She pulled back the shower curtain and turned the water on, making sure it was almost hot enough to burn. She slipped out of her clothes and stepped into the shower, letting the scorching water run through her hair and over her face. Then she turned her back to the water, sat down in the tub, and let it pour over her.
After the shower, she got dressed and pulled her damp hair back into a short ponytail and came downstairs to find her mother sitting at the kitchen table with an empty coffee cup. She walked to the coffeepot and poured its remnants into an old cup with a fading picture of a lighthouse on it.
“Good morning, honey,” her mother said. She was flipping through a magazine. Colleen noticed again how long and thin her mother’s fingers looked, how frail her knobby wrists seemed where they disappeared into the loose sleeves of her soft pink sweatshirt. Colleen knew her mother was always cold now, so she wasn’t surprised to see the collar of a light yellow blouse peeking out from the neck of her sweatshirt.
“Good morning,” Colleen said.
“Did you sleep okay?”
“I did.” She took a sip of the coffee, suddenly reminded of how weak her father always made it. “Dad called.”
Her mother sighed. “I’m sure he was checking in on me, making sure I haven’t lifted a finger in his absence.”
“He’s just worried, Mom,” Colleen said. “I’m sure he’s worried about me too.”
“Well, imagine his surprise when he learns that women keep the world together.” She looked up at Colleen and smiled. “His and Scott’s both. We don’t need their worry.”
“Just their surrender.”
“Or at least their silence,” her mother said.
“I’d take that,” Colleen said. She took a sip of her coffee. “I would take silence.”
Her mother looked back down at her magazine, turned a page, then another.
“I bet you didn’t expect to have a full house when you woke up yesterday morning,” Colleen said.
“I’ve stopped having expectations,” her mother said. She smiled as if realizing the darkness of her words. “But let’s get out of here and go to the grocery store. I’m sure there’s something special you’d like, and Lord knows we’ll need something to feed the mystery man. And we need some candy for the kids.”
Colleen had forgotten that today was Halloween, but then she found herself wondering why she should have remembered. “You never have trick-or-treaters, Mom,” she said. “I don’t think you need candy.”
“Well, we never have pilots and FBI agents stay in the guest room either. So I guess anything can happen.”
To get to Food Lion they had to drive to the end of the island and take the bridge across the waterway. Colleen drove her mother’s car, her mother sitting upright in the passenger’s seat, talking nonstop about people Colleen either didn’t know or didn’t want to know about, telling stories of death and illness and unforeseen catastrophes as if the tragedies of other people held incredible and imminent bearing on their lives. Every story paralleled Colleen’s mother’s life in some way: a woman had cancer; an older couple had an adult child who lived far away; someone was struggling with the question of retirement and Social Security and Medicare.
“And I told Sylvia, I said, ‘Sylvia, if your daughter’s helping you it means that she wants to.’ Her daughter lives all the way in Raleigh, but she and her husband get off work on Friday and drive down here and spend every weekend with Sylvia since Ralph died. Isn’t that something?”
“That is something,” Colleen said, only half-listening. They were driving past the airport now, and Colleen craned her neck, looking out at the crash-landed airplane and trying to imagine the spot on the grass where her father had found Rodney’s body. Her mother kept talking as if she’d already forgotten about the plane, the mystery of it, and the tragedy her father had discovered.
“So that’s why I told Sylvia, ‘Let yourself be taken care of.’ Lord knows she’s done enough taking care of Ralph and the kids.”
Colleen tried to focus on her mother’s story, but her headache had not abated.
“Who’s this?” she asked.
“Sylvia,” her mother said. “Sylvia Webb.”
“Where do you know her from?”
“The gym,” her mother said. “The gym here on the island, at the rec center.”
“You’ve been going to the gym?” Colleen asked. She looked over at her mother, tried to imagine her lifting weights or riding an exercise bike in the midst of her illness.
“Well, I was,” her mother said. “Before, you know, all this. All this being sick.”
“And what did Sylvia’s daughter do?”
“She just comes to visit a lot,” her mother said. “Since Sylvia’s husband died, her daughter just comes down a lot to check on her.”
“When did her husband die?”
“Gosh,” her mother said. “I don’t know. Maybe two years ago.”
Colleen quickly picked up the pieces and threads of what her mother was telling her, ran dates through her mind, made associations from loose connections, and gauged the timing of what she was hearing. Her mother had had cancer for over a year, and Colleen knew she didn’t have the strength to go to the gym. Her mother’s friend’s husband had been dead for two years, so the story of her daughter returning home on weekends was not a new one. So why would Colleen’s mother be telling her that story now?
“What’s Sylvia’s daughter’s name?” Colleen asked.
Her mother paused for a moment and looked out the passenger’s-side window as the car whipped past stands of pine trees, the clustered businesses of the Food Lion shopping center appearing ahead on the right.
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
“It seems like you would know her name if she’s so great.” Colleen looked at her mother, but she was still looking out the window. “And what does she do? In Raleigh, what kind of work does she do?”
“I don’t know,” her mother said. She inhaled as if about to release a sigh, but she held it.
“Well, I’m sorry I don’t live closer,” Colleen said. “I wish I could come home more, but Dallas is a good bit farther away than Raleigh.”
Colleen could tell that her mother had turned her head to look at her, could feel her eyes on her now. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” her mother said. “I’m just telling a story. It’s not about you or what you should do. Everybody’s different, Colleen.”
“No,” Colleen said. “Everybody’s not different, Mom. Sylvia’s daughter, whatever her name is and whatever she does for a living, wants to see her mom. I want to see you too. She can drive home on the weekends. I can’t. We’re not different. Our situations are different.”
“That’s what I meant,” her mother said, her face now turned away from Colleen and back toward the window. “Anyway, it’s just a story.”
Colleen pulled her mother’s car into the parking lot in front of Food Lion. Her mother refused to hang a handicapped tag from the rearview, but Colleen parked as close to the store as she could. They climbed out and walked across the parking lot without speaking. Once inside, Colleen’s mother found a cart and set her pocketbook down inside it. Colleen tossed her pocketbook in as well.