The Words We Whisper by Mary Ellen Taylor
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ZARA
Richmond, Virginia
Monday, June 7, 10:00 p.m.
Zara settled Nonna into her bed, walked her dogs, and made herself a cup of coffee. Gina’s illness made it impossible for her to think, to read, or to sit for long periods. She used the energy to clear more boxes from the attic, allowing the heat to burn all the thoughts from her mind as she dragged the larger trunks to the edge of the stairs, hoping among them was the small wooden box. Zara found only old pairs of shoes, purses, small mementos from a trip to Paris in the 1970s, and all manner of junk that had lost its value a long time ago.
Finally, exhausted and soaked in sweat, she showered and changed into clean clothes and walked her dogs again.
When the headlights of a car swiped over the garage, Zara was sitting in her lawn chair by the attic items. She raised a cold beer to her lips and took a long drink.
With her clients she had always suggested balancing honesty with kindness, but right now she prayed she would not cry or scream. She took another pull on her beer.
Gina rose out of the back seat of the car, and when the security lights clicked, they caught the silhouette of her painfully thin figure. How was it that she had not noticed this before? She was a nurse, for God’s sake.
“What are you doing up so late?” Gina asked. “I can’t remember a time when you weren’t in bed by nine.”
“I was waiting up for you.” Zara raised the beer to her lips and finished the dregs.
“Why? Is Nonna all right?”
“She’s doing well. Her doctor was impressed.”
“Good.” Gina opened a red purse and dropped her keys inside.
Zara tipped her beer toward the empty lawn chair beside her. “Gina, she told me about you.”
Gina lowered into the chair. For a moment she barely drew in a breath. “What did she tell you?”
Zara set her beer down. “You have pancreatic cancer.” She stared at her sister, praying she would laugh and chalk up their grandmother’s story to old age and dementia.
“I didn’t think she knew,” Gina said. “But I should have known better. Very little gets by that woman. I was going to tell you, but I didn’t know how. Then last Saturday she insisted she needed your help, so I called you.”
All the hope Zara had pieced together scattered. “So it’s true.”
Gina fiddled with a shoe charm on her bracelet. “Yes it is.”
“How long have you known?”
“A few months at best. The symptoms are managed, but it’s a matter of time before the treatment won’t work. I’m already losing energy.”
Little Sister rose up from her bed and walked to Gina and licked her leg. Gina picked her up, and the dog settled in her lap.
“That guy I saw you with, is he your boyfriend?” Zara asked.
She looked amused. “No. I was hoping mindless sex would make me feel better.”
“Did it?”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t bad. But to say I saw stars would have been an overstatement.”
Zara drew in a breath. She had traveled this road with a dozen clients, but this time she was out of her depth. “Can you still work?”
“Barely. Business had trailed off at the shop this year anyway. My manager has no desire to take over the store, and I can’t see you running it, so I let the lease run out. What inventory is not shoved in the spare rooms here was sold. June thirtieth we are closed for good.”
“You haven’t been going into the shop, then.”
“I booked a motel room and slept. I’ve not done much of that in the last few months, and it felt terrific. I didn’t want you or Nonna to know how tired I was.”
“You can start sleeping here now. Nonna and I can take care of you here.”
“I know you’re being kind, but the idea of you and Nonna bossing me feels like the fourth degree of hell.”
“How so?”
“I was the one that took care of the problems. I took care of my mother when she was sick, and I took care of you when you arrived on Nonna’s doorstep. I looked after Nonna when Papa died.” She shook her head. “I was expecting once Nonna went over the rainbow bridge that I would sell the shop. My big plan was to travel. Drink great wine, laugh, and have wonderful sex. I was really going to live a little before I figured out the next chapter. So much for that plan.” She looked around the crowded garage. “What’s with all this shit?”
“There’s something she wants us to see.”
“What?”
“A small wooden box somewhere in the attic. I’ve yet to find it, but it can’t take much longer.”
“Good. I’m running out of time,” Gina quipped. “Don’t take too long.”
Zara’s throat tightened. “I should have the last of it out by tomorrow.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you were the one with all the answers.”
“Nope, I take it a day at a time like you do.”
Gina’s blank expression crumpled, and she buried her face in her hands. “I was hoping for more days, Zara. More time. Nonna is almost ninety-eight years old. I’m forty-one, for Christ’s sake. That’s a fifty-seven-year difference.”
Zara rose from her chair and draped her arm around Gina’s thin shoulder. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“I don’t want to take this journey. I know there are stages of grief, but I’m stuck in denial with the occasional shift to anger. Acceptance is nowhere near in sight.”
Tears welled in Zara’s eyes. She had held countless clients as they had wept and begged God for more time. She had cried her share of tears with them. But there had always been a sliver of distance that had allowed her to keep going. Now there was no barrier separating her from the knife edge of pain.
“I’m going to find the box,” Zara said.
“And then?”
“We’ll find out what Nonna’s hiding. And maybe have a party. We can invite George. And a few of the neighbors.”
“Nonna’s lost interest in her neighbors. But it would be nice to see George again.”
“Then I’ll make it happen.”
“Invite your friend Nicolas,” she said finally. “Nonna’s rather sweet on him.”
“How do you know?”
“She called me and told me so.”
Zara brushed away her tears. “I’ll even dress up for the party.”
Gina’s lips tipped into a half smile. “Now I know Jesus is calling me home.”
Tears welled in Zara’s eyes, but she forced them back and crammed them in a box with her anger and frustration.