“That I feel that way?” I question.
She lets out a soft chuckle. “No. I’m just sorry. It’s not you.”
I take another step closer and another until our breaths mingle as one. “You wanna tell me what it is, then?”
“Nothing I can’t handle. And being here without Tanya didn’t help, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
I nod slowly, taking in her words. Curiosity eats away at me as I wonder what it is that she’s handling on her own and why she feels she has to do that. “It’s all good. We all got our ways of dealing with shit. But let’s make a deal?”
“What kind of deal?”
I hold out my hand to her. “Let’s be partners in this.”
She takes my hand in hers. Her posture is always perfect, but she somehow manages to stand even straighter. “For Tanya?”
“For Tanya.” For now.
She lets our hands linger for a moment longer before she breaks our connection and steals the photobook still clutched in my other hand. “You should see this.”
She flips past pages of Tanya in different stages of childhood. One particular photo catches my eye. It’s a black-and-white one of her, lookingno older than six, sitting on the hood of a Chevy convertible while fist-bumping an older man. I assume from the similarity in their noses that the man was her dad. It’s good to know that she’s always been the star of the show.
Dani keeps flipping through Tanya’s memories until she gets to the one she wanted to show me. Tanya stands with Barack and Michelle Obama. While amazing, it’s not surprising. Tanya lived an adventurous life, and those adventures got her in the room with a plethora of big names. Whatissurprising is that if you look closely at the photo, you can see that in Tanya’s hands she’s holding pictures of Dani and me. Dani’s picture looks to be one of her magazine covers while mine is a snapshot in front of Spring Hill.
“Please tell me she didn’t meet the Obamas and pull pictures of us out of her wallet.” It’s not a real question. We know that’s exactly what she did.
“It’s the printed photos for me, though. Like, Tanya, I know you had your phone on you,” Dani adds.
We laugh and it feels good to laugh like this with her again. Another moment Tanya gives to us.
“She would’ve had them there for hours if she had pulled up pictures on her phone,” I say through my laughter.
“Oooh, you’re right. She would’ve hated being called any kind of grandma, but that’s such a grandma thing to do. Carry pictures of your kids in your wallet.”
Dani’s chortle grows louder as she lets her chin fall to her chest, but when the rhythm of the sound changes and her shoulders start to shake, I know her laugh has morphed into tears.
The first choke of air from her prompts me to wrap my arms around her without question. If she doesn’t want me touching her, she can push me away and I’ll go, but I need the anchor as much as she does.
“It should’ve been us,” she cries.
“What should’ve been us?”
“We should’ve been the ones taking care of her in the end.” She looks up at me, the tears bubbling up but refusing to fall. “Who was there for her? Who cleaned up for her? You know she was big on cleaning. Who cooked her meals?”
“Well, not her, but it never was,” I interject, wanting to take some of the weight off her shoulders. It works, if only for a moment, but I’ll take it.
“Who held her hand when she took her last breath?”
These same questions have tormented me since learning of Tanya’s death. Did she suffer for long? Did she get treatment, or was it too late? Was she alone when she died? So many questions that we may never get the answers to, unless Mr. Townsend can provide them. And even if he can, will it make us feel better to know or will it just add more fuel to the flames of our pain?
“I think that it would’ve hurt her more to see us see her that way than for us to not be there at all.” It’s the only solace I can offer.
“It’s not fair.”
Cancer never is.
“It’s not.”
She looks up at me, finding the same hurt in my eyes that lives in hers, and falls into me. Her body is overcome with sobs, my body the only thing keeping her off the ground.
