*
When Harry left, Zoe stood in the doorway of her mother’s bedroom. She waited for her to pop up and beg for information. Who was that boy? Why didn’t I know about him? Do you like him? But her breathing was slow, rhythmic. Asleep. She looked tiny in her big bed, just a little mound with a blanket pulled up to her chin. It was hard to believe that this woman, whom Zoe had seen drawn up to full height, arguing with any doctor or parent, anyone who dared to say anything about Zoe, was reduced to this tiny heap. Zoe lay on the bed and shuffled up until they were spooning. Still, her mom didn’t so much as rouse. She had a sweet, unfamiliar smell that she could only assume came from the chemo, and it made her sad. She longed for her mom’s usual scent.
She fell asleep thinking about Harry. When she woke again, two hours had passed. The room was near black. Zoe’s arm was still across her mother, except now it was drenched in sweat.
“Mom?” she whispered. “Mom? You’re soaked through.”
Zoe brought a hand to her forehead. She was warm, but not roasting hot.
“Mom?” she said again.
She finally roused. “What?”
“You’re wet.”
Drowsily, her mom examined her shirt, which was stuck to her chest. She blinked hard, confused, then relaxed back into her pillows. “Oh, it’s just the hot flashes. I’m fine, honey.”
“Your sheets are soaked.”
“So they are.” She yawned and started to rise into a sitting position. “I’ll change them. You go back to sleep.”
“I’ll do it, Mom.”
“Don’t be silly, honey.”
Her mom dropped her bare legs to the floor, but before she could stand, Zoe grabbed her arm. “Mom, stop. I’m doing this.”
Perhaps out of exhaustion, she nodded. “All right.”
Her mom sat on the armchair while Zoe stripped and remade the bed. Zoe put towels down on her mother’s side, over her pillows, and a stack of towels beside the bed. It felt good, she noticed, being the strong one.
“Are you in pain?” she asked as she moved her mom back to the bed.
“No,” she replied, obviously a lie.
“Did the doctor give you any pills to take?”
“There’s some in my purse.”
Zoe fetched the pills and a glass of water and fed them to her mother before laying her down on top of the towels. She covered her in blankets and then, once again, lay down beside her. Her mom was cold now, and Zoe hugged her tight. Maybe she didn’t have her mother’s smell anymore, but she did, for the time being, have her mother. She wondered how long she would have her.
Her mother—forever in tune with her, even like this—must have sensed her thoughts. “I’m not leaving you, Zoe,” she said quietly.
“No,” Zoe said, brushing away a tear. “I’m not leaving you.”
45
Kate stood in the kitchen of her enormous, empty house. It had always felt too big, but now with no one else in it, it felt ridiculous. Five bedrooms, only three of which were used, two of them only part-time. When Kate moved in, the rooms had felt like a promise. She’d thought they’d be filled soon. Now they were just a reminder of what she’d never have.
She’d gone to bed at nine the night before, half an hour before David left for the airport. After several hours of trying to sleep she’d finally given up and turned on the television, flicked through a few books. At one point she even drew herself a bath. Around 5 A.M., she finally drifted off to sleep.
She knew she’d messed up yesterday. Not because she’d planned to ambush David as he thought, but because she’d turned into something she didn’t want to be. A nag. A broken record. The problem was, she didn’t know what else to do. What did you do in a marriage when you didn’t agree? With an issue like a baby, there was no compromise—one person won, the other lost. So how did the loser go on without becoming bitter? Without blaming their partner for what they had missed out on? Until recently Kate had been so smug about her marriage, so smug about the lack of conflict, the wonderful communication. But sometimes all it took was one big obstacle to break down even the most harmonious of marriages.
Around 10 A.M., when Kate went to check the mailbox, she found Zoe sitting on her doorstep. For some reason, Kate’s breath caught.
“Hi,” Zoe said, stumbling to her feet. “Sorry … I … I didn’t know where to go.”
“Zoe. Does your mom—?”
“I didn’t tell her.” Zoe couldn’t look at her. “I couldn’t. She was so sick, Kate.”
They stood there for a moment, on the doorstep. Zoe looked so small, so lost. Kate didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t sure it was a good idea to let Zoe inside when Alice knew nothing about her daughter’s whereabouts—but what else could she do?
“Okay, well … come in.”
Zoe shot inside, which was probably a good thing as Kate was already wavering about her decision. What would Alice say when she found out? Kate was overstepping the boundaries and she knew it. At the same time, she was tired after a night of hardly any sleep. And, she had to admit, she was happy to see Zoe.
“So,” Kate said when they found themselves, unsurprisingly, in the sunroom. “The first chemo treatment knocked your mom around a bit, did it?”
“She woke up last night so drenched in sweat I had to change her sheets.”
“Night sweats can be a side effect of chemo. Your mom is lucky she has you to look after her.”
Zoe nodded. She looked so sad sitting there it just about broke Kate’s heart.
“And how are you feeling?” Kate asked.
Zoe pulled her legs up in front of her and rested her chin on her knees. “How do you think?”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Kate thought for a minute. She’d always found that talking to patients—about anything—led to better outcomes. Sometimes it would take an hour of talking about the weather before they finally came out and asked the question they’d been wanting to ask: How long have I got? So she decided on a change of topic.
“Would you mind if I ask you a question?”
Zoe looked at her. Despite herself, she seemed a little intrigued. “Okay.”
“The other day, you said, ‘Sometimes I say things because I don’t know what else to say … and it just comes out wrong.’”
“Yeah.”
The truth was, Kate had been thinking about it in the context of her father. Hadn’t he said something similar? That he didn’t know why he said things?