Daughters for a Time (27 page)

“That means that you’re giving up? Throwing in the towel?”

“Helen, I’m doing everything they tell me to do. But if it’s not enough…”

“I can’t believe you’re going to quit!” I yelled. “You’ve never quit before in your life. And now,
now
, you’re giving up?” My knees buckled and I sat on the edge of her bed. “How can there not be any fight left in you?” I demanded. “People beat cancer all of the time.”

Claire looked at me, her brow furrowed as if to remind me that, yes, that might be true, but people die from cancer all of the time, too.

Later that day, at home, I sat at the table with Sam and Maura. Sam was strapped into her high chair, smearing finger paint on her tray, and Maura was painting with too-wet watercolors, soaking her page with a swirl of a sunset. For lunch, I fixed the girls seashell pasta with butter and parmesan. Afterward, I set Sam in her crib for a nap and Maura in front of the television to watch a Disney movie.

On the edge of my bed, I pulled open the drawer of the side table. I placed the twenty-page report in my lap—our home study, the comprehensive examination written by Dr. Elle
Reese in the months leading up to the adoption. I opened the first page. It read:

Tim and Helen Francis are a loving couple who wish more than anything to adopt a daughter from China. They live in a comfortable home in northwest Washington, DC, in a neighborhood lined with trees and mature landscaping. The Francises would like two children. Mrs. Francis has a sister with whom she is especially close. She feels that the sister relationship is a vital one, one that she would like to pass on to her adopted daughter. The Francises plan to spend some quality time with their first daughter before applying to adopt a second one.

I closed the home study, squeezed my eyes shut, and lay back onto the bed.
Claire
, I whispered,
please.

The next month, Claire was back in the hospital. Her lungs were filled with fluid. After I dropped Maura at school, Sam and I pulled into the hospital parking lot to find that Larry’s LeSabre was already there. As I rounded the corner to enter Claire’s room, I stopped short and peeked in. Larry was sitting at Claire’s bedside, holding her hand and weeping. I pulled myself back out into the hallway, glued my back against the wall, held Sam tightly against my chest. I breathed and processed the image that I had just witnessed, a father coming home.

The next day, I kneeled in a pew at St. Mary’s. I lifted my face from my hands and looked up at the Jesus statue. What was it that Mom saw, that Claire saw, as they sat in these pews, that I wasn’t able to see? Why did they hold the faith so
tenderly, so reverently, when I only saw the evidence that pointed in the direction of no God?

Jesus, God, Mary—any of you?
I wanted to scream.
Help me!
I looked again at the Jesus statue, studied the nails in his palms, the stain of blood, his upward gaze. A shiver snaked around my neck and down my arms.
That’s it!
The missing piece
. A miracle!
That’s what
could
happen. That was what was left.

Please, God. Please.
I prayed to God to intervene on Claire’s behalf, to save my sister. After communion, I kneeled down again and said the prayers that tumbled easily out of my mouth: the Lord’s Prayer, the Glory Be, and the Apostles’ Creed. A gentle calm pulsed through my body—the hope that help was on the way. And then, for good measure, I said a decade of Hail Marys, because if anyone understood the fierce love of a mother, it was the Holy Queen herself.

Like every day, Sam and I picked up Maura after school and drove to the hospital to visit Claire. Once parked, I turned around to see that Sam had fallen asleep in her car seat, her fists unfurled, no longer clenched with anxiety.

“Maura, honey? You ready to go see Mom?”

“I don’t want to,” Maura pouted defiantly.

“But Mommy wants to see you. She loves you. I need you to be a big girl, okay?”

“Mommy’s skin feels weird and she looks different.”

Maura was changing as she struggled with her mother’s illness. Her open, welcoming, trusting face now looked grumpy and anxious. A scowl often played across it, and her cheeks no longer pushed up into a perpetual smile. Just as I’d been repelled by my sick mother sitting feebly in her hospital bed, Maura was working through her own process, as only a
four-year-old could. She yelled at Claire, refused to sit in bed with her, turned away from hugs and kisses. Claire kept a stiff upper lip, but we all knew that it was killing her. The cancer may have been ravaging her health, but her daughter’s rejection was breaking her heart.

“She’s still Mommy,” I said softly. “Now, come on. Let’s go up there with big smiles on our faces—how about silly faces?” I squished my face and stuck out my tongue. “Let’s go give her a big hug and kiss and tell her that we love her.”

“What about my birthday?” Maura asked quietly.

Oh dear. Of course, her fifth birthday, only two weeks away.

