Seeing her like this is like hitting a funny bone but everywhere in my body—my chest and my throat and even my hands ache with anger and frustration and stupid, terrible grief.
Carolyn Bell used to be the definition of energy, of smiles, of doing, a whirlwind of dimples and dark hair and sharp wit. She was the mom that made other moms feel inferior and ungenerous with how much she gave of her time: she worked, she volunteered, she was the Girl Scout Troop Leader and the Boy Scout Den Leader, she babysat and shuttled any and all nearby kids to games and meetings and slumber parties. She read voraciously, she adored throwing parties, she loved my dad like he was still the same nineteen-year-old boy who swept her off her feet. Growing up, I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
I still do, although now she’s tied with Zenny for the honor.
“Mom, let me help,” I say, shooing her away from the dishwasher, and I’m irritable. I’m irritable because I’m upset, and I’m upset because she’s dying, and she’s dying because I haven’t found a way to fix her yet.
I slam the rack back a little bit too hard and my mother winces. “Sean. I can do it.”
“I wish you’d let me get you more help around the house. It’s really not—”
“It’s not about the money, sweetheart,” she says gently, putting a hand on my arm. When I look down at it, it’s dry and trembling and the back of it is mottled with blood-draw bruises. “I like to feel useful still. Normal.”
“You need to focus on getting well,” I say. “You need to rest.”
“All I do is rest,” she says, dropping her hand. “It gets stale, you know. Doing nothing.”
There’s no arguing with her when she’s made up her mind, so I redirect the conversation. “At least let me empty the dishwasher. Can you make me a cup of coffee while I do it?”
“Oh, of course,” she says, and there’s relief all over her tired face at being asked to do something real and useful. “Coming right up. Sure you don’t want a Mountain Dew instead?”
I make a face. It’s my mother’s elixir of youth—the beverage that powered her nonstop working-mom-perpetual-volunteer lifestyle for all the years I’ve been alive. But I can’t stand it.
I finish the dishes and together we take our drinks into the living room, where Mom’s got HGTV on. She sits in her recliner in the corner, a corner that’s become something of a cancer nest of heating pads and giant hospital cups and fuzzy blankets. I help her get into her nest, tucking a blanket around her feet and making sure she’s got the remote nearby and her cold Mountain Dew within reach.
A fresh romance paperback is on the end table, and out of habit, I tilt it toward me to see if it’s one I’ve already read or one I’ll have to steal from Mom once she’s finished, but the movement sends something hard and small sliding off the end table. A pile of beads.
A rosary.
I blink down at the thing, the crucifix shining against the matte leather of my shoe, the beads in a familiar curled pile by my sole. I blink like I’ve never seen a fucking rosary before, but I have. I’ve seen them too many times, but why is one here on my shoe, why did it fall off Mom’s table, why was it near her chair like she’s been using it?
I look up at her, and her too-wide mouth pulls into a sad smile. “Sean.”
“What’s this?” I say, which is a stupid question because I know what it is. What I mean is why does she have it, why does she need it? She doesn’t need some fake god, she has me, me, her oldest son who’s been moving fucking heaven and earth to get her the best treatment money can buy.
“Sean,” she says again. “Sit down. You’re shaking.”
I don’t listen at first, and I bend down to pick up the rosary. I pick it up like I expect it to sizzle against my skin like acid or bite at me with an electric shock, but it does neither. It’s just an inert pile of cheap metal chain and glass beads. It’s not alive, it’s not magic. It’s nothing but an object.
So why am I still shaking when I stand up? Why don’t I let it go as I sit down on the couch next to Mom’s chair?
“You said,” I say carefully, trying to keep my voice even, “when all this started, you said you didn’t need God. You said you didn’t want him around, and you didn’t want to be like every other cancer patient who got super religious in the face of death. You said those words.” I realize I’m accusing her now, my fist clenched around the rosary beads, and the fist is clenched in anger, but when I look down, it looks like I’m holding the beads in fervent prayer. It’s a jarring sight.
“I changed my mind,” Mom says simply, like that’s all there is to it, like there’s not a window behind her that looks out onto a haunted garage where my sister killed herself.
“You changed your mind,” I repeat, incredulously. “You changed your mind?”
Anger flashes through her eyes, the quick Irish temper that she gave all her boys. “I have a right to that, Sean,” she says in a sharp voice. “I’m the one dying. Not you.”
I clench the rosary even tighter because I can’t snap back at her, not after she’s played the cancer card. “But why?” I say, betrayed. “I thought we were in this together. I thought we felt the same way.”
She reaches over and puts her bruise-splotched hand over mine. “I’m still furious with God over what happened to Lizzy. But I realized being furious with Him was not the same thing as wanting Him out of my life.”
“God isn’t real,” I whisper, searching her eyes. “None of it’s real. How can that comfort you at all right now? How can you want to hold on to make-believe?”
She’s shaking her head. “That’s not…” She sighs. “This is my fault.”
“What is?” I ask, feeling now doubly irritated at this betrayal and at the idea that I’m making her feel guilty. I don’t want her to feel guilty, I just want her to explain herself, explain why, after all this time and after what He’s done, she thinks God deserves her attention.
“Your anger. Your hurt. After Lizzy’s death, your father just shut down about it and everything around it. It’s what he had to do to survive. But I never could hide my anger and my pain, not after her death and not when Tyler took his vows…” She looks away from me. “I worry sometimes that you came to your beliefs not because you genuinely believe them, but because you were young and in pain, and you saw your family in pain too. And you closed the ranks of your heart more out of some kind of tribal loyalty than out of personal conviction.”
“That’s not true.”
She tilts her head, still looking at the floor. “Maybe not. But the reason it scares me is that I would never ask you to reconfigure your beliefs to fit mine.”
“I know.”
“So then please don’t ask me to do the same for you,” she murmurs, looking up at me and squeezing weakly over my hand.
What can I say to that?
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Chapter 17
“Why do you believe in God?” I ask as I get into my car. We’re at the curb in front of the shelter; I’m picking Zenny up at the end of her shift, and I’ve just kissed her senseless and then helped her into the passenger seat.