Then she went home for an hour, during which she emptied and loaded the dishwasher, moved laundry through the system, scheduled a doctor’s appointment for Milo whose birthday was coming up, rescheduled an orthodontist appointment for Ava, and sat and gazed into space for nearly ten minutes trying to remember what it was she’d forgotten. Then she went to pick up the preschool kids.
• • •
Lally was in a good mood that day, and Lucas was open to being in a good mood once he’d had some lunch and watched a show. After lunch he surprised Frances by pulling an iPad out of his backpack.
“Look!” he said. “Dad got me a thingy so I could talk to Mom and today he let me bring it to school for show-and-tell.”
“Does it have games?” asked Lally, ever practical.
Lucas frowned. “No, does yours?”
Lally shook her head. “I don’t have one.” There was a pause, and they both looked at Frances.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I don’t have one, either.”
“Do you want to see my mom?” asked Lucas.
Frances frowned. “It’s OK, she might be busy right now.”
He shrugged. “She won’t answer if she’s in a meeting or something, that’s the rule. I only call once.” He’d already hit a shortcut on the screen, and a window had opened up placing a call.
Suddenly Julie’s smiling face appeared. Frances hadn’t seen her in several months, and she was shocked by how pale she was. Clearly Lucas didn’t notice, in that callous but useful way children have of seeing adults without really seeing them.
“Hey, Mom!” he said, grinning and waving the iPad. “Frances is here, look!” He turned it around and handed it to Frances. Then he and Lally turned and ran off to play, presumably. Or to cook meth in the upstairs bathroom, who knows?
There was an awkward moment. “Hi, Julie,” said Frances. “He took the iPad in for show-and-tell, and he was just . . .”
“Showing and telling?” asked Julie, smiling. “Hey, Frances, how the heck are you?”
“I’m good, how are you?” Frances held the tablet awkwardly, not sure if she was supposed to stand still. She needed coffee, so she began walking very slowly toward the coffee maker.
“I’ve been better, but I’ve also been worse.” She paused. “Why are you walking like the queen?”
Frances laughed and stopped. “I’m trying not to wobble you.”
“You realize you’re not really carrying a tiny me in your hands, right?”
“I need coffee,” Frances replied. “I’m having my early afternoon brain cramps.” She propped the tablet on the counter and made coffee.
Julie asked, “Is Lucas still there?”
“Uh, no. He just handed me the thing and ran off.”
Julie sighed. “Can he hear us?”
Frances shook her head.
“Do you have time to chat? I’m bored out of my mind right now.”
“Sure.” Frances took her coffee outside onto the deck and sat down, propping the iPad on her lap.
“So, I hear my husband is punching the neighbors.” Julie didn’t seem shocked, more amused than anything.
“Yup. He’s turned into a total liability since you left. The neighborhood watch association had a meeting recently and it was all about his roustabout behavior.”
“I’ll bet. So, I guess you also heard I got cancer.”
“Yeah, that came up just before the punching. I’m so sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah. I’m bald all over.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It’s not as sexy as you would think.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was . . . weird. I found out, then I came here for treatment really fast, and the whole thing just . . . happened. I didn’t want to make a big thing out of it, and have people being super helpful or anything.”
Frances suddenly laughed. “Yeah, that could be really annoying.”
Julie said, “We let you be helpful, though. We couldn’t have done it without you, literally. Bill is only able to keep working, which means keeping our insurance, because you help with Lucas. You have no idea how much we appreciate it.”
“You could have told me, it wouldn’t have made me more helpful, I promise.”
Julie nodded. “I know. I just wanted to tell you in person, and then the moment never happened. I’m sorry.”
“Yes, please apologize to me for getting cancer. That’s entirely reasonable. Are you doing OK?”
“Not really, but I seem to be responding to treatment, so that’s good.” She shrugged. “It’s too soon to tell.”
“Can I ask you about it?”
“Sure, if Lucas isn’t there.”
“Hold, please,” said Frances, getting up to check on the kids. She soon came back. “They’re upstairs playing a version of My Little Pony that somehow involves storming a castle.”
Julie nodded. “OK, ask away.”
“What kind of cancer?”
“Boob.”
“What stage?”
“Stage three. Pretty bad.”
“Did you cut your boob off?”
“Both of them, in an overabundance of caution and a desire to be able to wear thin spaghetti-strap tops for the first time since puberty.” Julie had been pretty busty, one of those women who were slender but curvy, irritating but hardly blameworthy. “I kind of yearned for a smaller, French-style breast, you know, tiny pink or brown nipples, able to go topless on the beach, able to wear sundresses without a bra, you know. I’d had big tits since I was fifteen. It was time for a change.”
“So, cancer was a lucky break?”
“Fashion wise, yeah.”
“OK, so, how did you find out? Did you find a lump?”
Julie nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty classic. I knew as soon as I felt it that it was cancer. It was just . . . wrong. I went to my OB/GYN that day, got scans, a biopsy, and was in front of an oncologist the same week. Thank God for excellent insurance.”
“Wow.” Frances took a sip of coffee. “What did Bill say?”
“He said, ‘Oh shit.’ Then he cried. Then he stopped crying, and said, ‘OK, what’s the plan?’ I wanted to come here for treatment, he wanted me to stay there, so we fought about it solidly for a week. It sucked.”
Frances was confused. “I’m sorry, which part were you fighting about?”
Julie sighed. “Like I said, he
