show you,” said her aunt. “Remember how you said my hair was shorter than last time you saw me?”
Kate nodded. Then she watched as Aunt Netty reached up, removed her hat, and lifted her hair clear off of her head. The hair dangled from her hand as she waved it around, and Kate stared in shock at her head.
“You’re bald!” she said.
“Surprise,” said her aunt, putti
ng her straw hat back on. “Do you like it? I hear it’s all the rage now.”
“You’re bald!” Kate said again, not believing what she was seeing.
Her aunt plopped the wig onto the table, where Kate stared at it as if it might leap up and bite her. “That’s the big secret?” she asked. “You’ve been wearing a wig?”
Her aunt laughed. “Actually, the wig is a relatively new development,” she said.
Kate was confused. “I don’t get it,” she said.
Aunt Netty reached out and took Kate’s hand. “I’d like to tell you that I’m making some grand statement about fashion, or even that I’ve become a Buddhist,” she said. “But, honey, the truth is that I’m not here on any assignment. I have cancer.”
Kate shook her head. “What did you say?” she asked.
“Cancer,” said her aunt. “I have cancer. That’s why I’m wearing a wig. My hair fell out after the last round of chemo. I know finding out like this must be more than a little strange for you, but I didn’t really know how else to do it. I figured just jumping in would get the shock over with as quickly as possible.”
Kate was stunned. She didn’t know what to say. Was her aunt kidding? It would be just like her to shave her head. But pretending she had cancer? She would never joke about something like that.
“When?” was all Kate could say. “How? Why?”
“I found out about three months ago,” her aunt explained. “I discovered a lump in my breast while I was showering. I went to the doctor, he did a biopsy, and voilà—I had cancer.”
Kate looked into her aunt’s face. There were the familiar brown eyes, the nose that looked just like her mother’s nose and her own nose, the mouth that was smiling the reassuring smile that had comforted Kate so many times. But with her hair gone, Aunt Netty looked different. She was changed. And that change was because of the cancer inside of her.
“I know I should have told you earlier,” Aunt Netty said. “You and I have never had secrets from each other, and I didn’t want to start now. But I wanted to do it in person, and I thought I would wait until the lump was gone and I was okay again.”
Kate felt herself beginning to cry. Partly she was devastated by the news of her aunt’s illness. But more than that, she felt even more terrible about not being able to talk to Aunt Netty about Wicca. Here she was, battling cancer, and Kate couldn’t even talk to her about something as simple as her own spirituality.
“Don’t start that,” Aunt Netty said, handing Kate a napkin. “If you cry then I’ll cry, and then this will all be way too much like a bad after-school special.”
Kate laughed despite herself. She dabbed at her eyes with the napkin, then looked down at the wig sitting beside her aunt’s bread plate. “Are you going to put that back on?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” her aunt replied. “I sort of dropped it in the butter. Besides, I never liked it. Now that I don’t have to pretend anymore, I think I’ll stick with the hat look.”
Aunt Netty took the wig and put it in the bag she’d been carrying with her. Then she took out a bottle of pills, opened it, and popped one in her mouth.
“So it wasn’t just a headache,” Kate said, suddenly remembering the incident from the night before. “And that’s why you didn’t eat much yesterday, and why Dad kept telling you to take it easy.”
Her aunt nodded. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” she said. “I’d hoped this would turn out to be nothing and that I could tell everyone when it was all over.”
“But it isn’t over?” asked Kate fearfully.
Her aunt shook her head. “The lump was larger than we thought, and it turned out that the cancer had spread to some of my lymph nodes,” she answered. “That’s when I had the chemo and my hair fell out. Unfortunately, that still didn’t get it all. That’s why I’m here. The hospital here has a terrific cancer treatment center. My doctor has basically done everything he can. We want to see if this is any better.”
Kate looked down at her hands, which were twisting her napkin into a ball. There was a question she desperately wanted to ask, but she was almost equally afraid of the answer she might get.
At that moment the waiter arrived, bringing them their lunches. As he set the plates in front of them he glanced briefly at Aunt Netty’s bare head under her hat before looking away. Kate noticed his reaction and wanted to say “She has cancer.” She knew the waiter was wondering, and she didn’t like the idea of people looking at her aunt and thinking there was something wrong with her. But the waiter just asked them if they would like anything else, and when they shook their heads he walked away as if they were having a perfectly normal lunch.
