Diedre paused outside the music room and listened at the door. If Mama was sleeping, she would come back later. But she didn't hear the shallow, rasping snore that had grown steadily worse as her mother's lung capacity had declined. All was silent.
She pushed the door open a crack and peered in. Mama lay on the chaise with her eyes closed and a book turned upside down on her lap. Diedre felt a jolt in her chest, as if her heart had stopped beating for a second or two. Every time she entered this room she held her breath, hoping that her mother wouldn't just slip away without a chance to say good-bye.
Protracted dying wore on everybody in different ways. Daddy was in denial, going about his business as if his wife of more than forty years had merely holed herself up in the music room to finish reading a compelling book or to decide on a new wallpaper pattern. Vesta—always there, always faithful and loving—had steadfastly refused to take part in any discussion of what would happen when "Miss Celia" finally passed over. And Diedre found herself vacillating between the two—longing to flee, wishing she could take refuge in denial—but able to do neither with any degree of success.
Six months earlier, before the pain medication had been increased, Diedre and her mother had talked about dying. "Don't let them put me on any machines," Mama had made her promise. "No more surgery, no more chemo. I've had enough. Just keep me comfortable and let me go."
The cancer had first appeared three years ago in the right breast, but Mama adamantly refused to allow Diedre to leave college during the last semester of her senior year. After a double mastectomy, the doctors seemed to think she might be able to beat it—she was not yet sixty, and a prime candidate for survival. But then the tumors began to appear—in the lungs, in the liver, in the pancreas. It was like fighting mildew in a shower stall, Mama said—you scrub and scrub, but when you come back a day later, there it is again. Different corner, same mess.
And so Diedre had put her own dreams on hold and returned to Heartspring. Mama had held on for nine months, but she was beginning to lose the battle. Diedre could see it in her mother's eyes, hear it in every labored breath, feel it in the paper-dry touch of those trembling fingers. Even smell it in the odor of antiseptic and decay that lingered in the corners of the room.
Well-meaning friends said Diedre was lucky—or blessed, depending upon their religious beliefs and philosophies. Here she was given the opportunity to spend time with Mama, to express all those unsaid feelings, to say a proper farewell.
But despite months of grieving the inevitable loss, Diedre knew she wasn't really prepared for that moment. She would never be prepared. How do you steel your heart to let go of someone you love?
"Mama? Are you awake?" As Diedre pushed the door open a little farther, Sugarbear shoved past her and launched herself onto the chaise lounge where her mother lay. "Bad dog!" Diedre hissed. "Get down!"
"Let her be, sweetie."
Mama's eyes didn't open, but one hand reached out slowly to pet the dog's silky ears. Almost as if she understood the situation, Sugarbear settled herself on the edge of the chaise, careful not to crowd her mistress. Her tongue reached up and kissed the hand that stroked her.
"Miss Barrett will receive you now," Mama said wryly, her voice little more than a whisper against the morning.
Diedre smiled. Ever since Mama had been moved to the music room, she had likened herself to Elizabeth Barrett Browning—the elegant invalid, couched with her faithful spaniel Flush upon a velvet chaise, welcoming visitors in proper Victorian majesty.
"How are you feeling this morning?" Diedre pulled a chair up close to the chaise and took her mother's hand.
"Like Death, not quite warmed over." Mama's eyes fluttered open. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."
Tears stung Diedre's eyes. "Let's not talk about my birthday."
Mama frowned. "Why not? It's not every day you turn twenty-five. This is a big day. I have a present for you—the last one I'll ever be able to give you." She pointed toward the bay window. A brightly wrapped box sat on top of the grand piano.
"Mama, how—?"
"Vesta helped me. As always." Diedre's mother struggled to sit upright, and a fit of coughing overtook her so that she couldn't continue for a moment. "My last gift, and my best."
Diedre went over and retrieved the package, then came back to her chair. "Do you want me to open it now, or wait until tonight when Daddy comes home?"
A shadow passed across the woman's face. "Everything is now," she insisted. Her brow furrowed as she summoned the strength to wave a hand. "Open it."
Carefully, Diedre removed the wrapping and opened the package. Inside, in a nest of pale blue tissue paper, lay a scarred wooden cigar box. Nothing more. It had finally happened—in the last throes of the disease, her mother's mind had gone completely. "It's . . . nice, Mama," she stammered.
A flash of fire briefly illuminated Cecilia McAlister's expression. "Not the box, Diedre." She rolled her eyes heavenward. "What's inside the box. That's your gift. It's what you've always wanted, what I've never been able to give you . . . until now."
Diedre started to lift the lid, but her mother reached out and stopped her.
"Sweetheart, I need to explain something to you . . . "
Diedre stared down at the hand that gripped her own. A claw. A skeleton with skin. Not her mother's hand. She inhaled sharply.
"Yes, Mama? What is it?"
"I should have told you a long time ago. Things . . . aren't what they seem to be."
More than the words, it was the tone of Mama's voice that sent a shock coursing through Diedre, as though someone had shot ice water into her veins.
"What do you mean, Mama?" Against her will, she tried to extract her hand from her mother's grasp.
"Just—" She pointed a trembling finger in the direction of the box. "Open it."
Diedre obeyed. There, in the box, lay an old photograph, yellowed with age and worn around the edges—a black-and-white picture of a small child. An image trapped in amber.
The girl, perhaps four or five years old, sat perched on a man's lap. He leaned back in a ragged, overstuffed chair, and behind them Diedre could make out a dingy living room scene: a sparse Christmas tree and a cardboard fireplace with three stockings pinned to the fake mantle. The girl had dark curly hair and scuffed black shoes with bows on the tops. But it was the face that made Diedre's skin crawl—a round little face with huge brown eyes, white, even baby teeth, and one deep dimple in her left cheek.
Diedre's face.
"It's a difficult thing to lose a parent, Diedre," Mama was saying. "But it's even more terrible to lose a child . . . "
Diedre focused on the photo again. It could have been her face, but it wasn't. The clothes were all wrong. The room was totally foreign to her. The man, however, seemed familiar. He was smiling broadly, his arms wrapped around the child in an attitude of pure joy.
Then the significance of the picture struck her like a physical blow.
"It's Sissy," she breathed. "My sister! With Daddy!"
"Gone," her mother wheezed, her breath more labored now. "Gone forever." Alarmed, Diedre leaned forward. "Mama, are you all right?"
"I will be . . . now." With monumental effort she reached her hand in the direction of the photograph. "Find yourself," she whispered. "Find your truth." She sagged back against the pillows. "Just don't expect it to be what you thought it would be."