Ask Again Later Part 5

"I'll take them after I eat," I say.

"We're doing a juice fast today," Mom says.

"After we eat?" I ask.

She's opening dresser drawers and unfolding pressed pillowcases. Then she refolds them-perfectly. She does it again. I worry this might be what she does all day when I'm not around.

Last week, she was practicing her deathbed scene on the davenport. This week she is an overzealous juicer who wants to reorganize her drawers. Her mood is remarkably upbeat compared to the day I got here, when she felt pretty strongly that she didn't have the time or the interest to fight cancer or learn the nuances of her own diagnosis. Now she is a superhero. Ready for anything. Armed with juice and a good att.i.tude. Somewhere, in there, is my mom.

She moves on from the folding of pillowcases, and starts making the bed while I'm still in it. She fluffs the pillow and straightens the bed skirt. She hasn't made my bed since I was five. Even then, Maris did it, but Mom fluffed the pillows. You know, that final touch.

"Can you get up so I can make the bed?" Mom says. "It's hard to work around you. I like to have all the beds made before I go out."

"I know," I say. "I remember when you'd wake me up so my bed could be made so that you could leave the house."

"I never did that," Mom says, smiling.

"You just did it now," I say.

"I could help you pack today," Mom says. "We could go to the box store after our walk. They have everything you could want, at least as far as boxes go."

"Pack for what?" I say. Besides, boxes should be free.

"For when you move back in," Mom says. Her face changes here. She's terribly disappointed that I don't know what she's talking about. She's hurt. I never said I'd move back in with her. Yes, I've been sleeping here, but move back in?

"I'm not moving back in," I say. "I thought I'd stay with you for a few nights and help out. I live only nine blocks away. I can be here when you need me. I've quit my job. I'm available whenever you call now."

I should have had the foresight to buy twenty blocks away, like Marjorie.

"Oh," Mom says, starting to leave the room. The fantasy about the trip to the box store is all behind her now.

"Wait a minute. Stop. When did I say I was moving back in?" I ask.

"Last week," Mom says.

"I never said that," I say.

"You asked what I needed. I said I needed you here. You said okay. I didn't expect you to give up your life and move back home, but you offered, and I accepted," Mom says. "You've been here night and day. Why would you be spending the night if you weren't planning to live here?"

"That is just so interesting," I say.

I feel like I'm talking, and over my words she lays the big old crazy filter, and suddenly she hears something different from what I said. It's been happening for three decades.

"It'll be just like old times," Mom says. "You can help me clean out my closets; that way you won't have to do it alone."

"I think we need to work on being more optimistic. I know you're scared, but your own doctor said the patients he'd seen in your situation all live very long lives," I say.

"I love Dr. Kealy, you know I do. But he can't be more than forty years old. Who knows what his definition of long life is? Fifty? Sixty, tops," Mom says.

She's serious. She wants me to move back home.

"I remember how you used to like to throw cold water on me when I was in the shower..." I say.

"Only when you were overdoing it," Mom says. "Long showers are a mistake."

"Why?" I ask.

She doesn't elaborate.

"Why?" I ask again.

"I'm going to make a smoothie," Mom says.

"I like pulp, by the way," I say.

"No, you don't, and you never have," Mom says. "So if you like it now, you're just being disagreeable."

She's good! For a split second there, I thought maybe I didn't like pulp.

Life Coach versus Food Coach WE'RE AT MARJORIE'S table at Le Bilboquet. My sister is eighteen months older than I am. I was the tomboy, and Marjorie could keep a bow in her hair all day. She didn't own sneakers. Cried when my mother tried to buy them for her. A detail that always troubled me.

"How did you become a socialite exactly?" I ask.

"I don't know, but the pressure is getting to me," Marjorie says. "I'm still going out five nights a week. It's crazy. I can't even fit at this table anymore. This is so depressing."

"You're pregnant. Cut yourself some slack. Start staying home at night," I say.

"There's just too much going on to stay home and, on top of all that, Dory and Nevin disagree constantly," Marjorie says.

"Few things are as troubling as when your life coach and your food coach are feuding," I say. "Seriously, who among us could choose sides?"

"And I'm stuck in the middle," Marjorie says.

"A person with two watches never knows what time it is," I say. "Fire one of them."

"Easy for you to say," Marjorie replies.

"You're right. Fire both of them," I say. "This is why you have no money, by the way. Which I know was going to be your next question. They keep signing you up for things you can't afford, and you keep saying yes."

"You really care about me, don't you?" Marjorie says. "No one else talks to me like that."

"I don't talk to anyone else like that," I say. It's a relief to speak the blunt truth, and to be loved for it instead of loathed.

