by Mia Malone
Brody Baker did not wear a suit.
He wore half a suit because he did in no way own a damned sports jacket, and if it had been up to him, he'd left the top part of his black suit at home.
It hadn’t been up to him, however. His mother and cousin had cornered him at the Café, asked about Marie, asked about his flights, asked about his duffel bag. And told him he needed to bring the goddamned jacket.
“No.”
They smiled indulgently at this and told him that, yes, he should.
“It’s the least you can do when Marie sat with two of your former colleagues and laughed at boring dad-jokes,” Shelly said when he wanted to repeat his view on bringing that particular garment.
“Dad-jokes?” he asked, momentarily sidetracked by this unexpected comment. “How the hell do you know about that? It was yesterday.”
Shelly smiled another annoyingly indulgent smile and shared that she’d talked to Marie that morning.
“About dad-jokes?”
“Brody,” she sighed. “She needs someone strong and dependable to hold her when she’s frightened. Since you are who you are, I know you will do that, which means my job is to listen when she wants to vent, make her laugh a little and forget the shit swirling around them right now.”
Their eyes met, and he suddenly realized that during knitting lessons and slow-jogging, and whatever else they’d been up to, the women had grown close in a way Shelly usually didn’t have time for.
“She didn’t like their jokes?” he asked with a grin.
“She said the one with the gauche-looking moustachio was quite interesting, but the chubby one... not so much.”
Brody barked out laughter at her apt description of the men.
“Son,” Dottie said sternly. “They'll figure out who you are, and Marie's sister sounds like the kind of woman who will want to show you off. Which means you'll meet her friends, and those friends will include sleazy-Mark and boring-Ted. You're gonna want to look good.”
He stared at her and tried to figure out what to say about the fact that Marie apparently had shared unexpected details about her past with his mother.
“Don’t have time to go back and get it,” he stalled when nothing better came to him.
“I thought so,” Dottie retorted smartly. “So, I went and got it for you.”
Then she pulled the damned garment out of her tote-bag and handed it to him.
As he stood in her circle of friends, Brody had to admit that it had been the right thing to bring. He wore the jacket with a pair of jeans and a tight black tee, though, partially out of principle although mostly because there were limits to what he would do.
“Marie!” another woman squealed. “You look really good, honey.”
“Thank you. You’ve cut your hair,” Marie said sweetly. “I like!”
“Yours is longer, and I love your dress. It is so hippie.”
Marie wore one of Dottie's dresses, and it looked better on her than it ever had on his mom. It was a designer label with long, wide sleeves, and it was short enough to just skim her knees. Dottie had bought it second-hand years ago and dyed it with a mix of warm colors that looked good with Marie's soft brown curls.
“Thank you,” Marie said. “Patricia, this is Brody Baker. Brody, Patricia Henderson, an old friend of my sister’s.”
“Not old,” Brody said with a grin. “But a longtime friend perhaps?”
The woman giggled, and it grated on his nerves, but he smiled anyway.
And so it went on. Comments about how great everyone looked – did these people not talk about anything but their looks, which in some cases weren’t that great? – and introductions. Some had read about him in magazines, and a few had eaten at restaurants he’d worked in.
No one asked about Maine, her art or her new home.
And then a man in a gray suit came up to them. Everything about him was just a little too much, Brody thought. Too white teeth, too much gel in his thinning hair, too much of a tan for that time of the year, too white shirt. When he noticed that the man’s goddamned suit was a little too shiny, he realized who it was.
“Mark,” Marie murmured politely. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Yes, it was indeed sleazy-Mark. And her label of him had been apt.
They exchanged a few polite sentences, but then the man walked away to greet someone else, so Brody leaned down and whispered, “What the hell were you thinking, babe?”
She covered up her startled giggle quickly by taking another sip of the Mimosas all women seemed to favor.
“I’ll go and get you something you like instead of that,” Brody said.
“Okay,” she murmured. “That saves you from talking to Edward.”
Edward? Oh. Ted. As in; Boring-Ted.
The man even looked dull, so Brody smiled at her and walked off with her glass.
He was waiting for the young bartender to make the virgin Hippie juice Brody had had to explain four times when Marie's brother-in-law came up next to him.
“Hey,” Mike said. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Sure,” Brody said casually.
“Good restaurant you picked last night,” Mike said. “To have the chef come out to our table was incredible. He’s never done that before, you know.”
“We worked together a few years ago.”
“I know,” Mike said. “In Singapore?”
“Hong Kong.”
“Look, we didn't know what to believe when we heard that you worked in the local café,” Mike said abruptly. “Marie had never been a very good judge of people, and we –”
He closed his mouth when he caught the look in Brody’s eyes, and moved on to talk about other restaurants in Minneapolis, which according to him were some of the finest in the country. Brody listened as the man droned on and moved his gaze over the crowd.
Linda was sitting on a couch with a group of women around her. Everyone seemed to know about her diagnosis, and they rallied around her, offering to get her drinks and whatever she needed. It was good, Brody thought, knowing painfully well that she'd need that support later when things got a lot rougher for her.
