I laughed. Mom had always loved him. When I first started dating Carter, she kept asking what had ever happened to that darling Jack.
“Mom,” I said. “Carter was the one. If Jack had been the one, I would have married him. But he wasn’t.”
“I did love Carter. But you didn’t marry Jack because he didn’t want children. I assume you don’t want any more?” She raised her eyebrows.
We both laughed. I wiped my mouth and took a sip of cool water. “It’s not that simple, Mom. I loved him all those years ago, but we’re different people now.”
She looked at me like I was dense. “That’s why you give the man a chance. That’s why you try to get to know each other now.”
She made it sound so simple, but perhaps that’s because she didn’t understand the entire picture. When Jack came back to Peachtree Bluff, I was panicked that the girls would find out our secret, would find out that Jack was Caroline and Sloane’s father. Now I knew Jack would never let that happen. But, even still, how could I lie to my children like that? How could I be with Jack without telling them the truth? I wasn’t sure I could.
But that was all beside the point. Today, my mission was to get this woman to the doctor. I decided to level with her.
“Mom,” I said, taking a bite of egg salad for courage. “I’m taking you to the doctor today.”
She waved her hand. “Darling, my ankle is fine.”
“Not for your ankle,” I said. This was when it was going to get dicey. “For your brain.”
I expected her to freak out, but she barely reacted, still as a cat stalking its prey. That’s when I began to worry.
She took a sip of tea and cleared her throat. “There’s no need.”
I cut her off. “I know you’re going to say you’re fine, but you’re not fine, Mom. There’s something going on, and if we can catch it early, maybe get some treatment, it won’t progress.”
She took a deep breath and reached for my hand across the table.
I knew that she was going to argue with me, so I said, “Mom, you were out of your mind when Jack was there the other night. You didn’t recognize anything, didn’t know who he was...”
“Darling,” she said calmly. And that’s when I knew something was wrong. Something big. I knew that whatever she said next was going to change my life in ways I wasn’t ready for. “I don’t know how to tell you this, really,” she said. She paused and looked into my eyes as if she were memorizing them. “But, you’re right. I’m not fine.” She put her hands back in her lap, smoothing her napkin slowly. She took another sip of tea, cleared her throat, and looked up at me. “I have cancer, darling. I’ve had it for quite some time. It’s in my brain.”
I felt numb, frozen in my chair. She was so calm, so steady. I wanted to cry, but instead, I sprang into action. “We have to get you to a specialist. Are they going to operate, do chemo, radiation?”
She put her hand up to stop me, and I knew we were about to have the biggest fight of our lives. “We are not going to do any of that. I’m going to live out my days as I please. I will eat my dessert first and watchMickey Mousewith my great-grandchildren. And when my time is through, it will be through.”
She was so stoic when she said it. I usually thought of this decision, of this state of mind in the face of death, as resigned. But Mom wasn’t resigned. She was almost joyous. And it hit me. My mother was dying. My mother was going to die. Soon. I felt tears well up and dabbed them away with my napkin.
“Sweetheart, let’s not make a scene, OK? I’m fine. I’m better than fine. I’m not losing my hair and vomiting. I’m not spending a year in the hospital to potentially buy me two more when I’ll never really be right. I’ve thought about this. I assure you this is the right decision.”
“For whom, Mother? Because it doesn’t feel like the right decision for me.”
She smiled at me sadly. “I will not have you spending your life caring for me and shuffling me back and forth to doctors’ appointments. I’m ready to be with your father, anyhow.” It wasn’t until she said, “You are all terribly boring,” that I finally saw emotion breaking through her placid expression.
“You will not go back to Florida. That’s it, and that’s final.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but I think she knew I needed this, in the way that mothers always do. She took a sip of tea and said, “I do so love that beautiful Emerson with that darling Mark. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she married him, moved back to Peachtree, and gave up all that acting nonsense?”
Just like that, we were finished talking about dying. We were, instead, talking about life. While I wasn’t sure I agreed with her decision to forgo treatment, I did know one thing for sure: in the entire time I had known her, all my life, except for once, I had never known her to make the wrong decision. And that thought would carry me through until the very end.
SEVENTEEN
war zone
sloane
January 20, 2016
Dear Sloane,
