TWENTY-TWO
gifts
ansley
I don’t know what it was about saying it aloud, but telling us she had cancer had released something in my mother—and released something in her disease. In no time, she had gone from the sassy lady chatting with me over tea and sandwiches to a ninety-pound, gray waif. She was so weak and tired. It was time. Hospice was coming in a couple of days to get her out of pain. I couldn’t stand it. None of the medications seemed to help.
I’ve always been very good at being numb. I’m the doer, the fixer, the one to take charge. It keeps my mind off what is actually happening so I don’t have to face the sadness.
I had lived through tragedy, so I was in a good position to say this was not a tragedy. My mother had lived eighty-four beautiful years tomorrow, and it seemed she would die quickly after a life impeccably well done. I was proud of her for that, for the way she seized every opportunity, lived every moment to the fullest while she was here. I didn’t have to mourn the things she didn’t get to do because I knew she was leaving content. She wouldn’t have to suffer through years as an invalid or a slow, devastating decline. It was what she wanted, what we all wanted, really, but I couldn’t help but feel like a part of me was dying too.
We talked so much during those weeks, and the girls, like they were children again, spent most of their time crowded around their grandmother, trying to get her attention.
“You know,” she said to me that night, before she went to bed, “I think I’d like to go to Starlite Island tomorrow.”
There were moments, many of them, when my mother was confused, and I chalked this one up to that. We were practically carrying her to the bathroom now and setting her on the couch during the day so she could be a part of the action. Her skin had become translucent and thin over her bones. Even sitting caused her pain. I wouldn’t have thought about getting her into a car, much less bouncing her around on a boat.
Mom looked at me intently. “Ansley, I’m serious. I want to go to Starlite Island, where I have my best memories, one more time.”
I smoothed her hair across her forehead, kissed her sunken cheek, and said, “Well then, Mother, to Starlite we shall go.”
She smiled, her eyes closed. “I want to see your father,” she said softly. Daddy’s ashes were spread all across that beloved island of his, that place where we were raised, that raised us. But I knew she didn’t mean his ashes.
“Did you know,” Mom said, looking up at me, “that Starlite was the first place you ever saw water?”
I smiled, my eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t know that,” I whispered.
She nodded. “You were only four weeks old the first time we brought you to Peachtree Bluff. It was unusual for women to travel with babies so early in that day, but your father couldn’t stand the idea that his girl hadn’t seen the ocean.” She paused and smiled, and I knew she was back in that moment. “He couldn’t wait for you to see that spot where the river meets the sea, where the world connects, where we all connect.”
“The water binds us all,” I said, repeating something my father had said to me so many times.
Mom nodded. “You slept the whole loud, bumpy ride to the island. But the moment we stepped out of the boat, you woke up, quiet and wide-eyed, looking around. You smiled for the very first time. And we knew then that another water lover had been born. Your father was so proud.”
I wanted to stay longer and soak up all her stories and memories while she was still here to give them to me. Instead, I tucked Mom in gently, and as I left her room, heard her tiny, frail moan. I wished for a quick and safe passage for her, a gentle exit from this world where she was no longer comfortable. I wished she would sleep and that the pain pills would kick in tonight. I also wished I, like my mother and Sloane, believed there was some sort of beautiful next life where I would see her again. But that idea had left me long ago.
I walked out to the front porch where Caroline, Sloane, and Emerson were all perched, a bottle of wine on the coffee table. It was quite stunning, actually, how those girls had rehabilitated my Sloane. I wasn’t sure if it was the sea, the stars, the wind, or the sisters . . . but whatever it was, she seemed to be a willing participant in her life again, and while I could see the distraction, the wondering, and the worrying written all over her face, she was a present figure in her sons’ lives again. I was grateful yet again that this had happened when we were all here, when her family could pick up the pieces.
“Girls, Grammy wants to go to Starlite Island.”
“Seriously?” Sloane asked.
I nodded.
Caroline sighed. “I’ll ask Jack if we can use his boat again.” Then she wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Unless you want to ask him yourself, Mom?”
I shot her a look, but part of me did want to ask him. One, I could see Jack. Two, I could see my favorite house. This project couldn’t have come at a better time. It was the only thing I could think of that could take my mind off my mother dying.
Caroline stood with purpose and said, “Oh! We’ll have a party.” Then she disappeared inside the house.
I sighed. “I guess we’re having a party.”
It