Maura’s chest heaved, her mouth darted downward, and her cheeks flushed red. I slipped out of my seat and opened the back door, sliding in next to her. I scooped her out of her booster and into my lap, hugging her tightly. Her wet mouth pushed into my neck and her hands clasped behind my head. “I want my old mommy back,” she cried. I held her, rocked her, until the gulping, choking cries subsided. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell her that her mother and I, both, were selfish. That we had brought daughters into our lives without the guarantee that we could live to see them grow up. All evidence had pointed to the contrary, and we’d plowed ahead anyway.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I lied, knowing that it was far from okay. I knew exactly how Maura felt, the jab and twist of the knife every time I thought about losing Claire. “We don’t have to go right now. How about we go to the cafeteria first for an ice cream? Let’s start celebrating your birthday
right now.
We’ll go see Mom in a little while, okay?”

Maura nodded, stretched her eyes wide, and sniffed. Sam stirred as I lifted her from the seat. “Ice cream?” I said to my sleepy baby. In the cafeteria, the girls chose their treats and ate them quietly. Afterward, I washed their hands and faces, and loaded them onto the elevator. Maura pushed the button. As
we walked into Claire’s room, I saw Father O’Meara praying beside her.

“Hi, everyone!” Claire said in the overly enthusiastic falsetto she now used for Maura’s benefit. “Come here, sweetheart.” She waved to Maura, patting the bed, but Maura inched instead toward the sofa, a magnet pulling her in the opposite direction of her mother.

Claire was wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt, a purple knit cap on her head, and two pairs of wool socks on her feet. She was cold all of the time.

“We were just saying some prayers,” she said. “Would you guys like to join us? Maura, would you like to show Father O’Meara how nicely you say the Our Father?”

Maura shook her head no, while a wave of panic surged through me. All of a sudden, I felt as anxious and childlike as Maura. The fact that Father O’Meara was here wasn’t good. My brain felt mossy and thick. I needed to get some air.

“Take your time,” I said to Claire and Father. “I’ll take the girls outside to the courtyard and we’ll check back with you in a little while.”

“Don’t be silly!” Claire chimed. “Stay. I want to hear about last night’s sleepover.”

Ever since Claire had returned to the hospital, Maura had been sleeping at our house. Sam—as a distraction, as a playmate—helped considerably to ease Maura’s grief.
Run, hop, twirl
, I urged Maura, just keep moving so the hurt can’t catch you.

“We’ll be back. I promise.” I hoisted Sam higher on my hip, grabbed for Maura’s hand, and zoomed down the corridor, the narrow hallway closing in on me.

The automatic doors opened to the courtyard, blasting us with cool air. Maura collected acorns and pine needles while I hugged Sam tightly, resting my chin on the top of her head,
thinking it through. Maybe Father O’Meara visited Claire all of the time. Maybe this time wasn’t necessarily significant. Maybe he was there for reasons
other
than to perform the sacrament of anointing the sick, offering Claire her last rites.
Definitely
, I thought. He wasn’t there for that; there was no way that he was there for that.

Half an hour later, Father O’Meara found us in the courtyard.

“How are you doing?” he asked me.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I said, hearing the unintended curtness in my tone.

“This is a very difficult time,” he said.

“We’ll get through it.”

He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. The sleeve of his cassock, the white of his collar. “It’s time to say good-bye to your sister,” he said.

I stepped back, watched his hand free fall off my shoulder. “No,” I said. “I’m not—”

“Claire has accepted—”

“No she hasn’t,” I argued.

Father nodded, bowed his head.

“Thanks for coming, Father,” I stammered. “But I’m fine. Claire will be fine, too.”

“If you want to talk—”

“It’s getting chilly. I need to get these girls inside,” I said, scooping up Sam and reaching for Maura.

I had no plans to say good-bye to Claire. My only plan was to love her as if each day were her last, take care of her daughter as she would do herself, and wait for the miracle to come. Whether my sister lived another day or another five years, she wouldn’t have a doubt that my heart bled for her.

Five weeks later, in a hospital room just like Mom’s, Claire slipped into a coma. To look at her, she looked nothing like the sister I knew. The waxy, white skin, the lifeless eyes, the frail bones. Yet every time I looked away and then looked back at her, the
glimpse
I caught—that split-second image of her that my mind would capture—registered as familiar.
I see you in there
, my mind would say. What was it? The purse of her lips? The cheekbones perched just high enough to frame her face in a perfect heart?

“She’s on life support,” Ross said. He’d appeared in the doorway. “There’s no brain activity. The doctor said that we need to decide when to…you know.”

“Turn off the machines?” I said.

“That’s what’s left,” he said. “Machines. Claire’s already gone.” His voice broke on the word
gone
. He walked to the window and pounded his fist against the wall. Ross had been pounding his fist against a lot of walls lately.

I nodded. I needed to play this one cool with Ross. He was hurting, and each of us wanted different things here. “There’s no hurry, right?”

“What’s the point in keeping her alive?” Ross wanted to know. “She’s already gone.”

“I know,” I agreed. “I just need to sit with her for a while.” I scooted next to my sister territorially and stroked her frail hand.

“I need for this to be over,” Ross said. “I want to turn off the machines sooner rather than later. Maura has already said good-bye. There’s no way I’m letting her see her mother this way.”