Just Like Fate. Cat Patrick

       FOUR

       STAY

      I’m still with my sister, staring at the muted news on TV as an awkward, post-apology silence fills the space between us. My mother and my stepdad, Albert, return to the room, but my mother looks like a piece of ripped paper that someone hastily taped back together. She’s got that shiny redness to her face that happens when you cry off your makeup, and her hair’s fluffy-weird like she combed out what had been hair sprayed before. Seconds later, as if it were choreographed, Teddy walks in with two greasy bags from Burger Barn.

      We dive on him like a pack of wild dogs, and just as Nat takes the biggest bite in history, Aunt Claudia breezes in wearing all black with a hot pink pashmina on top. Her bracelets and necklaces clink and clank, even at her slightest movements.

      My mother immediately tenses. Aunt Claudia is her older sister. She’s a manless, kidless career woman who lives by business books. She frowns whenever she looks at me like I’m the visual representation of my mother’s bad choices in life.

      Natalie idolizes her.

      “Hi, Aunt Claudia!” Nat says, mouth full.

      “Hello, darling,” Claudia says, managing to side hug Natalie while still staying far enough away not to get smeared with mustard or calories. She turns to my mother. “Diane,” she says. “You’re looking . . .” Her voice trails off; she doesn’t bother to lie.

      “Nice of you to join us,” Mom says, her words dripping with accusation. I watch them, and like earlier with Natalie, I can see them. How my aunt Claudia talks down to my mother. How my mother lets her.

      Aunt Claudia startles me from my thoughts as she appears in front of me. “You can’t say hello?” she asks with a chilly smile. Teddy speaks for both of us when he asks how she is.

      My aunt doesn’t answer. Instead she turns, like she’s been waiting to look the entire time, and stares at my grandmother lying in the bed. My aunt’s proud shoulders sag slightly, her body seeming to wilt at the sight of her mother dying. But then she straightens and glides across the room to sit next to her.

      “Hi, Ma,” she says softly, touching her arm. We’re all quiet until I hear my mother sniffle, and then Aunt Claudia looks over, stoic as usual.

      “How long does she have?” she asks. “I’ll need to know whether to reschedule my flight to Cleveland.”

      Mom, who’s never been about anyone but family her entire life—maybe to a fault—stares at her sister with her mouth open. Then she shakes her head slowly from side to side, like she’s about to lose it. I freeze with a half-mushed french fry between my teeth, wondering what’ll happen next.

      “You callous—” my mother starts.

      And that’s when Gram speaks.

      “Stop fighting,” she says, blinking her eyes open. “I don’t want those to be the last words I hear.” Her speech reminds me of Judith’s—babylike.

      Gram’s eyelids droop as if it’s a struggle to keep them open at all. We all jump up as my mother and Aunt Claudia crowd around her.

      I grab Teddy’s arm—relief washes over me. She woke up. I nearly start crying when Gram coughs, gritty and thick. My mother tries to help her sit up, but my grandmother waves her away.

      “It’s my time, Diane,” Gram says. “It’s just my time.”

      My brother darts a look at me, his face ghost pale. He touches my hand where I’m gripping his arm. “It’s the medication,” he reassures me. “She’s out of it.”

      “No, I am not, Theodore,” my grandmother says, matter-of-fact. Natalie actually takes a step back; she looks like she might hurl right on the white-tiled floor. “But I’m not going to sit and waste my last breath when you can’t even get along at my deathbed.”

      “Ma,” Aunt Claudia starts to say, when my grandmother turns to her. They both pause, an unspoken mother-daughter look passing between them. The tears in Aunt Claudia’s eyes brim over, and my grandmother reaches to brush her hair back, the same way she’s done for me a million times.

      “Let me talk to the kids,” Gram says quietly, gentle words that make my aunt look down. She waits for a minute, then leans to kiss Gram’s cheek before walking out. My mom, stunned and devastated that she has to leave, can’t seem to move until Albert comes over to take her elbow. He guides her from the room, and when she looks back, my gram winks at her.

      I can’t help it—I start to sob.

      “Take her outside, Teddy,” Gram says. “I want to talk to Natalie for a minute.”

      My brother puts his arm around me and forces me to the door; I turn and watch Natalie as she goes to lay her head on Gram’s shoulder.

      “Now, hush,” Gram says, brushing her hair.

      Their moment is private, intimate. I feel like I’m peeking into a relationship I didn’t know they had, and I’m jealous. I’m jealous that Gram didn’t ask for me first.

      “Come on, Coco,” Teddy says, pulling me out. And when the door shuts behind us, I’m suddenly adrift in my loneliness as I wait for my grandmother’s last words, hoping that she lasts long enough to give them to me.