The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [63]
“Lori wanted you to know, in case we have to go to the hospital. We’ll check in, and then they’ll put us in a birthing room and you can meet us there.”
“Well, call me with the news as soon as there is news.” This isn’t the time to say she’s not going. She’s walking fast toward home, though why the sudden hurry she has no idea. “Good luck,” she says. But Jeff has already hung up.
Chapter 16
November 13
On the morning of the prayer meeting, Ginger pulls on sweatpants and hauls the rug shampooer out of the closet. She’ll clean the living room carpet, shower and dress before she goes to Marie’s, and then head to work as soon as the prayer meeting is over.
“Playing hooky?” asks Max, who knows where she’s going and why. “Since you don’t need to be anywhere, a good plan would be to let me drive the car to school and then you can drive it back.”
“Not a chance. The thought of being in a car with you at the wheel fills me with terror.”
“So it’s okay for me to crash with Dad in the car but not with you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It was implied.” He slurps a spoonful of some multicolored cereal Ginger is sure she didn’t buy. “I can’t believe you’re going to a prayer meeting,” he says.
“Why?”
“It’s not your style. You don’t even go to church. Besides, everybody knows Mrs. Lamm is toast.”
“Toast is something you can never know for sure.”
“She has cancer. She’s not taking treatments.” Max sounds matter-of-fact, but he drops his spoon into the bowl with such force that pink-tinted milk splashes onto the table, which he does not wipe up. Instead, he rises from the table with jerky, work-in-progress movements so awkward that Ginger would feel sorry for him if he weren’t so obnoxious. “Everyone says she’ll be dead by Christmas,” he says. “Maybe even Thanksgiving. They’re taking bets on it at school.”
“I hope you’re not serious.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, let’s see. Maybe because you’re a decent person who knows the difference between good taste and a bad joke?”
“The odds for Christmas are around fifty to one, Mom. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s true.” Then he’s out of the room before Ginger can protest.
Eddie practically bumps shoulders with Max as he comes into the kitchen, briefcase in hand, dressed for a meeting. Blue-striped dress shirt, blue blazer, blue tie. Too much blue. She’s not going to mention it.
“Max can’t help it,” Eddie says. “The teenaged brain isn’t wired for empathy. It’s designed to look forward.”
“If you heard him, why didn’t you say something?”
“Nothing to be gained. There are articles about it.” Eddie pours himself a cup of coffee. “Think of Max as a butterfly emerging from his cocoon. At this point in its development, the butterfly is too busy to think of anything but emerging. It’s an all-consuming task. It can’t develop other skills until later. Max will learn sympathy later on.”
“I see. He’ll become a caring human being once he’s stopped emerging?”
“Exactly.”
“Or else he’ll turn into a serial killer by the age of twenty.”
“I don’t think so.” Eddie laces his coffee with real cream, high-fat cream, cream that’s likely to kill him, and downs it in practically a single gulp. “Don’t worry, you’ll have your butterfly before you know it.”
“I have trouble of thinking of Max as a butterfly.”
“Trust me on this,” Eddie says. He kisses her on the cheek and breezes out. Ginger is left standing there, thinking, Where did Max learn to talk like this?
Why, from Eddie, of course. He learned it from Eddie.
Then there is Rachel in the doorway, her delicate features unnaturally white. “Are you okay?” Maybe her blood sugar is low. “Here, drink some juice.”
Rachel shakes her head. “Is it true? People are saying Mrs. Lamm will be dead by Christmas? Or even before?”
“Your brother is better at gossip than he is at tact.” Ginger pictures her daughter standing on the staircase these past ten minutes, listening to everything, as invisible to Eddie and Max as if she’d been made of glass.
“But is it true?”
“Nobody knows.” She