But what choice did I have? Sure, she was playing dirty. Sure, she was acting like a terrorist. But her heart was in the right place—and she wasn’t wrong. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I didn’t want to give up everything I’d hoped for. I didn’t want to lose Chip.
Wait—was that right? The old me didn’t want to lose the old Chip. But now, thinking about it, I wasn’t totally clear on how the current me felt about the current Chip. Of course, in the face of my mom’s hyperbole, how I specifically felt about Chip was not exactly relevant. According to her, if I didn’t pull it together I would lose all guys, period.
This was one of her signature moves. If a little teaspoonful of ice-cold terror could burn off the fog and inspire me to try, was that so bad?
My mother sensed me cratering from across the room. For a lady so tone-deaf to others’ emotions, she could be remarkably astute. She put her half-eaten lunch back in its sack and came to stand by the bed and take my hand. “Sweetheart, I know you’ve had a shock.”
I waited.
“We all have.”
I waited again.
“Even Chip.”
There it was.
“I’m worried about him. He seems to be—” She glanced up to find the word. “Faltering.”
“Faltering how?” I asked.
“I think he’s lost his way. His mother says he’s been out drinking, coming in at all hours, not showering.”
Chip always showered. He took three showers a day.
My mom squeezed my hand. “What the two of you had was special.”
“I agree.”
“Don’t you want it back?”
“Have I lost it?”
“No,” she said, so emphatically she almost sang it. “Of course not. But—has he been to visit you?”
“Some,” I said. Not really.
“I’m just saying, it’s time to get better and put things right.”
Why was this all on my shoulders? Why wasn’t it Chip’s job to get better and start visiting me? “By ‘get better,’” I asked, “do you mean ‘walk again’?”
She pretended the idea had never occurred to her. “Well, wouldn’t that be ideal? Isn’t that worth a try?”
Worth a try? I felt like my eyeballs were going to start spinning. What did she think I was doing over here? Playing Xbox and drinking beer? I was trying. Every morning that I woke up and remembered the wreckage of my life, I was trying. Every breath I took, I was trying. Every second of being conscious all day long, I was trying.
I took a slow breath and held it. Then I said, “I’m just glad I can shit on the toilet.”
My mother’s eyes widened, but before she could respond, someone knocked on the door.
“Come in!” my mother and I both said at the same time, not dropping each other’s gaze.
The door pushed open, and it was Kitty. Looking mad.
*
MY MOTHER HADN’T seen Kitty in three years. Hadn’t seen the spiky-blond new hair, or the tattoos, or the piercings. I’m not even sure she recognized her at first.
But when she did, she went very still.
Kitty held her gaze and walked straight in, stopping on the other side of my bed. She was a little out of breath. From below, I watched them eyeing each other.
When my mom finally spoke, her voice was low. “I thought you only came here in the evenings.”
“I wanted to see you,” Kit said.
My mother lifted an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine that’s true.”
“I have something to say.”
“I think we’ve said it all.”
“I haven’t.”
With that, Kitty raised my curiosity—but not my mother’s.
“As you can see,” my mother said, “I’m pretty busy right now.”
“I want you to tell Margaret why I went away.”
My mom looked at Kit dead-on. “No.”
“She deserves to know.”
“I disagree.”
“She is angry at me for leaving. At me!”
“I can’t tell her how to feel.”
“But you can tell her why I had to go.”
This was how they always were together—Kit pushing until my mother snapped. This time, it didn’t take long. My mother leaned closer, her voice like a hiss. “Hasn’t she been through enough?”
The tone right there would have shut me right up. But Kit was always the braver one. “I don’t think it’s her you’re worried about. I think it’s you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” my mother said, looking away. In that moment, I knew that whatever it was they were talking about, Kit was right.
“Tell her,” Kit pressed. “Tell her right now. This has gone on too long.”
“I won’t.”
“Tell her—or I will.”
My mother’s eyes looked wild. She had not expected this moment to rise up so fast—out of nowhere, really, like a flash flood: Kit showing up and making these sudden demands. One minute, my mother was trying to manipulate me—solid, comfortable ground for her—and the next, Kitty was manipulating her. I could see my mom’s mind spinning, trying to come up with a way to stop her.
Kit turned to me. “On the night I left, it was because Mom and I fought.”
“Stop it,” my mother said, her whole body tense.
“I remember,” I said to Kit. “You pushed her into the pool.”
“I pushed her into the pool because she wouldn’t answer a question.”
“Stop!” my mother said again, eyes on Kit. “What do I have to threaten you with? Never speaking to you again?”
“You already don’t speak to me. I’m not sure you ever did.”
But my mom was still searching. “Cutting you out of my will! Not giving you Grandma’s ruby ring!”
“I don’t need to be in your will,” Kit said. “I don’t need a ring. I need my only sister”—and here her voice rose to a shout—“to understand what the hell is going on here!”
My mother blinked.
Kit turned back to me. “Remember when I was working for that genealogist?”
I shook my head. “Vaguely.”
“She had that business helping people find their ancestors and trace their family histories?”
I squinted. “Okay. Sort of.” I did not see where this was going.
“She talked me into having my DNA analyzed. She had a bulk discount with a mail-in company. She was sending in several samples, and she had an extra kit, and so I just did it. On a whim.”
I frowned. “I have no memory of that.”
“I didn’t tell you,” Kit said. “I didn’t tell anybody. Why would I? The results weren’t going to be interesting.”
True. We could recite our various heritages in that way that lots of Americans can. Our mom had a little bit of lots of places. Irish, English, German, Canadian, French, and even, rumor had it, some Huron. Our dad’s family, in contrast, was all Norwegian. His Norwegian ancestors had immigrated to an all-Norwegian town in Minnesota where Norwegians just married other Norwegians for generations—until one day, my dad’s dad moved their family to Texas and broke the trend.
“Huh,” I said. “So you, like, sent in your blood?”
“Saliva, actually.”
Then there was a pause.
Kit looked at my mother.
My mother looked at Kit.
“Did you learn anything?” I finally asked.
“Yes,” Kit said.
My mother shook her head at Kit. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do! Because you won’t!”
My mother looked around the room, her eyes stretched and frantic in a way I’d never seen before—searching, it seemed, for some way to stop what was happening. But short of tackling Kit, there wasn’t much my mom could do. “Whatever comes of this,” my mom said to her then, “it’s all on you.”
“Oh,” Kit said, narrowing her eyes, “I think it’s at least a little bit on you.”
Everything about my mother’s expression and posture was pleading. She shook her head, like, Don’t.
Kit tilted her head, like, You leave me no choice.
At that, my mom sucked in her breath and, without another word, walked out of the room, clacking her heels, and leaving her purse and her sandwich behind.
When she was gone, I looked at Kit. “Maybe you shouldn’t tell me,” I said. “Maybe we can agree that you had your reasons, and I’ll just promise not to be mad anymore.”
“You need to know.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure I do.”
But she nodded. “It’s time.”
I sighed.
“When the results came back, they were surprising.”
I could not even fathom how something as random as this could have driven such a rift between my mom and Kit. “Surprising how?”
“You know how proud Dad is of his Norwegian-ness?”