Last Rights

by Lynne Hugo

  “Ooh, ho, ho, she’s getting to Daddy good,” Dink taunted on their break. “Hey, bud, cat got your tongue?”

  Big Al said it. “Ain’t the cat got his tongue. It’s the little mouse.” He followed it with a barrel-belly laugh and tossed an empty carton at Alex, who batted it against the wall.

  Talking to women had never been Alex’s strong suit.

  CORA’S FACE WAS LOW, cradled between her two hands. Her shoulders raised and fell, though not with sobs, but rather deep, dry sighs, as if her chest were between stones and each breath the labor to hold them apart. Alex’s was the second call of the day. The first had been from Rebecca.

  “Mom,” she’d said. “I don’t want you to worry.”

  When she heard that, Cora knew right away she might as well go ahead and open the door because worry was about to move right into her guest room.

  “I won’t. What is it, honey?”

  “Now promise me, you won’t.”

  “Becca, honey, I’m a tough old bird, you know that. What’s the matter?” As she spoke, Cora moved from standing at the kitchen wall phone to one of the kitchen chairs, lowering herself into it with the help of the kitchen table. Her cane was propped up against the wall by the back door. It was chilly for the thirtieth of April, downright cold her bones said, though they’d come to complain during hot weather as well as cold, as well as rainy.

  “There’s another spot, Mom. But they’re going to hit it with radiation. I don’t have to go on chemo unless the radiation doesn’t get rid of it all the way, but it looks like, I mean the doctor thinks radiation might be enough.”

  “Where?”

  “Around my pelvis. The right side, where it’s been hurting. You know, I told you.”

  Cora tried to steady herself, not to betray the rush of panic that made her hands tingle. This meant it had spread, another place entirely in Rebecca’s body. Where else was it hiding, an evil secret spreading corruption? “Well, all right then. I guess we’ve been there before, haven’t we? We left it behind us, now we’ll leave it again. So we just need the map out, right?”

  Rebecca laughed. “That’s funny, the way you said that. They’re going to tattoo a map on my skin, so that they don’t have to find the place to radiate each time. It’s little lines and points and markers.”

  “When does this start?”

  “Monday morning. I’d…like it if you’d come with me. If you’re busy, I can…”

  “No, of course I’ll go with you.”

  “Then I have to go five days a week for four weeks.”

  “Honey, I’ll be there. Do you want me to drive?”

  “How about I drive down, we can take my car at least the first day, and you drive home?”

  The hospital was in Indianapolis, close to an hour one way. Cora hated that drive; there wasn’t a dust of good memory associated with it, and the traffic made her nervous. She didn’t entirely trust her own reflexes anymore, though she was sure she could still pass any driver’s test.

  “Maybe sometimes could we take your car? I don’t know if mine’ll hold up,” Becca said.

  “You bet.” Cora made a mental note to ask Jolene’s Bob to look her car over. He’d done it every couple of months, and changed the oil for her since Marvin died. “So you’ll be here…when?”

  “Eight-thirty. The radiation is at ten—well, on Monday, actually they’ll just mark me, so I guess that means the radiation itself will go into the fifth week.”

  Cora didn’t let herself think about driving to Indianapolis daily for a month. She wouldn’t have refused under any circumstances when one of her children needed her. She’d never know how she’d failed the stillborn boy, but it was in her that had she done something differently, she could have saved him.

  She’d gone upstairs to wash her face, get a hold on herself and was in the bathroom drying her hands when the phone rang again. Alex wanted to know if Lexie—Detta he’d called her—could spend the weekend with her, and then he hadn’t let her talk on the phone. The court had said Cora could call once each week between visits, and Cora hadn’t used the call yet. Now she wouldn’t even have to: she just had to pick Lexie up at the school at four o’clock. And get her mind off Rebecca until Monday.

  After Alex’s call, Cora really tried to straighten up the house and put in a load of laundry, but she never made it farther than her bedroom. In the middle of emptying her own hamper, she was overcome with heaviness and had to lie down. Now, here she was, an hour later, flat on the still-unmade bed with her shoes on, her hands over her face, trying to remember how to breathe.

