The Ladies Farm (17 page)

“And we might back out.” The words escaped before Della had time to consider them, but the concept obviously was not new to Barbara.

“And you might back out. Particularly after Pauline died. And you still could. I wouldn’t blame you. But you could wait until Dickie moves.” She smiled tentatively, catching her lower lip with her teeth but holding a look of mild triumph in her eyes. “He accepted the offer yesterday. He’ll be moving in the next month, and I promise I won’t be any trouble until then. You know, Richard always wanted to be a doctor, that’s why he started the business. So he could at least work with doctors.”

Della let out her breath. So this wasn’t about me at all, she thought. It was about Dickie. And Richard, who had always joked about not getting into medical school. And Barbara, Della conceded, silently. It’s mostly about Barbara doing what she could for the two of them. For Della had no doubt that she considered Dickie’s medical career Richard’s greatest legacy.

“And you’re going to die at the Ladies Farm?”

Barbara nodded. “If you’ll let me.”

Now Della looked out at the road, looked at the heat shimmering off the asphalt, studied the gravelly shoulder and the stunted grass along its edge. This is an unforgiving spot, Della thought. It’s hot and dry in summer, probably cold and windy in winter. You can’t even sit out at a picnic table in any comfort. What a place for a rest stop.

In her secret thoughts, Della had wanted Richard to leave Barbara, had wondered why he didn’t. I’m prettier, she would think. I’ve got a much better body; I’m smarter; I work instead of sitting home all day. Now, though, the unthinkable occurred to her: It wasn’t just loyalty to the mother of his child; it wasn’t just respect for her position as his wife.

“How much longer—” Della kept staring at the highway, but she shook her head and started over, “What do the doctors say lies ahead for—”

“Three months,” Barbara said. “Maybe less. But I’m not taking any treatments, and it’s already moving into my bones. And my stomach. The oncologist I saw this morning says he’s seen cases like this where the patient didn’t last two weeks.” Her voice was level. “But he thought three months.”

“Why, that’s not even into next fall.”

“No.”

Della turned and saw Barbara shaking her head. Don’t cry, she started to say, but stopped herself. Of course we should cry.

               Chapter 10

B
arbara didn’t cry long. As if she had been waiting for just this moment, she filled Della in on her medications, on the pain management session she would be starting in the next week, and on her discussions with the home-health people who would be able to care for her at the Ladies Farm.

Della listened and thought about how to convince Kat, about how little choice they had anyway, considering Barbara’s ownership, about how lucky they were that the first-floor room was already so accessible. She imagined pushing Barbara onto the back patio, a plaid blanket tucked around Barbara’s lap and a shawl over her shoulders as they blinked at the early autumn sun. She pictured Kat, Rita, and herself lifting spoons full of broth to Barbara’s dry lips. She saw them hovering at the door as the doctor emerged, shaking his head.

Meanwhile, Barbara spoke calmly about catheters and oxygen, meditation and pain management.

Slowly, afghans and fortifying soups yielded to the chores of fulfilling Barbara’s wishes as they dealt with erosion of her bowel and bladder. Fury at Barbara, for her duplicity, for her use of them to promote her son’s career, vied with fury at Richard for visiting this woman upon them.

She’s dying, Della reminded herself. You wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

Finally she held up a hand to halt Barbara’s monologue. “I want to hear all of this,” she said. “But you’ll just have to repeat it to the others.”

This time Della drove. Inside the air-conditioned bubble, the sunlight conveyed cheer without heat, and she managed a smile at the Castleburg cows, who congregated at the roadside.

Kat was in the office when they arrived home, and Della wasted no time. “We need to get Rita,” she told Kat. “Barbara has something to tell us.”

Rita was in the middle of perming Mrs. Hutto, which gave Barbara time to change her clothes and enabled Della to clear her desk and return calls to the printer and Hugh Jr.

Hugh Jr.’s secretary informed her that he would like to meet with Barbara, Della, and Kat. Della repeated the request to Kat, who shrugged and was checking her calendar when Rita walked in. “What’s up?”

“Where’s Barbara?” Della asked. “This is her show.”

“I’m here.” Barbara walked up behind Rita and looked at them sitting around what had been Kat and Pauline’s office. At her appearance, Flops abandoned her post at Kat’s feet and advanced, tail wagging. “Doesn’t anyone ever use the living room?”

“Guests,” Rita reminded her. “Liable to bounce in at any second.”

Barbara motioned them out the office door with one hand and scratched Flops’ head with the other. “They are all with the pottery lady. She assured me they’ll be at least another hour, and this won’t take that long.”

So the three of them—Della, Kat, and Rita—sat together on the sofa and Barbara, from the upholstered chair opposite, told them she was dying of ovarian cancer.

“Oh, honey!” said Rita, rising and rushing immediately to her. “Honey, that’s so sad.” She leaned over the chair, stretching an
arm behind Barbara to gather her in a hug. “Does the doctor say how long?”

Della and Kat still sat on the sofa as Barbara, dry-eyed and factual, recounted what she had told Della earlier. Rita settled onto the floor next to Flops, but continued holding on to Barbara’s hand as she spoke.

Della didn’t need to look at Kat to feel her rigidity, and she didn’t have to ask to know what Kat was thinking.

“Have you told Dickie?” Kat asked.

Barbara nodded and her eyes moistened. “He’s such a good kid. He has a hard time accepting, you know, that treatment isn’t … that there really isn’t anything … that all his training is no help at all.”

