Free Leaving Eden by Anne Leclaire Page A

radio. Once, Mama reached over and took my hand in hers. It was lighter than smoke, like holding Pick Up sticks encased in skin, or something dead, and I pushed it away. “Oh, sugar,” she said, and reached up and brushed the hair out of my eyes, but I refused to look at her. I wished I’d gone to school after all.
    That night they argued about what the doctor had said and what Mama should do.
    “We’ve got to make some decisions here,” Daddy began.
    “Oh, Luddy,” Mama said. Even from my bedroom I could hear her deep sigh. “There’s no use thinking about all that.”
    “Don’t you worry about the cost,” Daddy said. “None of that matters.”
    “It’s not the cost.”
    “What is it, then?”
    Mama spoke so soft that I couldn’t hear her and I guess Daddy couldn’t, either, because I heard him ask her what she’d said.
    “It’s too late,” Mama said.
    “Too late? What’re you talking about?” Daddy said. “You heard the doctor. There’s things can be done.”
    “Things,”
Mama said in a flat voice. I heard the creak of the kitchen chair as she sat down and then the answering creak as he sat next to her.
    “That’s right,” Daddy said.
    “Like chemo?” Mama said. “Like all that poison?”
    “Yes.”
    “The average person with stage four lives three days longer if she has chemo. Did you know that? Three days. And for what? Losing my hair. I’m not doing it.”
    “Maybe they could operate?” Daddy said.
    “You mean cut me open? No, Luddy. I’m not doing it.”
    “Do it, Mama,” I whispered. “Do it. Let them cut you open.”
    “For God’s sake, Dinah Mae.” My daddy was a big man. I’d seen him heft two sacks of flour on his shoulders like they weighed no more than air. And he was smart about certain things. Once, he nursed a cowbird back to health, ignoring folks who said a bird with a broken wing was as good as dead. I waited for him to tell Mama she had to do what the doctor said. “Hair grows back,” he said.
    “Forget it, Luddy.”
    “Jesus, Dinah Mae.”
    “It’s too late,” Mama said, not shouting, not even reminding him to call her Deanie.
    “How do you know? The doctor didn’t say anything like that.”
    “It’s been too late for a long time.”
    “How long?” It sounded like he was speaking with a mouth full of broken glass.
    “What does it matter?”
    “How long, Dinah Mae?”
    “Easter,” Mama said.
    That’s how I found out Mama’d been sick for five months.
    Still, I thought she’d give in. I believed that after she got used to the idea of the treatments and losing her hair, she’d decide to do whatever she had to to get well. I thought with Goody and Daddy and Martha Lee all working on her, she’d let them give her poisons or operations or whatever it took. I thought she’d do it for me, though that was the last thing I wanted.
    The whole day stretched before me. I supposed I could hang around and wait for Martha Lee, but there was no telling when she’d return. For all I knew, Temple-goddamn-Fallon and her broken hip would require twenty-four-hour nursing. I thought about helping myself to a beer, but I’d made a rule about not drinking before noon. I knew alcoholism could run in families, and Mama always said drinking in the morning was the first sign of a person heading directly for trouble. Naturally I’d put that in my rule book.
    Finally I got the key out from under the black stone and went inside. A mess, as usual, but I wasn’t about to pick up. As far as I was concerned, old Temple Fallon could hobble all the way over from Mission Falls and clean up after Martha Lee. I got myself a glass of orange juice and after a while I began to snoop around. It was like Martha Lee breaking her promise gave me permission. I started in the bedroom. Naturally, the bed was unmade.
    There was no mirror hanging over the dresser. No makeup in sight. Not even an old tube of lipstick or bottle of dime store perfume. The only things on the dresser