Hallowed by Hand Cynthia

Author:Hand, Cynthia [Hand, Cynthia]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-08-17T07:23:55.752584+00:00

Chapter 12

Don’t Drink and Fly

It all starts happening pretty fast, then. Mom quits her job. She spends a lot of time in front of the television wrapped up in quilts, or out on the back porch with Billy, talking for hours and hours. She takes long naps. She stops cooking. This may not seem like a big thing, but Mom loves to cook. Nothing fills her with more domestic joy than putting something wonderful on the table, even if it’s something simple like her signature coffeecake or five-cheese macaroni. Now it’s too much for her, and we fall into a predictable pattern: cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, frozen dinners. Jeffrey and I don’t complain. We don’t say anything, but I think that’s when it really hits us, when Mom stops cooking. That’s the beginning of the end.

Then one day she says to Billy and me, out of the blue, “I think it’s time we talk about

what we’re going to tell people.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “About what?”

“About me. I think we should say that it’s cancer.”

I suck in a shocked breath. Before that moment I hadn’t given any thought to what we

would tell people, how we would explain Mom’s “illness,” as she likes to call it. Cancer would definitely explain it. People are starting to notice, I think. How she stays seated now at Jeffrey’s wrestling matches. How quiet and pale she’s become, how this one strand in the front of her hair has turned silver and she always wears hats now to cover it. How she’s gone from slender to just plain thin.

It seems so sudden, but then I think, I wasn’t paying attention before. I was so consumed with my own life, my dream, with the idea that it was Tucker who was going to die. She’s been getting weaker all this time, and I didn’t really notice until now.

Some stellar daughter I am.

“What kind of cancer?” Billy asks thoughtfully, like this is not at all a morbid topic.

“Something terminal, of course,” Mom says.

“Okay, so can we not talk about this?” I can’t take this anymore. “You don’t have cancer.

Why do we have to tell them anything at all? I don’t want to have another lie I’m going to be forced to tell.”

Billy and Mom share this amused look I don’t understand.

“She’s honest,” remarks Billy.

“To a fault,” Mom replies. “Gets it from her father.”

Billy snorts. “Oh come on, Mags, she’s like a carbon copy of you at that age.”

Mom rolls her eyes. Then she turns her attention back to me. “A rational explanation will help everybody. It will keep them from asking too many questions. The last thing we want is for my death to appear mysterious in any way.”

I still find it crazy that she can say the words my death so calmly, like she’s saying my car or my plans for dinner.

“Okay, fine,” I concede. “Tell them whatever you want. But I’m not going to be involved.

I’m not going to call it cancer or lie about it or anything.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.