  JOLENE CAME OVER AS soon as Cora called, not even changing out of her house shoes into decent ones. She and Cora had an unspoken pact—they didn’t say, “I need to talk,” unless there was some unliftable new load, and when one of them said it, the other was there within minutes. Altogether, the words hadn’t passed between them more than the fingers on a hand and a half all these years. Cora had said it this morning.

  Cora didn’t even protest when Jo pointed at a chair in the kitchen. “I’ll tend to the coffee,” she said, and then turned her back for a minute to make it easier for Cora to get started.

  “It’s Rebecca,” she said. The next sentence was a boulder to move, something she had to gather herself for. “Another spot…the pelvis. Radiation starts Monday…no, they tattoo the spot on Monday, then radiation Tuesday. For a month, five days a week.”

  Jo finished measuring the coffee, turned it on, and then walked around the table and stood next to Cora’s chair. She pulled Cora’s head with its wispy gray clouds to her own chest and stroked it like a mother would. Cora set her glasses on the table, covered her face with her hands and sobbed. “I can’t bear to lose another child, Jo. I don’t think I can bear it.”

  “If that’s what happens, you’ll find the strength.”

  “I just don’t know if I can believe that again.” Cora’s back heaved a while under Jo’s hand. Then she went on. “I used to think I was a good person. Not a saint, just a good person. And I’m no Catholic like my mother, you know how she always thought that if you were good, God wouldn’t make you suffer.”

  Jo murmured assent. “I remember.”

  “I never thought that myself. I always accepted it was part of life. But this is different. My children…dying…dying one at a time in front of my eyes. How can there be God and goodness at all, and be no mercy? If I believe in God and goodness, then I have to believe I’m not good, because there’s no forgiveness or mercy for me.”

  Jo didn’t argue. “You have to get through life is all,” Jo said softly into Cora’s hair. “We get all these visions of…victories and miracles and…joy…and those happen sometimes, but mainly, we get through.” She smoothed a wayward strand into a curl and stroked it between her thumb and forefinger. “People just limp through not knowing anything, and the limping is the only way I know to do. You’ve done the best you could, Cora, the best you could and a lot of the time better.” She leaned back and pushed Cora’s shoulders up just enough so Cora would look her in the face. “Listen to me—if that’s not good enough, then nothing is and nothing ever will be, so we might as well let it go, and just carry on. It’s not something that’s going to make sense to us, either one. Not in this lifetime.” Then she relaxed her grip and let Cora sink back against her to finish crying.

  Cora finally pulled back. “I need some tissue,” she said. “Here I am soaking you.”

  “Hush,” Jo said, and went to the hallway bathroom, coming back with a wad of toilet paper. Recognizing that the first moment had passed, she got them each a cup of coffee.

  “I saw this coming,” Cora went on, after she’d blown her nose and put milk in her coffee. “That’s the thing. I knew it. All winter, Becca kept reminding me of the birds at the feeders on the worst days—all fluffed up, in layers, you know, and that big hair—and the way she was eating, like the woodpecker—he was such a glutton for the suet. But it was all puff, you know, just blown up for
insulation. Since the weather changed and she doesn’t wear the big sweaters and jackets, you can see it—you can see she’s started to waste. I didn’t say anything…she keeps such hope. And Jill—what about Jilly?”

  “Her dad’ll have her.”

  “I know, but a girl needs a mother.”

  “She’ll have you.”

  “Not if this kills me, and I’m thinking it might. I’m not even there for Lexie now. I wonder if Christine blames me.”

  Jolene knew when not to dignify nonsense by answering it, and Cora knew what her silence said.

  “And Alex called, after Rebecca, before I called you. I’m to pick Lexie up at school at four today.”

  “Not for good?” Her eyebrows went up over her glasses.

  Cora shook her head no. “Nothing’s that easy, is it now? He said he thought she might like to spend the weekend with me. My poor Lexie. You know, the other night, Alex and she got their signals crossed, he said, and he didn’t get her at school till…must have been close to seven.”