"I'm so emotional right now, and I hate Malcolm," Marjorie says. "You know what I caught him doing this morning?"

"What?" I ask.

"Sitting down to pee!" Marjorie says.

"That son of a b.i.t.c.h!" I say.

"It's not funny," Marjorie says.

"Well..." I say.

"I'm about to have a baby. I need someone strong. Not a man who sits to pee," Marjorie says, looking like she may cry.

"Maybe his willingness to sit to pee means he's the ultimate male. Not afraid of stereotypes and posturing," I say. "Why should men have to stand up to pee?"

"He called you, didn't he? He told you to say that!" Marjorie says.

"I've been at Sloan-Kettering all morning with Mom," I say. "She had some pre-op testing, and she's really into the relaxation workshops. I think she has a crush on someone in the cla.s.s. The lumpectomy happens in a few weeks."

"I'm really sorry. I've been talking about myself the whole time," Marjorie says. "How is Mom doing? She hasn't told me anything. Keeps saying she doesn't want me to stress out while I'm pregnant. How big is the tumor?"

"Size of a pea," I say.

"I was going to ask which food they compared it to-orange, grapefruit, cantaloupe. Worried it would sound insensitive," Marjorie says.

"You? Insensitive?" I say.

"A pea is good news," Marjorie says, brightening.

"That's what her oncologist said, too," I say. "But it's still hard to get excited about good-bad news. I need to work on that, I guess."

"How's she handling it?" Marjorie asks.

"She's in intense organizing mode," I say. "Meaning very worried."

"What about you?" Marjorie says.

"Melancholy half of the time," I say. "Annoyed the other half. But most of the time, you know, things are remarkably the same, which is both comforting and kind of a shame."

"It sounds like things are going well, all things considered," Marjorie says. "Especially if you don't factor in the part where you quit your job, moved in with Mom, and left Sam just hanging out there."

"Is that payback for the comment I made about why you don't have any money, or because I agree that Malcolm should sit to pee if he wants to?" I ask.

"Both. We're even now," Marjorie says. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Stop by and visit her, maybe ask her to go out to lunch," I say.

"Oh, there are some good trunk shows coming up; maybe she'd like that," Marjorie says.

She gets out her personal organizer. It's Hermes. It's orange. She flips it open. Not a single square on the calendar is blank. What can't fit in the squares is in the margins, with arrows pointing toward a date. Opportunities on the sidelines.

"There's something at the Whitney on Tuesday. A thing at the Central Park Zoo on Wednesday. The ballet's annual Hawaiian Night is coming up!" Marjorie is visibly excited by this last realization. Actually shaking a bit in antic.i.p.ation.

"Hawaiian Night?" I ask.

"So fun! We get to dance the hula and wear floral dresses!" Marjorie says.

"It sounds perfect," I say.

Nana ONCE A MONTH I drive to the Short Hills Mall in New Jersey to visit my grandmother. Nana.

Nana is a mall walker. No map required. She uses landmarks to navigate. A shop that sells pink and blue eye shadow, tiaras, and faux Hope diamonds to nine-year-olds is her North Star.

"Join a gym," I say.

"Oh, piffle, why would I do that?" Nana says. "So I can be the old lady at the gym? No thank you."

"So I don't have to be related to a mall walker," I say.

"Stop being selfish and mind your own business," Nana says.

"Can we take a water break?" I ask.

"If we must," Nana says.

We take a seat at a coffee place. She knows a handful of mall-walking octogenarians who also use the mall as their adjunct gym/office.

"How's Joan?" Nana asks.

"Good," I say. "Hard to tell actually. One minute she's optimistic, then in denial, then just very, very busy doing nothing that matters."

"That's normal. To want to keep busy, to keep it out of your mind. My scare came at about her age," Nana says.

Her scare? What scare?

"You had cancer?" I say.

"Oh, sure," Nana says.

"I never knew that," I say.

Our family history is a never-ending surprise party.

"It was right after the divorce. You girls came to see me in the hospital. Your mother told you I had my tonsils removed," Nana says. "It seemed ridiculous, but she said she was trying to s.p.a.ce out the awful news. Organizing, as usual."

"I don't know what to say. Really. I'm at a loss."

"Well, once you have it it's never off your radar again," she continues. "After six years you think about it less, after ten years, you take a deep breath. Feel lucky. At fifteen years you really start to think things might be okay. So far, so good. It's been almost twenty-five years."

"They've scheduled her lumpectomy. It's in a few weeks," I say. "Maybe you can call her, or go to the hospital."

"She'd hate that," Nana says. "We haven't spoken in years; she won't want me visiting her in a hospital when she's vulnerable."

"You're her mother. Aren't you supposed to call the shots?" I ask.