“That’s my niece, Birchie,” I said gently, all laughter gone. “Remember?”
“Well, why is she staring at me like a gigged fish? Was the child not raised to have even one manner?” It was a very Birchie turn of phrase, said in her most imperious voice, which made it so much sadder somehow. She was there. But not all there.
I said, “Lavender was surprised to hear you say . . .” I found I could not repeat the word, not at this childhood table where once I said “poot” and then was stuck for an hourlong lecture about the relationship between my vocabulary choices and the moral decay of the nation. “She’s my niece. Remember?”
“Of course I remember,” Birchie said, still querulous, outraged. “Of course I do! But why is she here?”
“May I be excused?” Lavender asked, small-voiced.
“There is no excuse for you,” Birchie trumpeted, turning on her.
Wattie said, “Enough!” in a tone that brooked no argument.
She rose ponderously to her feet, and at the movement Birchie looked and saw the shape of her friend. Her face wiped itself almost clean of expression, like an old-fashioned blackboard. Streaks of thought were still dusted across it, but they were unreadable.
“Change seats with me,” Wattie ordered Lavender, swapping out their plates and cups with brisk, angry motions.
“Did I do something wrong?” Lav asked, and I felt sorry that I had put her in this odd line of fire.
“No, child, hush. You didn’t do a thing wrong, except you’ve barely touched your hen, and you aren’t as big as a half bug. It’s only Birchie needs things to be a certain way these days, and changing them up, why, it’s pure meanness to her. Pure and simple meanness.” Just as when I had earned her disapproval as a girl, I felt myself shrink nine full sizes. Lavender and Wattie switched sides, Wattie still talking to me with hard-edged reproach. “Nights are difficult for her. Mornings are much better. Isn’t that right?”
Birchie nodded, calmly reaching for another piece of cornbread. “I moved Garden Club to ten a.m., and Martina Mack acted like I’d said we were going to eat a baby. If I’d known she’d hate it that much, I’d have moved it years ago.” Wattie handed her the butter, and Birchie took it, her body naturally canting toward her friend.
“I only wanted to—” I said, but Wattie spoke over me.
“You eat up, too.”
She cut her eyes at Lavender, and when they came back to rest on me, they were dark with angry promise. My niece’s tiny person was the only flimsy barrier between me and something strong and filled with righteous fury. We all went back to eating, though I could hardly taste the food. Lavender stuffed five bites down, fast as she could. It was so deadly quiet I could hear the buzzy hum of texts and e-mails landing in her phone.
Into the fraught silence, Lavender said, “That was really delicious! Thank you.” She’d been raised to say these words at any dinner, even if her hostess served up offal. “May I please be excused?”
I nodded. She gave my knee a quick squeeze under the table. She knew I was in for it. Then she squirted away, already reaching for the phone in her back pocket. I heard her clattering up the stairs, the slim wall of her protection gone.
“I’m sorry,” I said to both of them. “That was low. The seat thing.”
I wasn’t sure if Birchie knew what I was apologizing for, but she inclined her head in gracious acceptance.
“Yes, it was,” Wattie agreed. She leaned in toward me. “We can be plain with one another now.”
That sparked me, and I got a little size back. “You should have been plain with me all along. Maybe I wouldn’t have pulled that trick if you two hadn’t done so much sneaking.”
Wattie shrugged, an angry, sharp motion. “I love you, Leia, always have. But you aren’t mine to fool.”
That took me a second, but then Birchie said, “No. You are mine to fool, my sugar.”
“So you’re both saying Birchie made her own choices, like always. Okay. But how long ago was that?” Wattie’s nostrils flared, a danger signal, but I kept on, asking the hard questions Rachel had pressured me to ask. “You’re deciding things now, Wattie. One thing you decided was to keep me in the dark.”
“Child,” Wattie said, but with none of the patience she’d shown Lavender. “Birchie’s right, you are perched so way up high on that horse you’re liable to fall and break your tailbone. Birchie made these decisions while she could.”
“She’s keeping them for me,” Birchie said. “I lose track sometimes. She’ll tell you true.”
“So hear me,” Wattie said, so in tune their sentences almost overlapped. “She wants to stay here.”
“It’s not safe,” I said, and Wattie and Birchie exchanged a speaking glance. Birchie actually laughed.
“And you think dying should be safe?” Wattie asked, equally amused.
“You know what I mean. Your sons have had this talk with you, Wattie, more than once. Same as I have with Birchie. You and she both need to be living someplace with no stairs, where there are doctors on call. You two should’ve at least had home help for years now, but you fought us on that, too, and we gave up. But now things have to change,” I said, Rachel’s points pouring out of my mouth like I was her hand puppet. “How long ago did Birchie get this diagnosis?”
“A few years back,” Wattie said, evasive, but it was enough to make me feel gut-punched. Tears started up in my eyes, and, seeing that, Wattie’s face crumpled a little, too, even as she sat up straighter, indignant. “I’m doing the best that I know how to do. And truth told? I wish it was me, because she would do the same as I’m doing. I’m losing my friend, and there’s no one left to stand like this for me. My husband left for heaven way too soon before me. We raised our sons up to be fine people, but when she’s gone, of course they’re going to put me in a home someplace. For my own good, they’ll say. For safety, they’ll say. Just like you. We don’t want that.”
Birchie took Wattie’s hand, saying, “Now, now.”