  Jolene shook her head in sympathy. “Life is too small sometimes, and then it’s too big,” she said. She looked down and saw she’d buttoned her shirt wrong in her haste to come. She sighed. The buttons were small and her fingers stiff.

  Cora caught her drift. “Of course I want her. For her own self and my Christine.”

  “Stay strong,” Jo warned.

  “I’ll manage,” Cora said. “That lawyer filed for another hearing, you know, with the evaluations and all.”

  “You got a plate full of liver and onions,” Jo said. Cora used to fix liver and onions once a month for Marvin, who loved the dish, although it made Cora gag. Those nights she’d have scrambled eggs or canned soup. She was a woman who’d been brought up to please her husband.

  “Hospitals and courtrooms,” Cora agreed.

  “WHERE WERE YOU?” Lexie said as she climbed into the station wagon, her voice tangy but careful not to sound too sassy. She’d been standing out in the driveway in front of a school building that looked antiquated to Cora, and it had disconcerting metal fences.

  “It’s only five to four, honey. Are you all right?”

  “School got out at two forty-five.”

  “What? Alex told me to come at four. Are you all right?” Cora set the car in Park, and leaned across the seat to gather the girl in by the shoulders. Lexie stiffened at her first touch, but then gave way and bent toward her grandmother. Cora sensed, rather than saw, that tears swamped Lexie’s eyes. “Honey, honey…it’s all right. We’ll get through. He didn’t hurt you somehow, did he? I mean, did he…?”

  Cora wasn’t even sure herself exactly what she was asking, and it was too many questions anyway. Don’t ask questions, Cora chided herself as Lexie predictably straightened, wiping her eyes as she looked out the passenger window.

  “He’s just…mean. Could we stop and get something to eat?”

  “Of course, just tell me where. Have you been getting enough to eat?”

  Lexie shrugged. Her hair, again pulled straight into that severe bun, looked dirty to Cora, a carelessness Cora hadn’t seen except briefly when Christine died. She was dressed all in black, too, just as she’d been when Cora brought her to Alex’s. They might even be the same clothes, Cora thought, yet knowing Lexie, it seemed quite impossible. “There’s a McDonald’s back over toward the trailer court, but I’d rather wait until we’re out of this…place.” She spoke with disgust, as if she wanted to say sewer instead of place. “Grandma, I had to use the money you gave me.”

  Cora looked at her, then back at the road. “That’s okay, honey. That’s what I gave it to you for. Did you get yourself something?”

  “I used it for lunches at school, and they made me buy two workbooks and I needed a loose-leaf binder for one of the classes. It’s so stupid to make me buy stuff when there’s only five weeks left.”

  Cora was quiet a minute, negotiating through the turns that would take her to the state route. Once she was on it, she said, “Honey, don’t you worry about the money, that’s not it. I just want to know, wouldn’t Alex buy you what you needed? And give you lunch money?” Cora was infuriated.

  “He didn’t.”

  “Did he refuse? What did he say?”

  “Nothing.”

  It was Cora’s nature to press, but she hesitated then, the way a dog will point and wait unmoving. Talking with Lexie was tricky as seeding clouds: sometimes Cora hit just the right time, just the right spot and she’d get torrents. Other times she could fly back and forth with her load of help and hope—doing nothing different than before—and failure would be so complete, it would seem Cora had personally created and extended the drought down on the ground below.

  Cora opted for a couple of minutes of silence and then waited to get through a stop sign and back up to speed so that Lexie wouldn’t think she’d have to make eye contact. “So, what did you have for lunch today?”

  “Not much. The food is really bad. It was tacos today, and…Jell-O.”

  Cora couldn’t bring herself to ask if it was green Jell-O. She was going to ask Lexie what had happened the other night, when Alex had called, but while she was waiting for enough time to elapse before floating another question, Rebecca came back into Cora’s mind and stayed there, just in front of Lexie and Alex.

  AFTER CORA BOUGHT Lexie the hamburger and milk she wanted while worrying it would spoil Lexie’s dinner, they drove in silence on the road to Early Sun. When they went through Darrville, Lexie asked Cora to stop at the Washington Supply Company, and then asked for money.

