The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [64]
“She’s not in the hospital.”
“No. She wants to stay at home. People will come in to help take care of her at home.”
“If she dies, she’ll die at home?”
“I’m not sure, Rachel.”
“But it’s possible.”
“It’s possible.”
Rachel takes this in. She dips her head. “Just for the record,” she says, “even when I’m a teenager, I’m not going to be a self-absorbed creep like Max.”
“I know you won’t, sweetie.” Ginger is tempted to defend Max but decides against it. One self-absorbed caterpillar in the house is quite enough.
Then there Ginger is, standing in a circle with eight other women, holding hands in the middle of Marie Coleman’s kitchen. It’s an odd place to try to invoke some kind of holy moment, but after they finish their cake and coffee, it seems logical not to move into another room. And here’s pretty, timid little Marie, good grief, sounding like she could be an evangelist.
“So we ask you, Father God . . . we do not think it is too much to ask you . . .”—she intones in forceful italics Ginger didn’t think she was capable of—“for a miracle, on behalf of our neighbor and sister, Paisley Lamm, who is suffering such grievous pain . . .”
Ginger hopes this isn’t true. Andrea insists Paisley is mainly just tired. Her back was hurting her last week, well, her stomach, too, but then she got the morphine drip and it helps so much. So much. She’s uncomfortable, that’s all.
“We ask this miracle on behalf of ourselves and on behalf of her loving family . . . yes, Father God, we ask a miracle on behalf of a devoted husband and two young daughters—children, Father God, who need her so much—”
Marie is beginning to sound as if she’s gearing up for a revival where someone will speak in tongues or get saved. Ginger is a believer, or used to be, but she wishes Marie would settle down. As Max said, prayer meetings aren’t her style. She took the kids to church when they were little, but it soon became clear Eddie was never going to join them, and after people began asking her to cook for potluck dinners and join committees, she quit. Eddie was running the store then. She was stuck with the kids full-time, restless for some out-in-the-world adult work of her own, not volunteer work, not child care. She hasn’t thought about finding another church since. She hasn’t missed it.
“We ask you, Father God,” Marie concludes, “for this MIRACLE we all so earnestly desire for our friend. We ask you to make Paisley Lamm WELL. We ask this in your name, and the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
“Amen,” everyone echoes. Ginger wonders what anyone can add after that, though somehow they do. They go around the circle, each one speaking if the spirit dictates—this was Marie’s choice of words—and remaining silent if not.
Some newcomer to Brightwood Trace, a woman who has probably met Paisley once, drones on for at least five minutes. Ginger’s mind wanders. The last time she saw Paisley before she got sick was not on the street or out in the yard but in Stein-Mart. Ginger had just found a pair of shoes for a wedding and was carrying them to the checkout. Paisley was standing in the aisle hugging a sleek black leather chair to her chest, which she was discussing with a salesclerk. When the clerk walked away, Paisley set the chair down with a clunk, looking miffed. She seemed a little embarrassed when she spotted Ginger. With a cocked head and comic face, she said in a joking, trying-not-to-show-her-frustration way, “These would be perfect in my dining room, wouldn’t they? But they only have one. One!” She rolled her eyes toward the soundproofed ceiling. “The trials of shopping at outlet stores!”
That was what Paisley had been worrying about, less than two months ago. Chairs.
“Amen,” everyone echoes. Then it is Ginger’s turn, if she wants a turn, but she doesn’t. Silently, she prays, “Show me what I can do for her. Let me help her if I can.”
At first Julianne thought, Why, this is going to be a coffee klatch, not a