“Look, Mike,” he said quietly, cutting into Mike's description of a steak he'd eaten. “My dad died of cancer ten years ago. Things will get tough for you and the family for a while.”
“We'll get through the surgery, and then we'll see,” Mike said, and Brody felt his brows rise.
That was the fourth time he’d heard the man say those exact words.
“Chemotherapy isn’t easy,” Brody murmured, watching the other man closely. Something was off, and he frowned as he went on, “What kind of cancer does she have, exactly?”
“Skin cancer,” Mike murmured when the silence stretched out.
“Melanoma? I thought she'd said it was something female?”
“Linda is very concerned about her appearance,” Mike murmured and moved as if he would walk away.
“Mike,” Brody said. “What’s her test results? Has it spread?”
“Not that they could see.”
“On the x-rays?”
Silence.
Well, fuck it. Brody was suddenly sure he knew what they'd done and he knew what it would do to Marie.
“Mike,” he murmured. “It’ll come out, so spill. Does she even have cancer?”
“Yes,” Mike protested. “Linda wouldn’t lie to her sister.”
No, not lie, precisely. But omit enough of the truth to make her sister rush to her side.
“But it’s benign, right? She has a basal cell cancer.”
Mike sighed, and after a hard glare from Brody, he nodded.
“Yes, goddamnit. The doctors did a biopsy a month ago, and it's benign. She's removing a spot behind her left ear.”
Brody closed his eyes briefly, and then he aimed another glare at Mike.
“Are Amelia and Joey aware of the kind of cancer their aunt has?”
“Amelia knows it's basalioma, but I'm not sure if the girl knows what that is exactly. Joey just got here this morning, and we haven't talked.”
Oh, crap. Joey might not know then, but Amelia had Google on her phone like everyone else. She would know for sure, which meant she'd willingly been a part of the plot to get Marie to come back to Minneapolis.
“I’m going to tell Marie, you get that, right?” Brody asked.
“Not here. Please wait until we’re back at the house.”
“No,” Brody said and grabbed the drink he’d ordered for Marie. “It has to be here. She’s not the only one you are deceiving, and people should know the truth.”
Marie
Brody was standing with Mike over at the bar when I finally got rid of Ted who had shared what seemed like his every step since I left Minneapolis. They seemed to be deep in a discussion about something, so I went to sit next to Linda on the couch in the center of the room.
“Hey, Tits!” Linda squealed.
“You know I don't like that nickname,” I admonished her gently.
“I think it’s cute,” one of the women surrounding my sister said. “And Tiziana is such an unusual name.”
“You know I go by Marie,” I said. “I don’t like Tiziana, and I really don’t like that particular abbreviation. They used to call me Titty-Tits when I was a kid, and I cried myself to sleep more than one night over it.”
“Pooh,” Linda said breezily. “It wasn’t such a big deal, was it? And Mom gave you that name so you should use it.”
“I really don’t like it, Linda,” I said, heavy on the emphasis of her name.
“Now that I’m ill, I really need that connection to Mom. I miss her so much.”
I missed our parents too, but Mom had started calling me Marie as soon as she understood how much I hated my other name. And since Linda hadn’t ever been keen on sharing her own full name freely, I blinked and was about to protest.
“Babe,” Brody murmured, suddenly standing next to me. “Can I have a word with you?”
“Okay,” I said and got up.
He looked tense, and I wondered if he'd fought with Mike who could have very firm opinions about all kinds of things.
“Brody,” Linda crooned. “You’ve had Marie all to yourself for months, don’t take her away from me.”
“Linda,” Brody countered. “You really want to let me talk to Marie.”
Then he put a hand in the small of my back and propelled us toward the doors.
“What's the problem?” I asked when we were outside.
He looked at me and then he put a hand on my cheek.
“Baby, I'm so sorry, but you need to know this.” He sighed and murmured, “Your sister has benign skin cancer. The surgery she's going through is the removal of a spot behind her left ear. I don't think Joey knows the details.”
I blinked and tried to make sense of what he was saying.
“My sister has faked cancer?” I asked hoarsely. “She has fake-cancer?”
Oh, God. People died from that godawful disease, and my sister had used it to scare me into dropping everything and jump on a plane.
“It’s cancer, but it's completely benign,” he confirmed. “They’ve done a biopsy.”
Then the full force of his words registered.
He’d said that Joey probably didn’t know, which meant –
“And Amelia knows this?” I asked.
I knew the answer and didn't want to hear it, but I needed for him to spell it out for me.
“Probably. She knows it's basal cell cancer, and you should give her the benefit of the doubt, honey. But honestly? I think it’s safe to assume she’d google it.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed. Brody put his arms around me, and I knew he wanted to comfort me, but I was not receptive to this at all.
“That fucking bitch,” I snapped and watched his eyes widen at my unusual drop of the f-bomb.
