"Penny for em, little Lisey," she said now.
Lisey had been reaching for the caddy containing the packets of Sweet'n Low. At the sound of Darla's voice she changed direction, reached for the old-fashioned sugar-shaker instead, and poured a hefty stream into her cup. "I was thinking this has been Coffee Thursday," she said. "Mostly Coffee With Real Sugar Thursday. This must be my tenth shot."
"You and me both," Darla said. "I've been to the john half a dozen times, and I plan to go again before we leave this charming establishment. Thank God for Pepcid AC."
Lisey stirred her coffee, grimaced, then sipped again. "Sure you want to pack up a suitcase for her?"
"Well, someone has to do it, and you look like death on a cracker."
"Thanks a pantload."
"If your sister won't tell you the truth, no one will."
Lisey had heard this from her many times, along with Duty doesn't ask permission and, Number One on the All-Time Darla Hit Parade, Life isn't fair. Today it didn't sting. It even raised the ghost of a smile. "If you want to do it, Darl, I won't arm-rassle you for the privilege."
"Didn't say I wanted to, just said I would. You stayed with her last night and got up with her this morning. I'd say you did your share. Excuse me, I've got to spend a penny."
Lisey watched her go, thinking There's another one. In the Debusher family, where there was a saying for everything, urinating was spending a penny and moving one's bowels was - odd but true - burying a Quaker. Scott had loved that, said it was probably an old Scots derivation. Lisey supposed it was possible; most of the Debushers came from Ireland and all the Andersons from England, or so Good Ma said, but there were a few stray dogs in every family, weren't there? And that hardly interested her. What interested her was that spending a penny and burying a Quaker were catches from the pool, Scott's pool, and ever since yesterday he seemed so smucking close to her...
That was a dream this morning, Lisey...you know that, don't you?
She wasn't sure what she knew or didn't know about what had happened in Amanda's bedroom this morning - it all seemed like a dream, even trying to get Amanda to stand up and go into the bathroom - but one thing she could be sure of: Amanda was now booked into Greenlawn Recovery and Rehabilitation for at least a week, it had all been easier than she and Darla could have hoped, and they had Scott to thank. Right now and ( rah-cheer)
right here, that seemed like enough.
3
Darla had gotten to Manda's cozy little Cape Cod before seven AM, her usually stylish hair barely combed, one button of her blouse unbuttoned so that the pink of her bra peeked cheekily through. By then Lisey had confirmed that Amanda wouldn't eat, either. She allowed Lisey to insert a spoonful of scrambled eggs into her mouth after being tugged into a sitting position and propped against the head of the bed, and that gave Lisey some hope - Amanda was swallowing, after all, so maybe she'd swallow the eggs - but it was hope in vain. After simply sitting there for perhaps thirty seconds with the eggs peeping out from between her lips (to Lisey that peep of yellow had a rather gruesome look, as if her sister had tried to eat a canary), Amanda simply ejected the eggs with her tongue. A few bits stuck to her chin. The rest tumbled down the front of her nightgown. Amanda's eyes continued to stare serenely off into the distance. Or into the mystic, if you were a Van Morrison fan. Scott certainly had been, although his pash for Van the Man had tapered off quite a bit in the early nineties. That was when Scott had begun drifting back to Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn.
Darla had refused to believe Amanda wouldn't eat until she tried the egg experiment for herself. She had to scramble fresh ones to do it; Lisey had scraped the remains of the first pair down the garbage disposal. Amanda's thousand-yard stare had robbed her of any appetite she might have had for big sissa's leftovers.
By the time Darla marched into the room, Amanda had slid back down from her propped-up position - oozed back down - and Darla helped Lisey get her back up again. Lisey was grateful for the help. Her back already hurt. She could barely imagine the mounting cost of caring for a person like this day in and day out, for an unlimited run.
"Amanda, I want you to eat these," Darla said in the forbidding, I-will-not-take-no-foran-answer tone Lisey remembered from a great many telephone conversations in her younger years. The tone, combined with the jut of Darla's jaw and the set of Darla's body, made it clear she thought Amanda was shamming. Fakin like a brakeman, Dandy would have said; just one of his hundred or so cheerful, colorful, nonsensical phrases. But (Lisey mused) hadn't that almost always been Darla's judgment when you weren't doing what Darla wanted? That you were fakin like a brakeman?