Commonwealth

  Then on the second day it occurred to her that maybe this pain, whatever it was, could answer the question of her future in a larger way: maybe this pain that felt like it was killing her would actually kill her. Her appendix was still in there somewhere, and while appendicitis seemed like the kind of thing schoolchildren died of on camping trips, it was possible that hers had hung around all these years in order to detonate late in the game. That wouldn’t be the worst thing, would it? Peritonitis? Not as quick as dear Jim Chen going out in a parking lot, but still. When she was having a better moment she found the key to the lockbox, the title to her car, her will. Only a person in deep denial about the future would work her entire life in the legal profession without having a good will. Everything she had was divided three ways. The house, long since paid for, had ticked steadily up in value, and there were savings. Once the kids were out of school she never spent what came in. She laid everything out on the kitchen table and sat down to write a note. She didn’t want it to seem like a suicide note because she was most definitely not committing suicide, but she thought whoever came to the house eventually should find more than the car keys and her body. She looked at the pad of paper she used to make grocery lists. The top was lined with cheerful daisies dancing in their pots above a series of chaotic pink letters that spelled out Things To Do. She had never stopped to think about how stupid it was to buy a pad of paper that said Things To Do but she didn’t have the energy to go look for a plain white sheet. The pain was ramping up again and she wanted to go back to bed.

  Not feeling great.

  Just in case.

  Love, Mom

  That was good enough.

  Albie was the single distraction from what, on the third day, she had rather hazily decided was a very intelligent plan. He had called too many times to check on her, and how she explained the situation to him had everything to do with where the phone call fell in the cycle of pain. A few times she simply hadn’t answered. The idea of picking up the phone had overwhelmed her. But then she did answer, and he told her to get up and open the front door. He said that Franny Keating was coming over to see her.

  “Franny Keating?”

  “She’s in town visiting her father. I asked her to come over and check on you.”

  “I know people who can check on me,” Teresa said, sounding pathetic even to herself. She did have friends, she had just made a decision to stay home and experiment with dying.

  “I’m sure you do but I was tired of waiting for you to call them. Go open your door. She’s going to be there in a minute.”

  Teresa hung up the phone and looked down at herself in her zip-front cotton robe, what her mother had called a model’s coat back in Virginia. She’d been wearing it for three days and it had been crushed by restless sleep and perspiration. She hadn’t taken a bath or brushed her teeth or looked in a mirror since this all began. Franny Keating coming to the house was not the same as Beverly Keating coming to the house, but at this moment Teresa was having a hard time distinguishing the two of them in her mind. Beverly Keating, who was Beverly Cousins, who was now Beverly-something-else, Teresa couldn’t remember what Jeanette had told her other than she’d married again after Bert. Beverly-Something-Else was so bone-crushingly beautiful that even now, fifty years later, it hurt to think of it. Beverly was always in the pictures the children brought back from summer, as if Catherine Deneuve happened to wander by while they were playing in the pool or swinging in swings and stepped accidentally into the frame as the shutter snapped. She did not want to die thinking of Beverly Keating’s beauty. Beverly was younger than Teresa too, not by a lot but it mattered. Beverly wouldn’t even be eighty yet.

  A wave of pain broke over her and she had to cling to the back of the recliner to remain upright. It was deep in her pelvis, top to bottom, hip to hip. Uterine cancer? Bone cancer? Could it come on this fast? If she didn’t answer the door the Keating girl would call her father. Albie said she was visiting her father. He would be old himself by now but he would call some cop friend over to break down her door. That’s the way cops work: straight from thought to battering ram. She could feel the sweat breaking out over her scalp. Her short gray hair would be soaked through in a minute. She let go of the recliner and made it over to the front door. Every step made her swear in her head, sonofabitch, sonofabitch. She used it as a mantra, a focal point to calm her breathing, the way Holly had taught her. She opened the front door wide and unlatched the screen, then, having no speed to work with, shuffled back to change her clothes and splash some water on her face. She was hoping there was mouthwash. She didn’t think she had the energy to brush her teeth.

  It wasn’t five minutes before she heard a voice, “Mrs. Cousins?” and then five seconds later, the voice was more familiar, “Teresa?” She heard the screen door open.

  “One minute.” She pulled up her track pants and pushed her feet into sneakers, ran a towel over her head. It hurt. Her hair was so short but who did she have to impress? Jeanette said she looked like she was coming back from chemo. Holly said she looked like a Buddhist nun. Albie never mentioned her hair.

  “It’s Franny,” the voice said.

  “I know, Franny. He told me.” Teresa closed her eyes, waited, inhaled sonofabitch, exhaled sonofabitch. It helped a little.

  When she came into the living room there were two of them there, a blonde and a brunette. The blonde was aggressively natural, gray in her ponytail, no makeup, a cotton top that tied at the neck with a string. The brunette had more polish but the truth was you wouldn’t look at either one of them twice. Neither was as pretty as Holly or Jeanette. Teresa pushed her mouth into a smile by the sheer force of will.

