Eve hasn’t dialed in twenty-four hours and I’m trying not to read too far into it. We’ve gone longer without talking. Marta, Miles, Auntie Gail, and I are in Oma’s kitchen, cooking up a hippie dinner of nut burgers and baby kale salad. Marta’s a happy little Betty Crocker and Miles is just about dying from excitement, sandwiched between his two older sisters. After we eat, while the aunts and Dad sit in the kitchen going over and over a stack of forms, the cousins and Uncle Edgar gather for another round of Mille Bornes.
After six decidedly non-karmic rounds, I declare Mille Bornes my least favorite game of all time and leave in a massive funk and go into Oma’s room to say an early good night. The aunts come in, say it’s time they upped her morphine. I sit in the rocker in the corner of the room and Miles comes in and climbs into my lap and he smells sweet and sticky, like little kid. Everyone else trickles in and drags up an ottoman or folding chair.
Oma’s in a lot of pain, the aunts say. She’ll be less and less aware, could be any day, any hour, any moment. The more morphine she gets, the closer she is. Which we already knew.
And we all just sit, watching Auntie Gail slide clear liquid from vial into tube, just like the Hospice-Jacks showed. One more dose. Getting closer all the time. And we listen to Oma breathe.
Ten people, in a room, listening to one.
In, out, in, out, in …
I dial Eve. She gets home from gigging and doesn’t dial me. She has dinner and doesn’t dial me. The sun sets and she doesn’t dial me. It’s late and I finally get her on her home speak.
“Oh, word, Lu.”
“Word.”
“I never dialed you back. I was gonna after I ate.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t really scat. My mom and I are about to chow.” I hear a shaver’s voice in the background and Eve goes crickets. “Oh,” she finally says. “Word. My step-Jack’s here, too. We’re just about to sit.”
I hear the shaver’s voice curse as a pan clanks and Eve’s breath comes and then goes hush. She’s covering the mouthpiece.
“Are you for sure that’s your step-Jack?”
“No. I’m not for sure.”
I’m silent.
She sighs. “Nate’s here.”
I go flip inside. I see in my mind’s eye Nate Gray working his shiny-toothed Cheshire cat grin, his sky-blue eyes honing in on Eve, slimy words coiling about, oozing poisonous charm, working his evil magic.
“Oh,” is all I manage to say.
“We’re just scatting. We’re really just talking.” Her voice rises an octave with each sentence. “Lu, I need to do this. I gotta do this myself. Please.”
I shake my head, but she can’t see.
“Just trust me. I gotta see this through.”
“I’m coming over.”
“Don’t you dare.” Her voice cuts like a knife.
She’s soft-bodied aphid and I’m all chewed up.
I hang up and my speak doesn’t ring.