Free A Watershed Year by Susan Schoenberger

this?”
    “Of course,” Lucy said. “But I don’t think—”
    “And that was Monday,” Cokie continued. “That was a
good
day. By Friday, I am completely incapable—”
    “Incapable,” Paul agreed.
    “—of putting dinner together. I just can’t face it, cooking and setting the table and begging them to eat broccoli, just to dump half of it in the garbage and clean up for the fiftieth time this week.And this never ends. The seasons change, the mess may look a little different, but it’s always there. Twenty-one meals a week, and since no one in this house likes the same food, you can at least triple that. Week in, week out, that’s thousands of meals a year I have to plan for. And if I don’t do it, I’m a bad mother. Check the pizzas, Paul.”
    A wisp of smoke escaped from the oven door as Paul opened it and took out one pizza with a paddle.
    “The edges are burned,” Cokie said. “Sean won’t even touch it. Check the other one.”
    The other pizza emerged unscathed. Cokie threw back her head and finished the Amstel Light, then grabbed a pizza wheel and divided the pizza with startling efficiency.
    “I don’t want to scare you, Lucy. I just want you to go into this with your eyes open,” she said more calmly, as if cutting the pizza had purged her frustration. She called into the family room. “Pizza’s ready.”
    The kids sat down and began to eat pizza, telling jokes as they drank root beer.
    “Aunt Lucy,” Sean said. “Spell
pig
backwards, and then say ‘pretty colors.’”
    Lucy complied, glad to be talking to anyone other than Cokie. “G-I-P pretty colors.”
    The three root-beer drinkers laughed until they gagged, as Lucy smiled indulgently. Cokie, meanwhile, stood by the sink, rubbing her eyes. Lucy came over and squeezed Cokie’s shoulder. “You okay?” she said.
    “That was good,” Cokie said, laughing convulsively. “You should have seen your face.”

five
----
    D ear Lucy,
    It should be March now, almost spring. If I were you, I’d get on that beat-up Schwinn you have and take the loop around the reservoir. Remember the day you got your skirt caught in the bike chain and fell off near the library?
    I loved it that you didn’t need the latest gadget or the newest clothes. You had a way of making the right choices for yourself, like with the saints. I’m not saying I always got it, but it was right for you. See how tolerant I’ve become in my old age?
    Last March, as I recall, you spent three or four nights sleeping in a waiting-room chair at the hospital when I had my first close brush with mortality. It’s not surprising that I developed pneumonia, but I remember being shocked, even in my fever-induced haze, that this might be the end. You can mourn your own mortality with every birthday, but it really doesn’t hit you until you can’t breathe without forcing yourself to think about inhaling and exhaling.
    You finally talked them into letting you in the room, but you were wearing so many layers of paper and latex, I didn’t know you at first. Then you took my hand, and I saw your eyes, the only part of you left uncovered. You were pleading with me, willing me to stick around with the force of your stare. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I think I got better because you made me.
    My mother never even made it to the hospital that time. She told me later that she tried to get her doctor to prescribe some Valium so she could fly, but he was out of town, so she got in her car instead but had a flat tire in Georgia. She told me you called her when the crisis passed, and she was so drained by the whole experience, she went back home to Florida. I know I’ve told you before, Lucy, but you have no idea how lucky you are to have the parents you have. They have their faults, sure, but they’d do anything for you. Anything.
    Writing these notes is getting harder and harder. I can’t guess where you are, who you’re with, what your life is like. I worry that I’ll seem