She smiled softly. “So that you could help Owen through this. Take care of him after I’m gone. Be a mother to him.”
I shot up from my chair, my purse falling with a thud to the floor. “I’m not a mother. Mothers make the right decisions; they know what’s best for their children. They’re strong.” I stared at her, the next words unspoken but understood. Like my mother. Like you.
Her eyes sparkled, as if all the light that had seeped from her body had settled there. “You’re strong at the broken places.”
I looked at her, surprised she knew Hemingway. Then again, there was very little about Loralee Purvis Connors that didn’t surprise me. I returned to my seat, somehow depleted. “You’re wrong. I don’t have a clue how to be strong.” I paused, trying to control my breathing and to find the right words. “But I can promise you that I will take care of Owen the best way I know how. I don’t want you to worry for one second about that.”
She opened her hand on the mattress, and I put my own hand into hers, her fingers sending me a feeble squeeze. “Thank you.” She closed her eyes and I waited for her to fall asleep, but after a moment she began speaking. “You are capable of so much love, and you are worthy of it, too. I think I know who is responsible for making you forget that, and I’d like to open up a can of whoop-ass on him.”
A laugh that sounded like something between a bark and a sob escaped from my mouth. “Please don’t make me laugh. Not now. Not . . . here.”
A smile teased her lips. “My mama used to always say that laughter is the best medicine. I’d like to add chocolate to that, though. Not that I think I could stomach any right now.”
“How can you joke at a time like this?”
“Because I’m not sad about dying. I’ve had the most wonderful life. You know how some people come back from a vacation and they’re sad because it’s over? I just smile because it happened.”
“Did Hemingway say that, too?”
She shook her head. “Dr. Seuss, I think. You need to brush up on your Dr. Seuss. Owen will grill you on it.”
This time I didn’t even try to hide my sob. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t know much about this dying thing, either, but I’ve learned that if you just keep moving forward, even if you’re stumbling or being dragged, you’ll eventually get to the other side.”
I squeezed her hand and watched as her eyelids fluttered shut. “You can do this,” she whispered.
“I’m not that strong,” I argued. “Broken places or not. But I will do my best for Owen.” After a moment, I added, “For both of you.”
Loralee had already fallen asleep, and my words slid unheard to the linoleum floor, then rolled into the empty corners of the room.
*
I stopped walking, struggling for breath, and quickly searched my brain for an innocuous fire fact. Smoking is the primary cause of death by fire in the U.S. The second-most-common cause of fire deaths is heating equipment.
I sucked in a deep gulp of air saturated with the scent of the marsh. I looked around and realized I’d somehow managed to walk from the marina down to Waterfront Park. I’d been dropped off at the house to pick up my car before getting Owen, but had been stopped on the porch by the sound of the wind chimes. I remembered the first time Loralee had seen them and had called them mermaid’s tears. I ran back down the steps and just started walking. I was surprised that I’d walked this far by myself so near the water, surprised that I found comfort in the sound and smell of it.
I remembered sitting at the kitchen table while Loralee worked with Owen on his math, and her telling him that our bodies were made of more than fifty percent water. Maybe that was what brought us back to the water, even if it was the one thing we feared the most. Or maybe it was the simple fact that we’d floated for nine months before birth that made us seek that memory of water and the one time in our lives when we were truly content.
I looked down at my hands, where I expected to find my purse and instead found only crumpled brochures and information sheets about hospice care and ovarian cancer that had been given to me by the social worker.
A motorboat skipped across the water, a man at the wheel and a woman with a long, flowing yellow scarf shooting out behind her. I wanted to shout at them, to make them stop. I wanted everything to stop. Loralee was dying, yet the world insisted on turning.
I stumbled away from the water toward a large grassy spot in front of an open-air stage. A band was setting up, and there were about ten people milling about, running cords and moving equipment, each with his or her own job. They had an air of competence about them, the confidence of knowing what had to be done, and I felt an odd envy as I watched them.
In other spots near the stage, food vendors were setting up for a busy night. The Water Festival was in full swing, but it seemed like a world removed.