Only One

My mom liked roses too. So I know just where she can get some. I give her directions to my house and tell her to take whatever she wants.

“I can’t do that,” she complains.

“Yes, you can. Someone needs to enjoy them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. My mom would like that your mom is enjoying them.”

“Okay, thanks.” She smiles tentatively at me.

“So I can come and see you tonight?” I ask.

She nods. Then she steps onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to my cheek. She lingers there just long enough for me to catch the scent of her, and then she’s gone.

But I’ll see her later. That thought warms me all over, and I feel something I haven’t felt in a really long time.

Hope.

Carrie

When I get home, Dad’s car is already there. I have a big bouquet of roses and several pricked fingers. Roses have thorns when you cut them directly from the bush, apparently. I lift my wounded thumb to my mouth and try to suck the pain away. It doesn’t work.

I let myself into the house and don’t see Mom or Dad anywhere, so I go to the kitchen and put my roses in a vase. Then I go to put them in her room, but I open her bedroom door and pause. I hear murmuring from the bathroom and tiptoe far enough inside that I can see them.

I stop short. The rose vase tilts, and water drips onto the floor. I right the vase and wipe my foot across the spot to spread out the wetness. I stand very still so they won’t know I’m there.

Mom is naked, reclining in the tub. Dad is kneeling beside her and he’s rubbing a soapy cloth over her shoulders. He’s dressed like he was this morning, but she’s not wearing anything. He’s helping her take a bath? What?

Mom grabs his hand and he stops, heaving a sigh. “You can’t tell her. If you do, she’ll hate us both.”

Dad leans his forehead on her arched knee and breathes heavily. I can barely hear his voice, and he’s stuffy like he’s been crying. “I have to tell her,” he says. “I’m going to do it when she gets back. Right away. I should have told her a long time ago.”

Mom has dark circles under her eyes and she’s sniffling, too. I don’t know what happened when I was gone, but I do want to know. I just don’t want to know this.

“I don’t think you should,” Mom says.

Dad soaps the washcloth and picks up her arm, washing her tenderly and slowly. Intimately. Like lovers. Like husband and wife. He drags the cloth across her mastectomy scars in slow, sweet, tender sweeps. “I wish I’d been with you through this,” he says.

“I wasn’t even with me when I first found out, John.”

“I know. That doesn’t make it any better.”

“It won’t get better.” She grabs his hand again and holds it tight against her heart. “I have a month, if that long. Can you stay?”

Dad breaks. A sob shakes his shoulders.

“Come here,” Mom says, and she opens her arms, sitting up a little. She holds him to her and he runs his hands up and down her naked body.

“So much wasted time,” he says. “I don’t want to waste anymore.”

I can almost see Mom visibly relax. She sits back a little and looks into his face. “Are you sure?” she asks quietly.

“I love you, Pattycakes. I’ve always loved you. Let me have this last month, will you?”

“Okay,” she says quietly. Then she kisses him. And he kisses her back. It’s soft and sweet at first, and then it becomes more. More than I am comfortable seeing. I leave the roses on the dresser and back out of the room. Then I leave them a note and go to find Amber and Rose, and I pretend like I didn’t just see what I saw. Mainly because I don’t know what to do with it.

***

At eight o’clock, I leave Amber and Rose, despite their protests. I go home, but only because I know Nick is going to be there. He’s going to come and find me, and hopefully take me away from whatever is going on between Mom and Dad.

I let myself in the back door and find Mom standing in the kitchen. She looks up, and her cheeks redden. Does she know that I know? Dad is standing beside her chopping vegetables. She’s drinking a glass of wine, and I can’t help but remember that this is how it used to be before she messed it all up. We were happy. We were like this.

“Carrie,” Mom says. “I’m glad you’re back. Just in time for dinner.”

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

“Much better. I’m sorry I scared you last night.”

I nod and steal a piece of the zucchini Dad’s chopping. He swats my hand with a roll of aluminum foil.

“You look much better than you did last night,” I say to her.

“They gave me some blood. Plasma. Something. It feels better just having stopped the chemo, honestly.”

Dad passes her the knife. “Feel good enough to chop?” he asks.

“John,” she warns. “Don’t.”

I look from him to her. “Don’t what?”

She shakes her head and starts to chop.

“Let’s take a walk,” Dad says. He jerks his head toward the sliding glass door that leads to the beach.

Mom bites her lips together like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. She just chops.

Dad and I step out onto the sand and he’s quiet as we walk down to the water. “What did you want to talk about?” I ask as we turn toward the lighthouse.