The Perfect Mistress (31 page)

“You can't take it all out?” Lauren asked. “All of the affected area?”

“No. Such an operation would be fatal. There wouldn't be enough left for her to be functional. There really is nothing we can do about it. I'd be surprised if you made it six months,” he said bluntly.

“So, I'm dying for real?” Joyce finally managed to say.

“I think your focus should be on being comfortable in these last days,” Dr. Rodriguez said.

“How is a person supposed to be comfortable when they have a date with death?” she snapped.

The doctor looked at her sympathetically, then patted her hand. “Let me know if I can do anything for you.”

“Yeah, you can give me a new brain,” she snapped. Julian's
hand went to the small of her back. For once she wasn't comforted by her son's touch.

“Why is this happening to me?” Joyce cried when the doctor left the room. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

She buried her head in her hands and sobbed. Julian immediately moved toward her. Lauren hesitated, but within moments she was hugging her, too.

J
ust when Lauren thought the situation couldn't get any more dire, her mother's psychiatrist delivered the final blow.

“I'm sorry; after reviewing all of the doctor's notes, that's my recommendation,” Dr. Lawson said.

They'd returned from Dr. Rodriguez's office and tried to get their mother settled in the facility. It was grueling because she kept crying that she didn't want to die in that place.

Her outbursts had brought out Dr. Lawson, and once they'd gotten their mother settled, Lauren and Julian had returned to Dr. Lawson's office for this news.

“What does that mean?” Lauren asked.

The doctor sighed. “It means your mother is right. The best thing for her right now is to be with family.”

Lauren instantly balked and turned to her brother. “So, do I need to get her plane ticket or will you?”

Matthew, who had met her here once Lauren called so upset, put his hand on her leg.

“Come on, Lauren,” Julian said. “We need to be realistic. This isn't about us. This is about our mother and making her last days comfortable. North Carolina is her home. She has friends here.”

“She doesn't have any friends,” Lauren pointed out.

“Plus, I'm about to be deployed to Iraq,” Julian continued.

“Tell them you can't go,” she replied.

“It doesn't work like that. And besides, there is no way Rebecca can handle Mom and the twins alone.”

“Oh, no,” Dr. Lawson interjected. “I wouldn't suggest putting her on a plane. She can't handle that trip emotionally or physically.”

Julian shrugged like that was the end of the discussion.

Lauren glared at her brother as her eyes misted.

“We got her,” Matthew said, stepping in.

“No, we don't,” Lauren hissed.

“I know you have your issues, but she's dying,” he gently said. “Not only do you need to make things right, but you can't let her die in this place.”

Lauren glared at her fiancé, but he cocked his head toward the door. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” He didn't wait for her to answer as he took her hand and led her out into the hallway.

She didn't say a word as he turned to face her.

“I need you to take a deep breath. I know this is stressful,” Matthew began.

“That's not the half of it,” she replied. “I don't understand why this burden has to fall on me. It's just not fair.”

“Well, we know that life isn't fair,” Matthew said. “Your brother is right. A military base is not the place for your mother. Plus, they have two small children. She doesn't need the stress of rambunctious toddlers.”

“And I don't need the stress of a cantankerous old woman who can't stand the sight of me,” she said.

“Some of us would die to spend time with our mother.”

This bit of pabulum had no effect on her. “Some of you don't have my mother.”

Lauren knew that Matthew had lost his mother in elementary school to a drunk driver. He'd been raised by an aunt, so obviously, his mommy issues were clouding his judgment.

“Sweetheart, don't be like that,” he pleaded with her. “I can't imagine letting someone you love die alone.”

Lauren motioned around the facility. “Look at all these people. She won't be alone.”

Matthew continued to show that endlessly patient face he had.

“I just don't understand why this burden has to fall on me,” Lauren continued as she began pacing back and forth in the hallway.

“Because there is no one else. It doesn't mean that your brother loves her any less. It just means that you're in a better position to care for her.”

Lauren spun around, her eyes misting. “What about me? Does anyone care that I'm the one sacrificing? I'm tired! She hates me!”

“Your sacrifice doesn't go unnoticed. I know you think your brother doesn't notice, that your mother doesn't appreciate you, but they do.”

“If I wasn't here, they'd have to figure something out,” Lauren muttered.

“But you
are
here.
We
are here. This is not all going to fall on you. It will fall on
us
,” Matthew said, taking her hand to stop her pacing.

While his words touched her, the mere thought of her mother living with her gave her hives. “Oh, great. Just what I need to start off my marriage—my mother living with me.”

“Lauren . . .”

“I have to go.”

“Where are you going?”

“I need some air. I will call you later.”

Aunt Velma's house had always been a place of solace. That's why Lauren turned her BMW into the driveway of her aunt's house. She was her voice of reason when Lauren was a ball of emotions.

“You okay?” Aunt Velma asked, greeting Lauren at the front door before she could even ring the doorbell.