Only it wasn’t a perfectly normal lunch. It might have been when they’d sat down, but everything had changed as soon as Aunt Netty had uttered those three words that Kate was sure she would never get out of her head: “I have cancer.”
“Are you going to die?” she asked suddenly, the question she’d been unable to voice tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop it.
Her aunt paused, a forkful of red snapper halfway to her mouth, and looked into Kate’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I know that’s not the answer you want. It’s not the answer I want either. But it’s the truth. I’m not sure what will happen next.”
“You’re right,” Kate said. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
She looked at the pile of clam strips in front of her. Just the thought of eating one made her feel sick to her stomach. The idea of ever eating anything again seemed impossible. How could she enjoy food when her favorite aunt was dying? What she wanted to do was scream and cry and tell everyone how unfair it was that someone so smart and funny and beautiful could be filled with something that was eating her up from the inside.
“It won’t do any good,” her aunt said, interrupting her thoughts.
“What won’t do any good?” Kate asked.
“Not eating,” said Aunt Netty. “I tried that. I tried crying a lot and trying to figure out what caused it, too, but that didn’t work either. Trust me—I’ve tried pretty much everything, and it doesn’t do any good. But you know what does help?”
“What?” asked Kate glumly when her aunt paused.
“Cheesecake,” said Aunt Netty. “There isn’t a problem in the world that cheesecake can’t solve. Why do you think I had you order it?”
She gave Kate a huge smile, and Kate couldn’t help but give her a little one back. She still felt a great big knot of pain and fear in her stomach, but seeing her aunt smile made it loosen a little bit. Maybe even enough to fit a clam strip in there, she thought, picking up one of the fried pieces and dipping it in the bowl of tartar sauce on the side of her plate.
“That’s my girl,” said Aunt Netty. “So, do you have any other questions, besides the one about my imminent demise?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “I’ve never known anyone who had—” She paused, not knowing how to finish. “Who had what you have,” she said finally.
“Cancer,” said her aunt. “I have cancer. I know it’s an ugly word, but you make it uglier when you don’t say it.”
“Cancer,” Kate said, hating the sound of it. “I’ve never known anyone who had cancer.”
“I’ll give you the crash course, then,” her aunt said. “Basically, I have these cells in my body that, for one reason or another, are behaving abnormally. They divide and form new cells when they aren’t supposed to, and this forms tumors. Eventually, these cells can begin to destroy surrounding organs.”
“They can’t just take the tumors out?” Kate asked.
Aunt Netty nodded. “That’s what we did first,” she said. “But the cancer had already spread to other parts of my body. Now we’re trying to stop it from spreading any more.”
“How?” Kate asked.
“Various things,” her aunt explained. “I’ll be happy to explain all of it later. But right now let’s just have lunch. We have my whole visit to talk
about medical things.”
“When do you go into the hospital?” asked Kate.
“Tomorrow,” her aunt informed her. “This may be my last chance to have cheesecake for a while, so let’s enjoy it. Maybe I’ll even get two pieces. I’m feeling pretty good today.”
So was I, Kate thought as she picked up another clam strip and put it into her mouth. At least until a few minutes ago.
CHAPTER 5
Annie walked into Shady Hills on Thursday morning wishing she was anyplace else. Her run-in with Ben Rowe on Tuesday had gotten things off to a bad start. Although she hadn’t seen the old man at all on her second day, the memory of his anger was still fresh in her mind. To make everything even worse, Kate had called her the night before, distraught, to tell her that her aunt had cancer. Annie had never heard her friend so upset before, and while she had tried to comfort Kate as much as she could, she knew she wasn’t very good at that kind of thing. In fact, hearing Kate’s news had brought back a lot of memories that Annie hadn’t wanted to face, at least not quite yet.
As much as she’d been tempted to call in sick, or even to quit altogether, Annie had made a promise to Mrs. Abercrombie—and to herself. So she pushed open the doors of the nursing home and went inside. As she walked toward the nursing office she thought about what they had discussed in their Wicca study group on Tuesday night. Because it was summer, a number of people were on vacation or away until Jasper College started up again in September, so the study group was smaller than usual. Instead of their usual format, they were meeting more informally to talk about what was happening in their lives and to discuss any particular issues they were having with their individual progress.
Annie had been particularly anxious for Tuesday’s meeting because of what had happened at work that day. Being with other people who were studying witchcraft relaxed her and made her feel like she was part of an extended family. She knew she could talk about what had happened with her friends and maybe they would have some advice for dealing with her feelings.
