I recognized her by her nose and the dimple in her chin, since neither was easily altered. She wore her hair black and close to her head like a leather helmet, her eyes behind large glasses, a bright red scarf thrown around her neck. Fashionably thin in jodhpurs and lace-up boots, she strode straight to me and kissed my cheek.
"Kay, it's so wonderful to see you. You look tired."
"How's Mother?"
"Her hip, you know. What are you driving?"
"A rental car."
"Well, the first thing that went through my mind was your being without your Mercedes. I couldn't possibly imagine being without mine."
Dorothy had a 190E that she had gotten while dating a Miami cop. The car had been confiscated from a drug dealer and was sold at auction for a pittance. It was dark blue with spoilers and custom pinstripes.
"Do you have luggage?" I asked.
"Just this. How fast was she driving?"
"Lucy doesn't remember anything."
"You can't imagine how I felt when the phone rang. My God. My heart literally stopped." It was raining and I had not brought an umbrella.
"No one can relate unless they've experienced the same thing. That moment. That simply awful moment when you don't know exactly what's happened, but you can tell the news is bad about someone you love. I hope you're not parked too far from here. Maybe it's best if I just wait."
"I'll have to leave the lot, pay, then come back around." I could see my car from where we stood on the sidewalk.
"It will take ten or fifteen minutes."
"That's perfectly all right. Don't you worry about me. I'll just stand inside and watch for you. I need to use the ladies' room. It must be so nice not to have to worry about some things anymore." She did not elaborate until she was in the car and we were on our way.
"Do you take hormones?"
"For what?" It was raining very hard, large drops hammering the roof like a stampeding herd of small animals.
"The change." Dorothy pulled a plastic bag out of her purse and began nibbling on a gingersnap.
"What change?"
"You know. Hot flashes, moods. I know a woman who started getting them the minute she turned forty. The mind's a powerful thing."
I turned on the radio.
"We were offered some dreadful snack, and you know how I get when I don't eat." She ate another gingersnap.
"Only twenty-five calories and I allow myself eight a day, so we'll need to stop and get some. And apples, of course. You're so lucky. You don't seem to have to worry about your weight at all, but then I imagine if I did what you do I probably wouldn't have much of an appetite, either."
"Dorothy, there's a treatment center in Rhode Island that I want to talk to you about." She sighed.
"I'm worried sick about Lucy."
"It's a four-week program."
"I just don't know if I could stand the thought of her being all the way up there, locked up like that." She ate another cookie.
"Well, you're going to have to stand it, Dorothy. This is very serious."
"I doubt she'll go. You know how stubborn she can be." She thought for a minute.
"Well, maybe it would be a good thing." She sighed again.
"Maybe while she's there they can fix a few other things."
"What other things, Dorothy?"
"I might as well tell you that I don't know what to do about her. I just don't understand what went wrong, Kay." She began to cry.
"With all due respect, you can't imagine what it's like to have a child turn out this way. Bent like a twig. I don't know what happened. Certainly, it's not from any example set at home. I'll take the blame for some things, but not for this."
I turned the radio off and looked over at her.
"What are you talking about?" I was struck again by how much I disliked my sister. It made no sense to me that she was my sister, for I failed to find anything in common between us except our mother and memories of once living in the same house.
"I can't believe you haven't wondered about it, or maybe to you it somehow seems normal." Her emotions gathered momentum as our encounter tumbled farther downhill.
"And I'd be less than honest if I didn't tell you I've worried about your influence in that department, Kay, not that I'm judging because certainly your personal life is your own business and some things you can't help." She blew her nose as tears flowed and rain fell hard.
"Damn! This is so difficult."
"Dorothy, for God's sake. What on earth are you talking about?"
"She watches every goddam thing you do. If you brush your teeth a certain way, you can rest assured she's going to do the same thing. And for the record I've been very understanding when not everybody would. Aunt Kay this and Aunt Kay that. All these years. "
"Dorothy…"
"Not once have I complained or tried to pry her away from your bosom, so to speak. I've always just wanted what's best for her, and so I indulged her little case of hero worship."
"Dorothy…"
"You have no idea of the sacrifice." She blew her nose loudly.
"It wasn't like it wasn't bad enough that I was always being compared to you in school, and putting up with Mother's comments because you were always so fucking perfect at everything.
"I mean, goddam. Cooking, fixing things, taking care of the car, paying the bills. You were just a regular man of the house when we were growing up. And then you became my daughter's father-if that doesn't take the cake."
"Dorothy!" But she would not stop.
"And I can't compete with that. I certainly can't be her other I will concede that you're more of a man than I am. Oh yes. You win the hell out of that one hands down. Dr. Scarpetta, Esquire. I mean, shit. It's so unfair, and then you get the tits in the family to boot. The man in the family gets the big tits!"
"Dorothy, shut up."
"No, I won't and you can't make me," she whispered furiously. We were back in our small room with the small bed we shared,-where we learned to hate each other quietly while Father was dying. We were at the kitchen table silently eating macaroni again while he dominated our lives from his sickbed down the hall. Now we were about to walk into my house where Lucy was hurt, and I marveled that Dorothy did not recognize a script that was as old and predictable as we were.
"Just what exactly are you trying to blame me for?" I said as I opened the garage door.
"Let's put it this way. Lucy's not dating is not something she got from me.
That's for damn sure."
I switched off the engine and looked at her.
"Nobody appreciates and enjoys men more than I do, and next time you start to criticize me as a mother, you ought to take a hard look at your contributions to Lucy's development.
I mean, who the hell's she like? "
"Lucy's not like anyone I know," I said.
"Bullshit. She's your spitting image. And now she's a drunk, and I think she's queer." She burst into tears again.
"Are you suggesting I'm a lesbian?" I was beyond anger.
"Well, she got it from someone."
"I think you should go inside now." She opened her door and looked surprised when I made no move to get out of the car.
"Aren't you coming in?"
I gave her the key and the alarm code.
"I'm going to the grocery store," I said. At Ukrop's I bought gingersnaps and apples, and wandered the aisles for a while because I did not want to go home. In truth, I never enjoyed Lucy when her mother was around, and this visit certainly had started worse than usual.