  “This is my sister, Caroline,” the blonde said. “I hope you don’t mind us coming over. Albie was worried about you.”

  “He turned out to be a worrier,” Teresa said. She was trying not to pant. “It’s strange, when you think about all the worry he caused us, that he would turn around and worry.”

  “I guess it happens,” Caroline said.

  Teresa looked at them for a long time. She had seen so many pictures, heard so many stories. Caroline was the aggressive one, Franny placating. They both made good grades in Catholic school but Caroline was smarter. Franny was kinder. “I know this sounds crazy but have I ever met you girls before?” One of them finished law school and one of them dropped out. She couldn’t say she remembered which was which but she could sure tell by looking at them.

  “Cal’s funeral,” Franny said. “I think that was the only time.”

  Teresa nodded. “I wouldn’t remember it then.”

  “How are you feeling?” Caroline asked. Straight down to business. She had authority. Teresa had the feeling that if she lied about anything Caroline would walk over and poke her in the stomach.

  “I’ve been sick,” she said, putting her hand on the chair. “But I’m getting better. I’m up now. It’s hard when you get to be my age. Little things knock you out.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to see a doctor?” Franny asked.

  Had I liked to see a doctor, Teresa thought, I would have seen one. But she wouldn’t be nasty. There was nothing wrong with these girls. Albie had asked them to come. It wasn’t their fault. “No,” she said.

  The smarter one squinted slightly. “We’re here. We can drive you over to the hospital. If you have to call an ambulance at eleven o’clock at night it’s going to be a lot harder. I’m sorry to say this but you don’t look great.” Miss Rational Argument. She’d probably already made partner.

  “I’m eighty-two,” Teresa said. She could feel the sweat on her face. “I haven’t looked great in a long time.”

  “So you’re not going?” Caroline asked. Let the record state the defendant declined the offer for transportation to the hospital despite the advice of counsel.

  “I’m sorry my son made you come all the way over here for nothing. If he’d asked me first I would have told him not to call.” They would leave in just a minute a
nd she could sit down. She could fall down. She wouldn’t make it back to bed but the living room couch was all she could ever want.

  “Okay,” Franny said, “but my father’s in the car and he wants to say hello to you. Come say hello to my father and we’ll leave you alone.”

  “Fix is in the car?”

  Franny nodded. “Today’s his birthday. He’s eighty-three. That’s why we’re out here.” Franny waited for a minute but Teresa didn’t make any offers. She decided to up the pot. “Dad has esophageal cancer. He’s very sick.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Teresa liked Fix Keating. She’d only met him that one time on the terrible day of the fire, but she remembered him as being a very nice man. Albie, radiant in his silent fourteen-year-old rage, had gone to his bedroom and slammed the door while she and Fix sat in the kitchen and had a drink together. There was fresh orange juice in the refrigerator and she made them each a screwdriver. When he tapped his glass to hers he looked her straight in the eye and said, Solidarity. She thought that was just the classiest thing in the world.

  “Ask him to come in,” Teresa said, wondering how much time this was going to take and if she’d have to offer anyone a drink. That would not be possible.

  Caroline shook her head. “We’ve been out all afternoon. We could never get him up the stairs.”

  There were three short steps to the front door, a decorative wrought-iron handrail on either side that Albie had put in for her last year. If Teresa made it down the stairs she wouldn’t make it back up. “Tell him I said hello,” she said.

  “Dad’s dying,” Franny said.

  So am I, Teresa wanted to say. She looked from one girl to the other. Suddenly she could see they were tag-teaming her: good-cop daughter, bad-cop daughter. They weren’t going anywhere. Another wave of pain crested up from below her navel. She’d been standing there too long being nice. She closed her eyes and tried breathing through her mouth, her fingers digging deep into the back of the chair.

  “I’ll get your purse and lock up,” Franny said. “Is your purse in the kitchen? Are all your insurance cards in your purse?”

  Teresa moved her head a quarter inch in confirmation while the other one came and put her arms around her. She was gentle but she was undeniably holding her up.

  “Are you ready to walk?” Caroline asked.

  She had been up and down those steps countless thousands of times, and now she felt like Eva Marie Saint looking over the edge of Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest. A Keating girl stood on either side and lifted her up. She had never been a big woman, never tall like her children, even before she’d started shrinking. She didn’t feel like a burden to them. They were strong girls, obviously. They were her kidnappers, sailing her across the lawn and into the backseat of the car, lifting up her feet while pivoting her around in a way that was disturbingly professional, as if stealing old people was what they did. They clicked the seat belt to lock her into place and when she cried out briefly in pain because nothing should touch her stomach, they took it off again.

  “Teresa Cousins,” Fix said from the front. “We meet again.”

  “Dad,” Caroline said. “Tell me where I’m going.”

  Teresa heard the urgency in Caroline’s voice. It wasn’t enough just to take her to the hospital, they had to get there immediately.

  Fix gave her directions to Torrance Memorial Medical Center. He didn’t even pick up the Thomas Brothers guide. Every page was muscle memory.

