blinked a few times in surprise before she shifted and hopped off the counter, carrying the small bowl of discarded strawberry greens over to the trash can. She pressed her foot on the pedal and the lid popped obediently open. ‘Man, he’s still living here? That’s crazy.’
‘Bean? Compost?’ our mother said, raising her eyebrows and gesturing with the knife toward the container to the left of the trash can. Too late. Bean shook the last of the strawberry tops into the trash can. She shrugged, as though it had been out of her hands, and walked the bowl over to the sink.
‘It’s not so bad living here,’ Rose said, stung slightly.
‘Oh, stop. I’m not talking about you. We grew up here, it’s different. It’s not like you went to college here and then just decided to stay because it was so bucolic.’
‘It is bucolic,’ our mother said.
‘Not everyone wants to live in a city like New York,’ Rose said.
‘And that’s a good thing. It’s crowded enough there already,’ Bean said, and dropped the bowl in the sink, where it clattered enthusiastically.
‘What is the city but the people?’ Rose quoted.
‘So you’re going to go back?’ our mother asked.
Bean shrugged. ‘I’m not staying here, that’s for sure.’ The knife slipped in Rose’s hand, making the tiniest nick in the fleshy pad of her thumb. She lifted it to her mouth, sucking sour salt, sweet tomato.
‘You really quit your job?’ Rose asked, pulling her thumb from her mouth and examining the cut.
Bean looked at her. ‘Yes. Why is that so hard to believe?’
‘I don’t know. I guess I just thought you might have mentioned it to us or something. That you were planning to.’
‘What, in our chatty once-a-week phone calls?’ Bean sneered. ‘I didn’t realize I had to keep you apprised of my five-year plan.’ She could feel the meanness welling up inside her, but was helpless to stop it. It was anger that should have been directed at herself, but for crying out loud, couldn’t Rose ever leave anything alone?
‘You don’t have to bite my head off,’ Rose said. ‘I was just asking.’
‘You never just ask, Rose. You just want to criticize me.’
‘I’m not criticizing. Forgive me for showing a little interest.’
‘Girls,’ our mother said. We ignored her.
‘I quit my job. I didn’t want to work there any more. I was sick of New York. What more do you want? Take thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh.’
‘Don’t get dramatic. If I were going to quit a job I wouldn’t just up and do it without planning. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘Of course you wouldn’t. But we just can’t all be as perfect as you are, Rose.’ Bean walked over to the refrigerator and yanked the door open, staring blindly at the contents inside. The cold air pushed the tears in her eyes away. She closed the door and turned back to face them.
‘You can stay as long as you want. It’s nice to have you girls home,’ our mother said, as though she hadn’t heard our fight, rinsing her hands and shaking them dry. The last of the sunlight drifted through the window, illuminating the lines on her face, and Bean was surprised, as she always was when she came home, by how our parents were ageing. Like the changes in the furniture, Rose hardly noticed it. It was gentle as erosion to her. To Bean, it was a seismic shift. Since we were young, our mother had gathered her hair in a large, loose bun near the crown of her head, secured with invisible bobby pins. But the chemotherapy had stolen her hair, the deep brown we’d always shared with her, and her eyes, an intense blue that had lost the genetic battle with our father’s chocolate brown, looked pallid. The scarf tied around her head outlined her paling skin, her eyes looking huge and lost in her face. There were the beginnings of a wattle under her chin, yet her hands seemed frail and bony, the skin taut over sharp bones.
Bean ran her own fingers nervously under her chin, which, thankfully, was still firmly hugging her jawline. When had this happened? When had our mother gotten so old? Was it just because she was sick? Or was this happening to all of us, without our noticing?
A rush of fevered guilt swept over her and she gripped the edge of the countertop, willing herself not to faint. There was no use wondering about it – we were all getting old. And while time had been passing her by, Bean had been drowning her youth in a sea of clothes and meaningless men.
‘I’m going to change,’ she whispered to herself, as if the words had the power to do the hard work for her. Beside her, our mother and Rose chattered away, ignoring her distress. It didn’t matter. Bean had a long road to go before her vow would mean anything anyway. We all did.
‘Bianca, will you help, please?’ our mother asked. She was hunched over, dragging a basket of wet laundry to the back door. The house had a perfectly functional dryer, but our mother insisted, when the weather allowed, on hanging sheets and towels out to dry. We’d put our collective foot down long ago about having our clothes swinging on the line for the neighbours to see, but we hadn’t won the linens battle, so we put up with slightly stiff sheets and towels.
Bean was lying on the couch, her feet hooked along the back, reading a history of World War II with one hand, staining the pages with the juice from the plum she was eating with the other. She’d been home for three days, and had done nothing but sleep and read and eat, and only the fact that our mother didn’t typically keep corn chips and chocolate in the house had kept her from turning her hibernation into a fully bear-like preparation for winter.
‘Oh, leave it,’ Bean said. She shoved the rest of the plum in her mouth, working the flesh off the pit with her tongue as she got up, wiping her hands on her shorts. ‘I’ll get it,’ she said, mouth full. She was barefoot and bare-legged, her shorts revealing the slight shadow of her last spray tan. There was a dribble of pale juice along the neckline of her tank top.
Our mother pushed open the back door and Bean hoisted the laundry basket up, in one motion stepping out the door and spitting the plum pit towards the garden in a graceful arc.
‘Lovely,’ our mother said. ‘Very classy.’
‘Hey, maybe you’ll grow a plum bush. Or tree? Do plums grow on trees?’
‘Yes, trees. Classy and lacking in horticultural education.’
Bean dropped the basket under the clotheslines, the whites inside jumping and resettling on impact. ‘I can do this, Mom. You should go inside and rest.’
‘All everyone wants me to do is rest,’ our mother said. ‘I feel like I’m on a rest cure in some Victorian novel.’ She bent over and shook out a sheet with practised ease, the damp fabric bursting against the thick air.
‘Sorry,’ Bean said. ‘I didn’t know.’ She knew she had missed so much of what our mother had been through, that her phone calls hadn’t yielded the entire story, wouldn’t have even if Bean had made them more regularly.
‘Get the other end of this, will you?’ our mother asked. ‘It’s not you, Beany, I’m sorry. I do get tired quite a lot, and it’s frustrating not to be able to do all the things I’d