“So Dickie understands,” Kat continued, as Della squirmed, “how much care you’ll be needing, what it will take while you’re,” she paused, “while you’re in the later stages of your illness.”

“Oh, of course,” Barbara said.

“So you’re planning on living with Dickie and Marcy in Dallas?”

Barbara looked at Della a second, then returned to Kat. “No. That is, I thought, if it’s all right with you, I want to stay here.”

“Here? Not with your family?” Kat’s voice was amazingly level.

“Well, we’re family!” Rita objected.

“I only meant—”

“Dickie is moving to Houston. He has accepted a fellowship there for post-graduate training.”

“But he’s a doctor!” Kat said. “I would think he and Marcy would be perfect … would want you to be with them, so they could look after you.”

Barbara shook her head and Della noticed how her eyes had grown clear again. “Doctors all over the country would kill for this opportunity; he’ll be working with the best heart surgeons in the world.”

“How can he go now?” Kat asked. “When you’re … so sick?”

“Because I told him to,” Barbara said. “I told him that his father had provided a place for me as perfectly as if he’d foreseen the future. That I would be cared for by people who love me and that I could die at home. It’s the only reason he feels comfortable leaving.”

“And he should!” Rita said, rising once more to hug Barbara. “We will take care of you. He won’t have a thing to worry about.”

Kat’s expression had not changed. Cautiously Della reached a hand out to Kat’s arm. “Barbara thought she might move down into the Babe Didrikson,” said Della.

“I’ll pay for any equipment, of course,” Barbara said. “And there’s plenty of insurance; you know how Richard was.” Barbara closed her eyes for a second and leaned toward Rita, who still sat on the floor at her feet. When she looked at Della and Kat again, her gaze was resolute. “And you understand, of course,” she said to them, “this … the Ladies Farm … my interest … that passes to you.”

The Ladies Farm! Della felt the muscles in Kat’s forearm tense, but her unblinking expression remained unchanged.

“Barbara,” Della murmured. “Shouldn’t Dickie be the one—” Barbara shook her head. “He doesn’t want it and he’ll never miss it.” She smiled. “What … how much can one person want … in a lifetime?”

A person could want more than this, Della thought. More than dying of cancer and having to depend on the women with whom your husband was unfaithful. “Well, maybe we’ll just spruce up the Babe Didrikson before you take up residence,” Della said with a heartiness she did not feel. “Paint it, change out the drapes.”

Barbara demurred with a soft shake of her head while Rita merely stared at Della’s sudden gusto for décor.

Kat, meanwhile, remained wooden.

“Zaharias,” Kat said finally, and they all turned to look at her. “Babe Didrikson Zaharias.”

“If she had planned this,” Kat said, “if she had plotted this for years, she couldn’t have devised a better revenge.”

She and Della had returned to the office by themselves, with Barbara at the barn to start a jewelry class and Rita back in the salon. “I know this is hard,” Della began, but Kat cut her off.

“Hard! Slitting your wrists is hard! This … this … you don’t … can’t possibly understand!” She ended with her hands before her in the air.

Oh yes, I understand it all. The fury that the one he cared for more than you was fat and selfish and aside from a few years in the business never worked a day in her life. I understand it all.

But Della thought Kat had enough shock to absorb. And she ached once more for Pauline’s forgiving ear.

“In a way,” she said slowly, “this is what we wanted. She’ll die and we’ll get the Ladies Farm.”

“After we nurse her through to her death. She doesn’t even look sick.”

“She is, though,” Della said. “She’s been hiding a lot. Medication. Weakness. That’s why she takes those naps. We thought she was just lazy.”

“I’m not going to feel sorry for her.” Kat vowed. “I’m not.”

“No one’s asking you to feel sorry for her. And no one’s asking you to take care of her.”

“No? That’s exactly what she’s asking. She’ll need constant care and we, all of us, will be nursing her.” Kat ran her fingers through her hair, tugging on it a little as she reached the ends. “Why can’t she go to a hospice?”

“You heard her: She wants to die at home. Our home.”

“You sound like you want her here.”

Della sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought I didn’t, but then … I don’t know.”

“It’s just because she’s dying and you don’t want to be callous.”

“No.” Della shook her head. “It was before that.” She looked at Kat. “She’s not the way … not who I thought she was. You know what I mean?”

The anger and doubt in Kat’s expression said no, but she did not speak.

“You believe all these things about someone, and her appearance fits what you believe, but then, when you really get to know her … know her personally, not just as someone’s wife or mother … I don’t know, it just turns out she’s not hysterical and she’s not stupid or lazy. And all those years I thought Richard just stayed with her out of loyalty …” Watch yourself, Della warned herself, watch it, but she continued, “I don’t know.”

“Richard was the most loyal person I ever knew,” Kat whispered.

“I know,” Della said. “But did you ever think … did you ever think maybe he really loved her?”

“Of course he loved her. When they were young and she was thin and they were just starting out. Of course he loved her then.” Kat looked at Della sadly.

“Oh, Kat!” Della stepped forward and put her arms around her friend. Kat remained stiff a second, then hugged Della, resting her head on Della’s shoulder.

“I feel stupid,” Kat whispered. “He loved her all along, didn’t he? Until the day he died.”

Della nodded as Kat pulled away and reached for the box of tissues on her desk. “I think so. Kat,” she said gently, “all you have to do is agree to let Barbara stay. I’ll look after the rest.”

“We don’t have much choice, do we?” Kat whispered.

“No,” Della said. “Not really. And it’s what Pauline wanted. And Richard, I guess.”