The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [120]
And where the hell had Cordy gone? No one had seen her since a few nights before, when our father had run into a slovenly refugee helping himself to leftover chicken, which he was eating directly from a plate in the refrigerator. Had she finally decided that we were right, that she had no business raising a child, and taken off on the winds that had blown her here?
Here is a measure of how upset Bean was: she didn’t even notice how handsome the doctor sitting beside her on the waiting room chair was. She didn’t even glance at his perfectly tousled hair, didn’t even purse her lips temptingly at the gleam of his white teeth, didn’t even watch his broad hands smoothing his white coat as he sat down.
Or maybe this was a measure of how much she had changed, after all, somehow, and finally.
There had been a clot, in our mother’s arm, or maybe her leg, and worsened by the enforced disuse of her bed rest, by the chemotherapy, by the radiation, it had broken off and traveled into her lungs. Perhaps the doctors had told our parents that it was something to guard against, but between our father’s mind being eternally on the book in his hand and our mother’s mind being perpetually . . . well, elsewhere . . . they hadn’t told us. And while they swore it was nearly impossible to predict, shouldn’t we have known?
But we wouldn’t have heard it anyway, would we? With all of us wrapped up in our own private traumas, we weren’t any good to anyone. Not even our mother.
So it had crept through her veins and into her lungs, which is what had left her wheezing so desperately. And she was going to be okay, she was going to be okay, the handsome doctor said this many times, and Bean nodded agreeably each time he said this, but they were going to keep her for a little while. And we could go home and come back for visiting hours tomorrow.
But our father, of course, set up shop in an uncomfortable chair in our mother’s room, so Bean went home alone.
Where Cordy was waiting.
“Holy crap, Bean, what’s going on?” she asked, when Bean came in, slamming the door behind her. “Where is everyone?”
“Where the hell were you?” Bean asked. She stalked to the refrigerator and flung open the door. Cordy had been curled up on the sofa, but she padded after Bean into the kitchen.
Cordy hesitated. “I just went . . . out. With some friends.”
“Going out lasts for a few hours, Cordy. Not days. What’d you do, hit the road and then chicken out?”
Cordy’s back stiffened. “I didn’t . . .” she said, but she couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Well, you picked a hell of a time to disappear. Mom’s in the hospital.” Bean fluttered her fingers impotently at the food in front of her and then closed the door.
“What’s wrong?” Cordy asked, and her voice cracked a little. This was the time she had chosen to leave. Excellent work, as usual.
“A blood clot ended up in her lungs. Crack nursing staff that we are, we somehow completely failed to notice this until she nearly asphyxiated tonight. So good on us, right? How was your trip?” Bean picked a pitcher of iced tea off the windowsill and poured herself a glass.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“No, I left her at the morgue. She’s going to be fine, you moron. Dad’s staying with her, and I’ll go back to visit her tomorrow.”
“I’ll come, too,” Cordy said.
“Don’t put yourself out,” Bean said, slamming the glass down, the tea leaping dangerously close to the edges and then receding like a tide.
“I’m glad you were here.”
“Oh, me too. Thrilled. Lucky me.” Bean turned toward the cabinets for a moment and took a drink and then turned back to Cordy so quickly the liquid splashed on the bodice of her dress, leaving a dark stain across a bright red poppy. “Cordy, where the hell have you been? You can’t just take off like that and not tell anyone. What if I hadn’t been home?”
“Someone would have been there,” Cordy said, pulling the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her hands.
“Who? Dad was out for his walk, Rose is in England! We can’t just keep covering for you, Cordy. There’s not