Minna looked displeased with the question. “A cousin needs an operation.”
“You’re going to have to start saying no. You can’t give what you don’t have.”
“Why aren’t you resting?”
“You and Paz are doing all the heavy work,” Claire said, although in reality Minna had done little.
“Not true. I saw you cleaning. I saw you baking. You’re going to get sick, and I’ll be blamed again.”
“Minna!” Claire was annoyed. “It’s good for me to have distractions.”
“So that’s no to the advance?”
“I’m not comfortable with it.”
* * *
Some milestones let one know where one is, are able to promptly sink one to the bottom of life like an anchor. One occurred the moment Gwen walked through the front door, her children straggling behind her. The first thing she did on seeing Claire, standing there proudly bald, was instinctively reach an arm back to shield the children, wanting to warn and admonish at the same time. It was then that Claire felt truly sick, scared, deluded by her earlier confidence. She stayed on her feet through sheer will, betrayed by Minna’s assurances, Looking better. Better and better. The best each day. Claire excused herself and hurried to the closet, wrapping Minna’s magenta scarf over her head, hoping that would bring some relief to her appearance.
“How’re my babies?” she said on returning. Smiled and smiled, because smiling through the death mask was all she could manage.
But the children had caught a glimpse of her naked disease. Her granddaughter, Alice, four, looked at her, and her lip started to tremble. “Where did your hair go?”
Sensing panic, Minna took over: carried bags, gave candies to the children. Shock neatly covered over, disguised. With a marked coolness on both sides, Gwen took Minna’s hand. Unable to take her anger out on her mother, she blamed Minna for Mexico, allowing if not instigating it. Don was negligent, but he was also a stranger and a movie star; Mrs. Girbaldi, eccentric, was equally out of reach. Only Minna was within arm’s reach of retribution.
“This must be little Alice,” Minna said. “Pretty as her mama.”
Tim, stolid as his father, hid behind Gwen’s leg. He had obviously inherited an opinion of Minna from his parents.
* * *
When Gwen and Claire were alone on the porch, balancing ice teas in their laps, Gwen burst into sobs, such a disturbing sight from her self-contained daughter that Claire took her in her arms, reassuring her that after all she looked worse than she felt.
“I had no idea you lost so much weight,” Gwen said.
“It’s the ultimate diet.”
“I can’t believe that in your state…” Gwen wagged her finger as if it was obvious to both of them just how bad that state was. “I can’t believe under the circumstances you pulled this Mexico stunt.”
“I don’t know I’d call it a stunt.”
“What else?”
“Most people on chemo continue working, or raising a family. They have to. I went on a day trip. I had to.”
“Minna was irresponsible.”
“My idea. I forced her. I had to — for here.” Claire put her hand over her heart.
“Your health comes first. What’s the point otherwise?”
What’s the point if the heart isn’t involved? Claire wanted to say.
* * *
At the noise of a car, Gwen hurried to the door. Lucy’s rental car came down the driveway, and Gwen ran out to intercept her. It didn’t matter. The minute Lucy walked through the door and saw her mother, her face dropped. She was the one unable to hide her emotions. It was stupid for Claire to pretend any longer that she wasn’t really so sick, but now she was preoccupied with hiding the signs of the illness: keeping her head covered with scarves or caps; applying eyebrow pencil and rouge to try to add life to her face. She felt ghoulish but didn’t know what else to do. All her excitement over the visit had dissolved and was replaced by a wish to return to solitude.
* * *
Although the house was full to bursting, Claire received less attention now, a fact she gratefully accepted, returning to the normal state of family, and no longer the invalid centerpiece. It could have been fifteen years before except for the addition of Minna. She and Lucy reunited like long-lost friends and spent hours on the back lawn, smoking cigarettes and gossiping. Lucy looked better, stronger, than in years, and Claire felt some vindication in leaving her in Santa Fe. All the bedrooms were occupied, a constant coming and going from room to room, slamming of doors, except Minna’s, which remained resolutely shut. At odd, stolen moments, Claire looked at her, helpless, feeling unfaithful to the house’s former silence and dreaminess.
After a few days passed, Minna asked if she could take the weekend off to visit friends. Claire did not believe she knew anyone in the vicinity and felt hurt that she referred to being with them as a job, something to be shirked.
“You should spend time with your family,” Minna said. “You don’t need me.” As part of her leave-taking, she prepared one of her herbal drinks, which Claire had become addicted to, full of hibiscus flowers and mysterious herbs that dissipated her nausea. When Gwen asked for her own, Minna went back into the kitchen to make a new batch.
“I didn’t mean for you to go to so much trouble,” Gwen said, but did not stop her either.
Minna showed Gwen how to give the injections, frowning at her work on the orange, correcting her till she was satisfied. “More gently, otherwise you’ll bruise her skin.”
“You know the oncologist won’t treat Mom because of Mexico,” Gwen said.
“She was sick before Mexico.”
“Not for you to decide.”
“Nor for you.”
Gwen sighed. “I appreciate your friendship with Mom. It’s made a big difference.”
Minna nodded.
“Maybe we were wrong to insist on her selling. If this place is that important to her. She’s halfway through her treatments.”
“I’m aware of that.”
Before Minna left, she gave Claire a massage with special oils to ease her aches and pains. They sat on the bed afterward, enjoying the evening breeze through the window.
“Where are you going?”
“Santa Barbara. Don’s idea. To see the land he’s buying for the elephants.”
“Of course, you’re going away with him.”
“He thinks he loves me.” Minna giggled. “Drink up.” As Claire finished the last thick, green sludge from the bottom of the cup, Minna got up and straightened things on the dresser. “I don’t want to mention it, but I must. Gwen talked to me. She wants me to convince you the farm should be sold.”
Claire put the cup down hard. “She never quits.”
“Should you think about it?” Minna studied herself in the mirror. “Don has mentioned me moving in with him.”
“Is that what this is about? You want to leave me?”
“I want you to make the right decision for yourself. I worry that you might stay here just for me.”
“I’m staying until I’m well. With you or without you.”
“As long as it is what you want, che.”
That evening, Don’s car pulled up the long driveway, and he kissed the girls on the cheek before he drove Minna away. They watched wistfully as the car departed.
“Some girls have all the luck,” Lucy said.
“Just happens that all lucky girls look like that,” Gwen said.
* * *
Claire had forgotten the routines, how much noise and activity she used to accept as normaclass="underline" the television always on, phones ringing, music thrumming at all hours in the house, and since the girls’ tastes rarely matched, competing strains of Bach and the Stones. The children scattered toys all over the floor, and Claire had to pick her way around in order to not slip. They cooked or ate out, went shopping, to the playground, beach, and movies; every day was a long, exhausting series of activities. Sometimes it seemed to her they were afraid to ever be still. Had that been her life before?