Weeks passed, then months, and each day got a little easier. The loneliness was something I would have to battle the rest of my life, and the sooner I came to terms with it, the better. I went back to working full time, taking the long way around to avoid Kali’s Surf Shack. As long as I didn’t think too much about what was missing, the pain was bearable. But some nights, alone in my bed, I still wept.
The last thing I had to tackle was my mother’s house, which had sat untouched for nearly a year. I’d tried several times to walk through those front doors, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t. Although, leaving it to decay wasn’t an option either and it made poor fiscal sense to continue to pour money into a place I never planned to live in again.
Weeks before I gathered the courage to return, Stewart had gone in and painted over the nasty messages Mom had left for me on the walls. He’d also sold off the antiques and given the rest of the furniture away. Now all that was left for me to do was to box and bag up whatever was left. I doubted I’d find anything I wanted to keep, but the need to uncover more of my past made me take the sorting process seriously.
“Suck it up, chicky.”
I dutifully held my breath as Shannon gripped the fastener to the form-fitting gold dress and yanked. The wind sucked out of me, I expelled a very loud swear word.
“Shhh,” she warned, placing a finger over her lips and gesturing with her eyes to the little bundle of cuteness sleeping in the car seat. “If Audrey wakes up, feeding time’s on you.”
“Well, then, it won’t take long because the only thing these nipples are secreting is dust.”
“Speaking of dust,” Shannon said, waving her hand around. “We need to finish up thisPretty Womanmakeover montage before I have an asthma attack.”
Our quest for hidden treasures had led us here, into my mother’s closet and her vast collection of evening gowns. In her early days, Mom had been something of a starlet. Her dream of becoming a movie star was never realized, but she had for a time lived amongst the Hollywood elite. I tried to imagine what she would have been like back when she was my age and still filled with such promise and aspirations. She’d been beautiful and joyful once; the pictures proved it. But that was before disease struck her down like a bolt of lightning and before she’d morphed into the fiend I knew her to be.
Earlier in the day, on my knees in her closet sifting through what remained of her life, I finally made my peace. The hate I’d been holding onto for so long fell away once I could admit that she too had been a victim of circumstances. I had no choice but to forgive her sins because someday, they would be my own. Shannon had given me ample time to grieve, but once there was a break in the waterworks, she’d offered me a Kleenex with one hand, and held up a gold dress in the other.
“Oomph,” I groaned, as my organs rearranged just enough for Shannon to get the zipper past the small of my back. This was no small undertaking. Shannon was attempting to squeeze my sporty, size six body into a model-worthy size zero gown.
“I knew my mom was thin, but I thought she’d just gotten smaller because of the disease. Now I know she was always tiny. I swear, that woman didn’t eat when she was my age.”
“Um… yeah, I already figured that out.” Shannon stepped out from behind me in her own Hollywood gown – only hers looked like it had been made for a doll. Not only did her forearms stick out several inches from the sleeve, but the floor length number she’d chosen to model fell only to her calf.
And just like that, my bestie had come through for me again. Our hushed laughter chased away the negative energy. I would get through this somehow.
“Shannon?”
Her eyes rolling in their socket, she answered, “Yes, my pretty?”
“I can’t breathe. My toes are going numb.”
“This brings up an interesting question,” Shannon said, taking her damn time unzipping me. “If you had to choose between eating tacos every day or being super skinny for the rest of your life, what would you choose – hard or soft tacos?”
Laughing only obstructed my airflow further. “They’re tacos, who cares?”
“Exactly!” she exclaimed, finally pushing past the resistance and setting me free. “You’d be surprised how many people get that question wrong.”
“Well, you know, that’s why we’re friends.”
“Yes, it is.” And while we were still looking into the mirror, Shannon stroked my hair and said, “You know you have to get the genetic testing done, right?”
“We’ve been through this a hundred times. There’s no point. I already know the answer.”
“No, you don’t, Samantha. 50% means just that. It’s the flip of a coin; the difference between having a boy or a girl.”
I sighed. “I have symptoms, Shan.”
“Here’s the thing about symptoms. Our minds can trick us into believing something is true when it’s not. How many times have you felt nauseous when someone else has the stomach flu?”
“I know, it’s just… I’m scared. Right now, I still have hope. If the results come back and I’m on the wrong side of the percentage, then it’s all over for me.”
“But what if it’s on the right side?”
“But what if it’s on the wrong?”
We stood there quietly for a moment, reflecting, before Shannon repeated her earlier line.
