Ma never left me alone in the house with a client, which was good, but I knew she was itching to go to the store. Milk was Ma’s code word for vodka.
Ma’s drinking had stopped burning a hole in my stomach a couple of years ago when I realized I was powerless to stop her. Deep down it still really bothered me, but I tried not to let it show.
When I walked into the back room, the first thing I noticed about the client was that she was really pretty, regal even, dressed in chocolate suede slacks and a cream silk blouse. A thick, luxurious fur coat was draped over the back of her chair. I knew right away that she was from Parkwick. They’ve got big bucks in Parkwick.
I moved to the chair opposite her and sat down. “Hello, Maddie,” she said with a warm smile.
“Hi,” I replied, pulling at my sweater. I felt a little self-conscious in her elegant presence.
“How are you this evening?”
I blinked. No one ever bothered to ask how I am. “Uh…fine.”
The lady smiled again. “I’m Patricia Tibbolt,” she told me, offering me her hand. I shook it, surprised by her easy, relaxed manner. “I’m so sorry to call on you during your dinner hour,” Mrs. Tibbolt continued, “but it was the only time I could get away from the hospital, and I barely managed to work up the courage to come see you tonight.”
I focused on her for a second. 7-21-2068. That made me relax. If she asked about herself, she’d probably like the answer. “It’s okay,” I told her, referring to the dinner hour. “We’re only having pizza again.”
Mrs. Tibbolt sat back and beamed her pretty smile at me. “I used to love pizza when I was your age. You must be fifteen or sixteen, right?”
“Sixteen,” I told her.
She continued to study me curiously. I noticed she had a whopper of a diamond on her left ring finger. I wondered if it was heavy. “You’re still so young to have such a gift and be able to share it with people.”
I smirked. “Yeah, I’m a regular Santa Claus.”
Mrs. Tibbolt’s eyebrows shot up, and I opened my mouth to apologize—it’d come out a little snarky—but she laughed and winked at me. It was like we’d just shared a secret. “Well, I don’t want to keep you too long,” she said next. “Your mother tells me that you need a picture to look at?”
I nodded and she took out her wallet. It was tan leather and looked soft as butter. Mrs. Tibbolt opened it and flipped to a row of pictures. She had three kids. After a slight hesitation, she tapped the top picture and said, “This is my CeeCee. Please tell me how long she has.”
I squinted at the photo. The little girl in the picture was maybe five or six, and she was bald. Her face was all puffy, but she wore a band with a little pink bow on her head and she had the hugest smile. The numbers floated up from right below her headband. “June seventeenth, twenty eighty-nine,” I said.
For a moment, Mrs. Tibbolt didn’t move or speak, but her eyes filled with tears. I was used to people getting emotional. I usually ignored it, but I liked this lady and I could feel a small lump forming in my own throat. I moved a box of Kleenex toward her that Ma had set on the table. She took a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “My baby will really live that long?” she asked me in a choked whisper.
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Her deathday isn’t until June seventeenth, twenty eighty-nine.”
Mrs. Tibbolt swallowed hard and wiped demurely at her cheeks. “Thank you, Maddie,” she said. “You’ve helped me more than you could possibly know. CeeCee has leukemia, and she’s not doing so well right now. Her doctor wants her to participate in this experimental drug trial, but the side effects are awful, and I don’t want my little girl to go through that if there’s no hope.” Mrs. Tibbolt paused to stare down at the photo, smoothing her finger over the image of her daughter. It was a moment before she could speak again. “As a parent, you never want your children to suffer even though you can’t bear the thought of life without them. If there wasn’t a chance my baby would survive longer than the next six months, I was going to say no to the drug trial. You’ve given me hope, and I can’t thank you enough.”
I smiled at her but suddenly felt shy, and I dropped my eyes to the table. My gaze landed on the billfold just as Mrs. Tibbolt was closing it up, and that’s when I saw something that made my breath catch. I reached out to put a hand on her arm. “Wait,” I said, squinting at the pictures. There were two other kids there. One was a boy a bit older than me, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with black hair, bright green eyes, and really good looking. The other was a kid a little younger than me—maybe thirteen or fourteen with lighter hair but the same eyes and the same beautiful face. The older kid’s numbers were similar to his sister’s, 11-19-2075, but the middle son was a completely different story.
“Is he sick, too?” I asked, pointing to his picture.
Mrs. Tibbolt looked quizzically at me and swiveled the billfold around. “Tevon?” she asked. “No, honey. He’s perfectly well.”
My heart started to pound. I’d never seen numbers that soon on someone so young and healthy before. For a minute I didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t asked about her youngest son, but how could I not tell her, when the kid’s deathdate was so close? I decided to tell her—maybe this time it would change things. Pointing to the picture again, I said, “Mrs. Tibbolt, his deathday isn’t like your other kids’. It’s much sooner.”
Mrs. Tibbolt’s eyes widened, but she kept her tone level. “Oh? How much sooner?”
“It’s next week.”
She gasped. Then she shook her head. “No,” she said to me. “No. That’s not possible. Tevon is fine. He’s perfectly healthy.”
I stared at the picture to make sure. Biting my lip, I looked up at her again. “I’m not wrong.”
She paled and leaned in. “How?”