Ding Dong Dead

18

Gretchen arrived home physically and mentally drained of energy. Nimrod had fallen asleep inside her purse on the way, exhausted from his fun time at doggy day care. The almost full-grown black fur ball was only the size of a stuffed animal and weighed about the same amount, next to nothing. She gently laid the pup on the sofa, poured a glass of red wine, and made a beeline for a lounge chair near the pool, where she wasted no time kicking off her shoes.

The sun was setting behind Camelback Mountain in a giant blaze of orange when Caroline joined her, favorite scotch cocktail in hand.

The moment should have been perfect, with Wobbles purring away under Gretchen’s massaging hand. But the sky wasn’t dark enough yet to mask the way her mother sat down gingerly next to her. Caroline turned her entire body stiffly to set down the cocktail. Gretchen smelled the minty odor of a muscle ointment.

“What happened to you?” she said. “What’s wrong with your neck?”

“I had a car accident today, but I’m fine now. I took two pain pills and the Bengay is working.”

“You look like you’re in pain. Did you see a doctor?”

“Not yet. Maybe tomorrow, if it gets worse.” Caroline rubbed the back of her neck. “If that’s the extent of my injuries, I consider myself very lucky.”

“Let’s hear it. The whole story.”

Gretchen felt her stomach churning as Caroline gave her the details of the accident.

“I assumed you had a fender bender,” Gretchen said, horrified. “This is terrible. You crawled out of your car after rolling over and then attempted to assist a dying woman?”

“I couldn’t believe I was alive.”

“You might have been killed.” Gretchen felt tears welling up. She felt scared, relieved, and angry at the same time. “Injured bodies everywhere, including yours, one person dead? And you didn’t think about calling your own daughter?”

“Everything happened so quickly and others needed my help. I simply reacted. Afterward, I realized that I wanted you to hear the details from me and not before you could see with your own eyes that I was perfectly fine.”

“You aren’t fine.”

“Please.”

“You should have called.”

“Really, Gretchen, I don’t know what you want from me.”

“You know what I want? I want my mother to stop thinking she’s invincible.” Gretchen found herself on her feet, tears flowing freely. “I want her, just once, to reach out to me for help. I want my mother to say she needs me as much as I need her.”

“I’ve had to depend on myself for so long. This is all new, having you living with me.”

The two women came together, hugging, crying, apologizing. “If you’d known about it you would have come there, seen the destruction, and it would have started all over again. I was only trying to protect you from more nightmares,” Caroline said. “I didn’t want that to happen again.”

What her mother said was true. Still, they’d been through these same arguments before. “You hurt me the most when you keep things from me,” Gretchen said. “When you don’t include me in your life. This is the same issue we had during your chemo.”

Caroline took Gretchen’s hands in her own and squeezed. “We still have a lot to learn about each other.”

Gretchen sniffed. “We have some catching up to do,” she agreed. “We spent too many precious years disagreeing.”

She was grateful that they had worked out their differences. She’d witnessed too much hostility between other mothers and daughters instead of love and friendship.

“Cancer,” Caroline said. “The disease that I thought would take my life away brought me a gift beyond anything I could have imagined. It gave back our life.”

“We have to stick close together. We’re all we have.”

While Gretchen blew her nose, she caught sight of her aunt, standing behind them, a camera slung over her shoulder. “What about me?” Nina said, coming closer. “Don’t I count in the equation?”

“Of course you do,” Caroline said, redirecting her next hug to include her sister. “We’re three of the toughest, smartest women in Phoenix.”

“Good genes count for a lot of it,” Nina said, taking a good look at them before frowning. “What’s with you two? You both look a mess. Have you been crying?”

Gretchen shook her head. “A little, but we couldn’t be happier at the moment.”

After Caroline repeated her experience for Nina, mother, daughter, and aunt had another good cry.

“I love fuzzy moments,” Nina said, blowing her nose into a tissue as the threesome walked into the house. “But it’s officially nighttime, and I have an important mission to carry out. Care to come along?”

“Sure,” Gretchen said, feeling closer to her family than ever before. Why did most special moments like this come only after near disaster?

“Don’t you want to know what the mission entails before you sign up?” Caroline asked.

“Nope, I’m in. As long as it’s family, you need only ask. What about you?”

“Okay, then, I’m in, too.”

“Are you sure you’re up to going out?” Gretchen asked her mother. “You’ve had a really bad day.”

“I need to get my mind off the accident. My sister’s always a great distraction.”

Nina rummaged through the hall closet. “Caroline,” she said, “where do you keep your walkie-talkies?”

“Now I’m curious,” her sister said. “What’s this mission we’re on?”

“We’re going to the museum,” Nina replied. “To gather indisputable evidence to support my claim. A disembodied soul lives in the house.” She patted the camera case hanging against her side. “And we are going to prove it.”