Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [133]
She was shocked to see, at closer range, that Hannie-Mavis was weeping. “They said it’s no good, the chemo’s not helping her. Everything she’s went through, vomiting and losing her hair, for nothing. She’s worse.”
“How can that be?” Lusa asked numbly.
“It’s all over her, honey. Her lungs and her spine. The doctor told me today.”
“God,” Lusa whispered. “Does she know yet?”
Hannie-Mavis shook her head. “I didn’t tell her. How could I? I started telling her the doc said no more chemo, and she thought that was good news. ‘Oh, Han,’ she says, ‘wait’ll I tell the kids. Let’s go get us a ice cream to celebrate!’ Mind you, this was between throwing up and throwing up, when she said that.” Hannie-Mavis took a deep, racked breath, then let out a long wail. Lusa just held on, feeling awkward, not yet sensing in her body the full weight of this new grief.
“How will she leave her babies!” Hannie-Mavis cried.
“Shhh, one of them’s asleep upstairs.” Lusa took her by the shoulders and steered her up the last step, across the porch, and in through the front door. In the bright hallway Hannie-Mavis seemed to pull into herself, appearing suddenly more contained and absurdly cheerful in her red-and-white-striped dress made of some silky material. She even had on snappy red high heels, Lusa noticed. The image of her two sisters-in-law dressing up this morning to go to the city, for this awful trip, was devastating. She watched Hannie-Mavis dab at her ruined eye makeup with a ball of tissue that appeared to have been in her hand for much too long.
“Come on. Come in the kitchen and sit down.”
Hannie-Mavis hesitated again but then moved slowly toward the kitchen door under her own power while Lusa ran upstairs for a box of tissues. When she came back down to the kitchen and put on the kettle, her sister-in-law had vanished. Lusa heard intermittent nose-blowing from the bathroom. By the time Hannie-Mavis emerged, hairdo and makeup fully repaired, the kettle had already boiled and Lusa was steeping the tea. Seeing her standing in the doorway brought Lusa a sudden, harsh memory of the funeral, of looking at all that blue mascara and saying something cold. She wished she could take it back, whatever it had been. She felt penitent for all the times she’d nearly called her Handy Makeup out loud. You had to be so careful with large families. Who knew how things would turn around, whom you’d need in the end, and what could cause you to see even eye shadow in a different light? At this moment Lusa had to admire the woman’s art and energy in the face of heartache. After Cole died, it’d probably been three weeks before she herself had even managed to put a comb to her hair.
Hannie-Mavis sighed as she put her palms flat on the table and eased herself down like an old woman. “Well. How’d your day go?”
“Fine.”
She looked at Lusa. “What do you mean, ‘fine’?”
Lusa shrugged. “I mean it went fine. We had fun.”
“You don’t have to tell me a tall tale, honey. That child’s stinking as a polecat. I’d never say this to Jewel, but I took over driving her to the doctor’s mainly so I wouldn’t have to keep her kids.”
Lusa got spoons, sugar, and teacups—just everyday mugs, not her china cups with moths painted on their rims—and opened her mouth to begin at the beginning, with the broken mirror on the front steps. But a sudden loyalty caught hold of her, imposing its own decision: they could keep some secrets, she and Crys. She sat down without speaking and poured out the tea. “She’s a tough nut to crack, yeah,” she said at last. “But I kind of like her. I was exactly that same kind of kid. Strong-willed.”
“OK, then, honey. You get the Purple Heart.” Hannie-Mavis unsnapped her purse and rummaged inside. “Is it all right if I smoke in here?”
Lusa jumped up and got an ashtray from the small drawer by the sink. Put there last by Cole, she realized, feeling a small, electric sting at the thought of his hands on this object. Each little stab like this seemed to move the larger pain further away from her center. She was beginning to understand