“No.”

Her aunt stood to the side and motioned for her to come inside.

Lauren stomped past her, flung her purse on the sofa, then spun to face her aunt. “I can't do this.”

“Do what? Have your mother come live with you?”

“How do you know?”

“Julian called me.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “Let me guess, he wanted you to convince me to let her stay.”

“I don't need to convince you to do what's right.” She closed the front door firmly. “Have a seat.”

Lauren fell down on the hard sofa as her aunt took a seat in the recliner across from her.

“You and your mama about to work my doggone nerves,” Velma said.

“What?” Aunt Velma always took her side when it came to her mother, so this was surprising.

“Y'all both getting on my nerves. Your mama knows better, and at this point you know better, too.”

“I'm not the one with issues. She's the one that has held on to all this hate for me—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were a child when my brother
was doing his dirt,” Aunt Velma said, cutting her off. “But I'm talking about now. You and your mama need to put on your big-girl panties and deal with your issues.”

“Again, I don't have any issues. You're sounding just like her.”

“She has issues. She chose to stay in that marriage. And I love my brother to the core of my soul, but how you let a man do you is how he'll keep doing you. The minute she showed him that his cheating was acceptable, he knew that it was acceptable. So she needs to accept her role in that.”

“That's what I've been trying—”

“And you,” she said, cutting Lauren off, “you need to understand that your mother was hurt and she's been carrying that demon for a long time.”

“I understand that,” Lauren said resentfully. “That's why I've been going there.”

“But you stand in judgment of her.”

That brought Lauren up short. She supposed her aunt was right about that. Lauren finally sighed. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Your mother doesn't have long. The doctors done told you. Let her come stay with you. Make things right. God doesn't make mistakes. Everything happens for a reason, even if we don't know what that reason is. Maybe He wants your mother living with you so you can find some common ground to help you both heal.”

They'd given her mother six months. Maybe she could try. That way—whether it worked or not before her mother died—Lauren could say she tried.

J
oyce needed some laughter in her life. Something, anything to help her smile. That's why she was wheeling herself down the hall to the dining room. This stupid wheelchair was aggravating, but since the nurses were worried about her getting dizzy and passing out, they insisted that she use it.

The nurse had tried to serve Joyce breakfast in her bed, but she didn't want to be stuck there. Julian was coming by to see her before he left this morning and she was praying for a miracle.

Dear God, please let my son have a change of heart
.

Joyce didn't know why that prayer found its way into her thoughts. She knew that Julian couldn't take her back with him. Part of her understood that it didn't make sense for her to go live on an army base. But the other part couldn't help but hold out hope.

Joyce wanted to go say good-bye to a few people before Lauren and Matthew came to pick her up. She rolled up to a table in the rec room, where a somber Pearl and Wanda sat with a couple of friends.

“Good morning,” Joyce said.

They all looked up at her, and only Wanda muttered a weak, “Morning.”

“Well, I guess y'all must've heard I was leaving,” she said. “That's the only thing can explain why all of you are sitting around here with puppy dog faces.”

They exchanged glances that made Joyce uneasy.

“Okay, what's going on?” she said. That's when she noticed the empty seat next to Pearl. “Where's Ernest?”

Still, no one said anything. “Hello, are y'all mute today?”

Pearl gently patted her hand. Joyce instinctively pulled it away. “Somebody needs to tell me something. Where is Ernest?”

“Ernest died last night,” Pearl said, her words soft and filled with pain.

“What?” Joyce said.

“Cancer won,” Wanda said, her eyes getting misty.

Even though they all knew death was imminent, Joyce didn't think any of them were ever prepared.

“They found him on the floor in his bathroom. They think he'd been there all night.”

Wanda shook her head. “Lord, please don't let me die in this place like that.”

Joyce was speechless.

“I need to see his room,” she said, spinning around in her wheelchair. It's not that she didn't believe them; she needed to see for herself in order to process that he was gone.

She rolled down the hallway to Ernest's room. Her wheelchair came to an abrupt halt in front of his door. The empty room panged her heart. The orderlies had already boxed up Ernest's belongings. On the side of the box was written “Donate.”

“Why are you donating his stuff?” Joyce asked the nurse who was passing by in the hallway.

“No one wants it. That's what they told us to do,” she casually said as she went about her rounds. Joyce wanted to cry as she thought about the fact that Ernest had no one who cared enough to pick up his stuff.

“Mama, are you okay?”

Joyce looked back to find Julian standing behind her. She hadn't realized that he'd walked up. Joyce nodded as he grabbed the back of her wheelchair and wheeled her away.

“I don't want to die in this place,” Joyce said.

“You're not. You're leaving in two days,” he reminded her.

“And I'm going out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

Julian spun her chair around, a little sharper than usual. “Mama, I need you to go in with the right attitude,” he said. “This is a big strain on Lauren.”

“Nobody asked her to do me any favors,” Joyce snapped.