Ten
I don't have to work until Tuesday, so I go right home after school to find my very sunburned and bug-bitten mother knee-deep in dirt and weeds.
“You look like some sort of gardening goddess, all covered in dirt.” Her laugh rings out and she wipes her cheek, which only smears more dirt on it. I sit next to her, not minding that my jeans will get covered and my butt's going to get wet. Seeing her looking so healthy makes me feel better.
I tell her about all the silly things from my day, about how they got rid of the chocolate chip cookies at lunch because they're unhealthy, that the lacrosse team is going to States and how Braden Chance got expelled for breaking into the Headmaster's office over the weekend and trying to destroy his computer. He'd succeeded in smashing the motherboard, but he'd forgotten about all the security cameras. There was also that there was a back up computer. Idiot.
“Need any help?” I say after I've yammered her ear off.
“Thanks, ma fleur, but I can manage. You could pull a few weeds, if you're so inclined. It's very satisfying.” It reminds me of when I was little and she'd take me out here and show me how to clean up the beds. Which things to pull, and which to not pull. I'd ruined several of her bulbs by yanking them out, but she'd laughed and just put them back, telling tearful me that it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed.
If only things were that easy now.
“How are you feeling?” I say, yanking out a weed. The soil is cold on my bare hands.
“Much better. Strong. For the first time in a long time.” Her cheeks are red, and not from make-up. She hasn't bothered with a wig, simply wrapped a bright kerchief around her head to keep warm. I like her better like this.
“Do you remember the bouquets I used to bring you?”
“With the roots still hanging off? Of course.” She pulls me close and gives me a hug. I inhale the cool scent of the earth that's all through her clothes. This is where she's meant to be. Out here, with the plants, or in a room full of screaming kids.
“How's your neck?”
“It's fine.” I pull down my scarf and show her. I'm still astounded she didn't freak out about someone hurting me. She smooths the initial flicker of horror like a crease from her skirt.
“I hope you got a few good shots in,” she says with a sly smile.
“Sort of.” Not really.
“Good, because if he ever touches you again, he's going to have me to contend with.” She points her trowel like it's a sword. I wouldn't mess with her.
“It's not going to happen.” I toss another weed away with more force than I mean to.
“I know, that's why I gave you the pepperspray.” She smiles as I put my scarf back on, and arches her back. “I think I need some lemonade. Would you like anything?”
“No, thanks.” She brushes my shoulder as she gets up, using me as a support. I watch her walk away, thinking about how many days I have left with her.
It's just the two of us tonight, with Dad out at some dinner with the stockholders of the bank that he's required to go to. It sounds horribly dull.
“Ava?” She calls from her room. She's been in there for a while, and I haven't wanted to disturb her. She seems distracted. I'm busy in the kitchen, baking some banana bread. It's from a box, but still. She loves the smell of it baking, and doesn't have enough energy to do it herself after all the gardening.
“Yeah?”
“Can you come her for a moment?”
She's lying on her bed, surrounded by torn sheets of paper. It looks like a notebook exploded. I step on a few crumpled pieces near the door.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, nothing.” She turns the paper she's holding over so I can't see what she's writing. “Sit down.” She pats the bed and I clear some of the paper away, trying to read the curly script, but I can't.
“I've been thinking about some things I want to talk to you about.” I hate the way her voice sounds. I'm not going to like this conversation, I know it.
“There are some things I want you to know before...” She's accepted it, but doesn't say it out loud. Not yet. Not until it's closer. She shakes her head, as if to rid her mind of the words.
“So, I made a list.” Of course she made a list.
“What's on it?” I say. She grabs a piece of paper from her nightstand and hands it to me. The writing isn't as nice as the other pieces around me.
The list is relatively short.
“Make real banana bread,” I read. That one makes me smile. She's underlined the word real. Okay, I get it.
“I feel it's only fair to teach you. My grandmother taught me, and yours isn't around to teach you.” My mother's mother died when I was seven. I have only blurry memories of her, and they all took place in a nursing home. One of the only things I can remember is the smell of that place. That's what death smells like. Rot and bodies and stale bananas. The cemetery smells like grass and fresh air. Ironic.
“Hem pants.” It's something she always does for me. Being 5'1 is rough when most pants are made for someone who's 5'7. They leave a lot of leg that drags on the ground and trips me up. She whisks them away, get on her Singer sewing machine, also from my grandmother, and fix them for me. They appear in my drawer completely done, as if fairies sewed them in the night.
The rest of the list seems simple. Tend the garden. Change oil in a car.
“Fold a fitted sheet?”
“It's a pain in the ass of you don't know how to do it,” she says, chewing on the end of her pen. She's still writing something else, but holds it so I can't see.
They're mostly domestic tasks, but there are some others in there. Like telling me more of my grandmother's stories. Setting a table for a fancy dinner. Reading her favorite poems. Going through my baby clothes. Driving to see the house she'd grown up in. The second half of the list doesn't feel like it's for me. I look at the first item and then at her. We both smile.
“How are we doing on bananas and flour?” she asks.
“I think we're out of both.” Dad and I don't have her magical skill of knowing exactly what we need for groceries and when we needed to restock. I wish she'd passed that on to me, but I still have time.
“Then we must go shopping,” she says, hopping out of bed as if it's the beginning of the day, instead of late afternoon. She takes my arm and drags me out to the car. “Here,” she says, tossing me the keys.
I've never been allowed to drive her car before. It's nothing spectacular, a black Jetta with a sunroof, but still. It's much snazzier than the Civic. It's also quieter.
“Thanks.” I don't really know what else to say.
“It's about time you started driving it. You can have it. If you want.” Comments like that make me swallow hard and my stomach clench. I bite back the bile that threatens to come out on the leather seats as I pull out of the driveway. She turns on the radio, probably sensing my feelings.
An hour and a half later, we're both covered in flour and have banana is everywhere. I pull a slimy bit from my shirt and fling it into the trash.
“You want it to be a little lumpy. It bakes up better that way.” I stop stirring and she holds the pan for me to pour the batter in. We've been working from my grandmother's recipe, which is written in fading purple ink on a recipe card that's so stained you can barely read parts of it. Thankfully, she's got it memorized. Someday I will, too. I hate to think of that someday.
I haven't baked with her since I was little and begged her to let me lick the beaters from the big stand mixer. Before she'd been diagnosed, I'd come home and see her baking for her class, and I'd think about asking to lick the beaters again, but then Tex would call and ask me to go out, or I'd have ballet or homework. Now these moments are numbered. Like grains of sand, they run through my fingers. I have to do what I can to capture them. I run upstairs to grab the camera she got me for my fifteenth birthday.
“Smile,” I say, surprising her. She poses while she wipes her finger around the inside of the bowl and licks it with relish. Then she throws some flour at my face and that's the end of the picture taking for a little while. It's time for epic flour fight.
Dad comes home to find us both panting on the floor, backs against the cabinets, flour still floating in the air like smoke. We both cough.
“It looks like a flour bomb exploded in here.” He's got his tie loosened and bags with lefttovers from his meeting. Mom always makes him bring home whatever he can get since those things are always catered and fancy.
“It pretty much did.” We both look like ghosts or clowns or something. She bumps me with her shoulder and we giggle helplessly. There's something satisfying about making a huge mess without worrying about cleaning it up.
I choke on a flour cloud. It just makes me laugh harder.