  The pain subsided a bit and Teresa took in the view. She sighed to be in the backseat of the car, to be moving away from her plan. Maybe dying hadn’t been her best idea. Look at this day, another beautiful Southern California day. “Happy birthday,” she said to Fix. “I’m sorry to hear about your health.”

  “Cancer,” he said. “What about you?”

  Franny was on her cell phone. “We’ve got your mother in the car. We’re going to the hospital now.”

  “No idea,” Teresa said. “Ruptured appendix maybe?”

  Caroline pressed the accelerator and the Crown Victoria sprung forward like a racehorse.

  “Is that Albie on the phone?” Fix said. “Let me talk to him.”

  “Dad,” Franny said. Her father was holding out his hand to the backseat. Teresa put her hand in Fix’s hand and squeezed very lightly.

  “Albie, Dad wants to talk to you.”

  “Your dad?” he asked.

  Franny handed her father the phone.

  “Son?” Fix said, somewhere he’d found some boom to add to his voice. “We’ve got your mother here with us. We’re going to get her taken care of so don’t worry.”

  “Thank you,” Albie said. “You’ve saved me twice now.”

  “We’ll stay with her until they get to the bottom of this thing. I don’t want you to think we’d just drop her off at the door.”

  “That’s nice,” Teresa said, looking out the window as her neighbors’ houses flew by.

  “Should I come down now?” Albie asked.

  Fix looked at Teresa there in the backseat, like one of those little featherless birds that’s dropped out of the nest and onto the sidewalk, still breathing but completely translucent, everything at the wrong angle. “Why don’t we say we’ll see you in the morning, how’s that? We’ll call you again. How do I hang this thing up?” He said this last bit to all of them and then hit the red button.

  “We have good children,” Teresa said to Fix. “After all the trouble they gave us they turned out okay.” She was shocked by how bad he looked. Cancer really was the devil’s handshake.

  Caroline pulled the car into the emergency entrance. Franny went inside to get a wheelchair for Teresa while Caroline got the wheelchair out of the trunk for their father. Caroline and Franny worked together to get the two of them out of the car. Teresa was easier. She squinched up her eyes and pressed her lips together but she didn’t say anything. She was very light. Fix was in a good bit of pain now, his limbs so stiff it was hard to wedge him out. It had been a longer day than anyone had anticipated, and they hadn’t brought the Lortab. He was resting a hand on either rib the way he did when he was tired, like he was trying to hold himself together. Franny wondered if it would be possible to score a single pill from the emergency room so they could get him back to Santa Monica. Probably not. Caroline and Franny rolled Teresa and Fix up to the registration desk where a young Latin girl with heavy eyeliner and a low-cut T-shirt looked from one wheelchair to the other and then back again. The bottom of a gold crucifix dipped into the top of her extravagant cleavage.

  “Both?” she asked.

  “Her,” Franny said.

  Caroline went out to park the car. “I’ll call Marjorie and tell her to put the cupcakes in the refrigerator.”

  “Your birthday,” Teresa cried, remembering his wife. “I’ve ruined it.”

  Fix laughed, a real laugh that none of them had heard in a while. “You’ve ruined my eighty-third birthday? Seriously, you can have it.”

  “Insurance cards?”

  Franny had Teresa’s purse, and she asked if it would be okay to go through her wallet. She dug past the balled-up Kleenex, the house keys, a roll of mints. In her wallet she found the Medicare card, supplemental Blue Cross Blue Shield, and her driver’s license. Did she still drive?

  “Name?” the girl began, reading from the questions on her computer screen, having committed none of them to memory.

  “I used to come here all the time when the kids were growing up,” Teresa said, looking around as if she was just that minute waking up from a dream. “Stitches, tonsils, earaches. But after the kids were gone I never came here anymore. No kids, no emergencies. I’d come to the hospital to have a mammogram or see a sick friend but I don’t think I’ve been to the emergency room even once.”

  “It’s all on the cards,” Franny said to the girl.

  “I brought Cal here when he was stung by a bee,” Teresa said.

  “He was stung by a bee in Virginia,” Fix said,
trying to be helpful.

  “We’re supposed to ask the patient,” the girl said. “It helps us assess.”

  Franny looked at her, then looked pointedly over to Teresa. The girl sighed and started typing.

  “The first time he was stung we came here.”

  “I guess I didn’t know he’d been stung another time,” Franny said. Bert had brought all of the children together in the living room in the house in Virginia on the morning of Cal’s funeral. He told them a bee sting was something Cal could not have survived. He’d said it to be comforting, so they wouldn’t think there was something they could have done to save him. Although, of course, they could have saved him. They could have stopped insisting that Cal feed all his Benadryl tablets to Albie whenever they wanted Albie to shut up, and they could have encouraged Cal to stop giving Albie the pills himself when none of them were around, just so he would have had a few left when he needed them. They could have gone to him when he fell instead of ignoring him for half an hour, thinking he was doing it for show.

  “That’s how we knew he was allergic,” Teresa said. “It was that first time.”