  “What do you need, honey? I’ve got to grocery shop tomorrow. You can just add it to the list. Maybe you’d help me.” It was hard for Cora to walk around the grocery store, even using the cart like a walker for support.

  “Um, just a little thing, please. I’ll earn it doing work at home tomorrow.” She sounded embarrassed.

  Cora rifled through her purse, which had become disorganized with receipts, notes, and various random items she’d stuck in, thinking them necessary at the moment. The Supply Company stocked most everything that wasn’t in the Rexall or the Thriftway—and some that were. It sprawled right up to the curb of the narrow parking lot, where some lawn-care equipment they were pushing (along with hanging flower baskets) had been arranged on either side of the entrance. Anyone could have walked off with the display items, but no one ever did.

  “Will five dollars be enough?” Cora knew perfectly well she wasn’t going to get five dollars’ worth of help out of Lexie, but Marvin wasn’t there to ride herd on her indulgences. She could just hear the fit he’d throw if he knew Alex would get the social security money for Lexie, while Cora was the one passing out money like potato chips.

  “I think so.”

  “Here’s seven.”

  Lexie had come out of the Supply Company five minutes later with two bags that looked heavy. When she put them on the floor of the backseat, Cora glanced over her shoulder furtively, while Lexie was closing that door and moving to open the front one. It looked as if all she’d bought was three kinds of bird seed and those suet and seed cakes that are really supposed to be for winter.

  twenty-six

  I DON’T THINK TIM wants us to be together forever anymore. I called him as soon as I got to Grandma’s, but he said he couldn’t come over because he was already doing something. He didn’t say what. He did come over yesterday, but not until night. He could have spent all day with me. He said it was because his mother made him do spring yard work and he didn’t know I was coming home. I said—neither did I, stupid, and he shrugged his shoulders. I let him feel under my bra when Grandma fell asleep in front of the television. Maybe I should let him do more. Now I have to go back to Alexander the Goddamn Great and it’s too late. I feel like maybe Tim’s sitting by someone else at lunch every day and just thinking about her.

  It’s like nobody has a clue, like I’m over there in some other world that no one else has ever seen but they think it doesn’t s
ound so bad. Grandma started talking about Rebecca right in the middle of me telling her about school. I was going to tell her I didn’t speak to Alex the whole time, but she got off on Rebecca and I don’t think she really cared. And she’s the one who asked me.

  After Tim left, I went in Mom’s room. I lit the candle and put the cologne on me. I had to take her sweater off—I was getting sweaty and I didn’t want to make it smell gross. I looked at her picture and talked to her. I think the picture is fading. I remember it clearer than it looks now. I started to cry, and then it was like in my mind something said, It’s only a little harder to see me now, but that doesn’t make any sense. It makes me mad, like she could come back but she won’t, and it’s my fault because I ought to be able to see her. I don’t know if I believe in angels or anything like that. I thought I could figure that stuff one way or another when I was old. Grandma says she believes, but I don’t believe her. She sounds like she doesn’t know any more than I do. She said birds don’t need suet in the summer. Then last night she just happens to mention that last year Mom had already put up the hummingbird feeders by now. I’m probably doing everything all wrong, and that’s why I can’t see Mom.

  Jill came over today. Aunt Rebecca has to have radiation, but that doesn’t hurt, she even said that, so I don’t get what is such a big deal. Grandma says I ought to be able to understand what Jill is going through, but that’s stupid because her mother is alive. She even drove Jill over, so okay, I mean, how is Jill like me at all? I suppose they think my mother is driving a Cadillac around heaven. Even if she is, I’m not riding in it. Jill says Rebecca may lose all her hair, and if she does then she’s going to shave her head to help her Mom feel better about being bald. I swear she’s saying this stuff to make me feel bad. Like I wouldn’t have shaved my head for my Mom, except they forget I didn’t get a chance. Like I should have known when I was sitting in Civics that my Mom was dying instead of talking to Rosa and Gareth and writing a note to Tim. Jill is being all nice to Rebecca now. Sure. But she used to say she hated her when I said I hated my mom.