“Babe –”
I swung around and stomped inside.
“Linda,” I said icily, and the conversation around my sister died a quick death. “I already know, but I want to hear it from you; What kind of cancer do you have?”
One of the women took hold of my arm and murmured something, but I was even less receptive to her attempts at comforting me than I had been when Brody tried.
“Marie, I don’t want to talk about it,” Linda said, and I had to admire her acting skills.
She looked vulnerable and suddenly a little bit fragile. Since my sister had been strong as a mule and just as stubborn as one all her life, I dug in.
“Tell me,” I ordered.
I still hadn’t looked at my daughter, and I wouldn’t. It hurt too much, and I couldn't process it there, surrounded by people I’d known for years but hadn’t ever been close with.
“Skin cancer,” Linda murmured softly and pushed her hair back.
“What kind of skin cancer?” I pushed.
She raised her chin, and we glared at each other. I realized that we'd never squared off like this before. I wasn't a pushover, but I didn't like fighting, and my sister could be very unpleasant when she was crossed.
“Marie,” she said warningly, and I smiled grimly when I saw how her frailty faded away.
“I’ll make it easy for you,” I stated. “A simple yes or no question; Do you have benign skin cancer?”
The silence around us was suddenly thicker than jello.
“It could be something else,” Linda said.
“They did a biopsy, so no it couldn't be something else,” I retorted. “You made me rush back to Minneapolis to help you deal with the ordeal of removing a small, benign spot behind your left goddamned ear.”
She didn’t answer that, and since I hadn’t put it as a question anyway, she didn’t need to. The looks on the faces surrounding us ranged from stunned surprise to hard fury, but all I focused on was my sister.
“Brody and I are leaving,” I stated. “We'll go to your house and pack up our things and then we're going home.”
“Your home is here,” Linda snapped angrily.
“Not anymore,” I told her curtly.
***
I didn’t expect them to rush after us, but they did, and we met them on the front porch as we were leaving.
“Mom,” Amelia said, and I could hear that she was close to tears. “Don’t leave like this.”
“I think it’s better if we put some distance between me and everyone here. I can’t believe you all lied about this.”
“I didn’t lie,” she said, but added when I aimed a glare at her, “Not exactly, and I just –”
I just kept glaring at my daughter, and she closed her mouth. Then I glanced at my sister who looked like she was gearing up for a fight. The way my pulse beat in my ears made me think that Brody and I should leave as soon as possible, or else someone who might be me would say something unforgivable. It would be better if we all calmed down before dealing with what they’d done. Or, what my sister and daughter had done because Mike would have acted the way Linda told him to, and my son...
“Joey,” I said quietly. “Did you know?”
He shook his head and opened his mouth, but I shook my own head, and he wisely decided to not elaborate. Then all anger drained right out of me, and I felt mostly tired. Maybe I should walk back inside after all? Perhaps we should try to find a way out of this mess immediately?
“Why do you have to make such a big deal out of this?” Linda asked into the silence. “You always make a big deal out of everything, Tits.”
I didn’t, actually. But she always did.
“I give up,” I said quietly.
“On what?”
“On all of you. I just don't get it. I don't know why you can't be happy for me. Why can't you support me, when I have been nothing but happy and supportive of anything you ever did?”
“It isn’t easy for us, you know? You always come up with thes
e crazy things, Marie,” my sister said.
I stared at her in confusion and wondered what the hell she was talking about. I'd been married to the same man for more than twenty years and had lived my life in the suburbs like everyone else. I’d worked in a goddamned office my entire adult life.
“What?” I breathed out, and Linda stepped forward.
“I get that it was upsetting for you when Pete found someone new, but –”
“Don’t go there,” Brody interrupted in a low, growly voice.
“You should stay out of this,” Amelia shrieked. “My dad is none of your concern, and you are anyway just someone Mom is doing to retaliate.”
I blinked so furiously I thought my eyelashes would blow clean off the lids.
“Why in the hell would she want to get back at him?” Brody asked, but added bluntly, “And I know it sucks for you, but your father is dead, Amelia. Doing whoever Marie feels like doing won’t bother him much.”
“He died in the arms of his new woman,” Amelia said dramatically.
Brody put a firm hand on my shoulder and turned me toward him.
“Babe. I get why you didn’t want to share the details with your kids, but with the bullshit your girl’s spouting, I think you need to tell them.”
I nodded because he was right. I hadn’t wanted to do this, but in my effort to spare my family’s feelings, they’d conjured up an image of Pete that simply wasn’t true.
“Your father had not found love again, honey,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry, but he died in the arms of a woman who charged for her services,” I added and braced for their reactions.
Joey pushed out a hoarse puff of air, and Amelia’s mouth fell open, but she shook her head. I nodded slowly and wondered if I should have tried to find other words, better words, to share this piece of news.
“You’re lying,” Linda snapped.
“She called me. I had to pay her for what they did.” I snapped right back, leaned forward and added acidly, “She takes PayPal.”
