The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [65]
Brynne had showed up at Julianne’s house only a couple of days ago to tell her about it. “I wanted to ask you something else about Mom. I won’t stay long. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind.” Julianne had motioned her in.
“Mom’s starting to scratch a lot. I thought you might know what to do. I got her some dry skin lotion, and then some allergy cream, but neither one helps.” Standing in the front hall, apparently not wanting to venture farther, Brynne’s voice was as coolly modulated as ever, but her eyes seemed haunted.
“I’m not surprised about the itching,” Julianne said. “I’m not surprised the creams don’t help, either. I think she probably needs a pill for it. It’s probably coming from the inside.”
“From the inside?”
“It’s because her liver is failing,” Julianne said softly. “The liver isn’t removing the poisons from the body, so the skin gets itchy.”
“Oh.” Brynne nodded, such a serious, worried gesture that Julianne could feel the girl’s aura of peacefulness chipping away, bit by bit. She wanted to hug her, gather her in, offer comfort, but she sensed that touching would be like falling down the rabbit hole—and then who would the child come to for answers? She drew back.
Now she wishes Andrea had said something about the itching. Maybe Julianne should have said something when Andrea didn’t. Itching can be a torment. It’s not just a matter of discomfort. Everyone ought to know. Maybe what they ought to be praying for is a cessation of itching.
Well, too late. They’re locked in a circle, holding hands, asking for a cure. Every one of them knows that Paisley’s condition is terminal. Nothing that happens here can change that.
She hates the way Marie kept asking for a miracle. She doesn’t like to think of God going against His own rules to intercede for someone. The idea of natural laws being interrupted, even for a good cause . . . well, isn’t that what happened when the blackness ran through her those two times in the examining room? Didn’t she know things no one was supposed to know? It was wrong. She can’t get over this, even on Paisley’s behalf. She was glad when Marie finished and they moved on.
She almost didn’t come this morning. Maybe she shouldn’t have. Until she got here, she was doing a little better. Doug and Bill are both out of town this week, Doug to a gift show with his sister and Bill to a medical conference. Such a relief! Bill isn’t there to offer his theories about what happened to Julianne. Doug isn’t there to hover and ask What’s wrong, honey, until Julianne says, Nothing, nothing, in a sharp tone she doesn’t intend.
Since the men left she’s almost come to terms with her tingling fingers—admitting to herself that Bill is probably right (she’ll never admit this to him) when he says she brings on the tingling herself, whenever she discovers some small clue, some pallor, some tremor, that signals illness in a patient she’s examining. It’s not an accident. Not the product of supernatural intervention. Not painful and not as mysterious as she feared . . . just the light of discovery inside her skin, illuminating it from within. It makes perfect sense.
The blackness is something else. It is the opposite of light. It is a sizzling darkness. She prays that it will leave her alone.
Andrea doesn’t realize until she looks around the circle of women praying that she must have thought Courtney’s illness was the last one she’d ever have to face. She’d believed that would be true whether Courtney got well or whether she died. In those days that was how her mind worked. Get through this and you’ll never have to do it again. That idea seems childish now. Here she is—here they all are—dealing with an illness