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  Frances was surprised by Madeline’s words, for she hadn’t taken her to be a woman of faith.

  “I didn’t know you were so . . . religious.”

  Madeline frowned. “I didn’t say I was religious. I am, however, in a personal relationship with God. I just don’t care for those organized churches.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Do you?”

  Realizing that Madeline had answered a question with another question, quite possibly to moderate her own response based on Frances’s, she spoke slowly and tried to select her words carefully. “Growing up, we went to the Catholic church every Sunday. My children have both gone through their sacraments. But we have stopped attending, especially now.”

  “Why especially now?”

  How could she possibly explain the changed dynamics of her household?

  “My husband works a lot. My children have activities. The only time that everyone can relax a bit is on the weekend, although they usually have something to do anyway. Church just fell out of the equation.”

  “What about you?”

  Feeling uncomfortable with the focused question, Frances shifted her weight on the seat. After the children fought her about getting up early on Sunday and balked at attending a Saturday mass instead, Frances had given up on attending with them. For a few weeks, she went alone. But she could not help but notice the odd looks she received from the other parishioners, many of whom were in Nicholas’s network of “acceptable” friends.

  She worried that they would gossip about her marriage, as she knew they were prone to do with other people. Without any discussion with Nicholas, she merely stopped attending.

  No one ever inquired about her absence.

  “I have a personal relationship with God, too, I suppose,” she admitted. “Although I used to attend church regularly.”

  “So you see? You can still love and honor God without a church involved. Some people prefer to be involved with a church community. Others insist it’s the only way to salvation. I, however, am more inclined to not follow the masses and still maintain that personal relationship with him. It doesn’t take much more than studying his word and speaking to him, directly to him.” Madeline paused, a cloud appearing to cover her eyes. “I’ve had a lot of private conversations with God over the course of my life, and I’m at peace that he has forgiven me many times over for the sins of my past.”

  Frances could hardly envision Madeline as a sinner. And she was about to comment as such when she heard something in the hallway that caught her attention. It was a man speaking to someone at the nurses’ station. The word “Madeline” was uttered, first by him and then by someone else, probably a nurse.

  “Are you expecting anyone?” Frances asked, curious as to who would be visiting her friend.

  Madeline gave a short laugh. “Me? No, unless you have a double who wants to also grace me with her presence.”

  Frances smiled and was about to respond when she saw Madeline’s face change. Her eyes looked past Frances’s shoulders in the direction of the open door. For just the briefest moment there was joy etched on her face.

  “James!”

  Frances spun around in her chair, staring at the tall man with thinning dark hair who walked through the doorway. He barely glanced at either one of them as he took off his overcoat and casually slung it onto the empty chair by the bathroom door. His demeanor spoke of entitlement, and Frances suspected that she wouldn’t like him.

  “Mother.” It was nothing more than a cold acknowledgment. Frances noticed that Madeline’s expression of happiness immediately faded. He pulled another chair to the side of the bed and sat down, his eyes falling on Frances as if noticing her for the first time. “And you are . . . ?”

  “Frances Snyder. A friend.” She held out her hand to shake his. “You must be her son, James. Your mother has told me so much about you.” She tried to sound lighthearted when she said it, but he snickered in a disagreeable way. Rather than comment, she moved on to another subject. “Your mother is doing much better now.”

  “So I understand.”

  Frances glanced at Madeline, who looked pale. Nothing that Madeline had shared with her about the family rift could have prepared Frances for such an icy greeting. Clearly, she’d miscalculated the severity of the discord between mother and son. It made her briefly wonder how much worse it might be with the two daughters.

  James turned his attention to his mother, leaning forward with his hands resting on his knees.

  “I understand you didn’t want to go to the hospital. And with a fever?” He made a disapproving noise with his tongue. “Very irresponsible, Mother. That’s exactly why Dina and I made the decision to put you in Pine Acres.”

  Madeline rolled her head to the side of her pillow, her eyes fixated on the window and her lips pressed together.

  Her son didn’t seem to notice or, rather, simply did not care that his mother was less than thrilled with his statement.

  “Clearly, you can’t take care of yourself. That’s what we were telling you all along.” He reached up and adjusted his collar, tugging at it as if the room was too warm. “I hope you see that now.”

  “It’s not home.”

  “You haven’t given it much of a chance. If you participated in more activities and interacted with the other people, you’d see that it’s a much better lifestyle for you.”

  Frances didn’t like the way James emphasized the word you, as if Madeline was some special case, different from other people.

  “And it’s quite an exclusive place, Mother. They even had a waiting list! I cannot tell you the strings that Dina had to pull to get you into that facility.” Done fiddling with his collar, he dropped his hand back onto his lap. “It would go a long way if you could just acknowledge what she has done for you!”

  Frances bit her lower lip, wondering about this odd exchange between mother and son. If Madeline had been at Pine Acres for so long, at least a year, why would this still be a topic of discussion? Of course, Frances knew that Madeline didn’t like having been forced into Pine Acres. The Pollyanna statement from James did not mask the truth that her son, and apparently his wife, had a different vision of what Madeline needed.

  The tension in the room made Frances feel as if there were pressure building inside her chest. As bad as things were at home, she could never imagine either of her children talking to her in such a manner. And immediately she realized she’d been correct: she disliked Madeline’s son.

  She started to get up. “I’ll leave you two alone for a bit.”

  Quickly, Madeline turned her head and stared at her, a pleading expression on her face. “Please. Don’t.”

  James smiled, but there was no happiness in his expression. “You see, Frances, we don’t always see eye to eye. Isn’t that right, Mother?”

  Silence.

  “She resents that we wanted to move into her house, and she opted to move into Pine Acres,” he continued.

  “It was my home.” The words came out in a soft breath. “And you took it away from me.”

  James shook his head. “You couldn’t live there alone anymore. You know that.” He looked over at Frances again. “She didn’t want us to move into the house, you see. Felt that we were trying to push her out, rather than care for her. As usual, she thinks about herself first, never about others.”

  Abruptly, Frances stood up, the chair pushing back and making a loud squeaking noise against the floor. “I . . . I need to get some coffee.” She didn’t wait for either one of them to respond. Instead, she left the room and walked as fast as she could away from the open door. She could hear James’s deep voice, but she fought with herself to not pay attention to any of his words.

  What could possibly drive a son to be so shameless and cruel toward his mother? She pressed the button to call the elevator. Part of her felt guilty for leaving Madeline alone with her son. But another part knew that she couldn’t stay and listen to his insulting words and disrespectful
behavior for one minute longer.

  At the sound of her name, she turned around, surprised that someone had recognized her. Even though she’d grown up in Morristown, she had always kept to herself. Besides time with Charlotte, Frances didn’t socialize much, unless it was with the other volunteers at the Museum of Modern Art or the occasional lunch at their country club, even though she wasn’t particularly fond of most of the women there. For some reason, MoMA was the charity of choice at his organization, and Nicholas had insisted that she become involved. To her surprise, the women’s luncheons at the local country club were ten times more presumptuous than the social events associated with MoMA. She dreaded those luncheons which were full of women seeking one thing and one thing only: to keep up with each other or, even better, outdo the others in their quest to dominate the climb for superior social status.

  Frances dreaded those country club meetings more than anything.

  Sure enough, the woman who walked toward her, her dark-brown hair perfectly coiffed and her outfit definitely from Nordstrom’s, was the wife of a member of Nicholas’s golfing group.

  They were A-listers; that’s what Nicholas called them. If Frances could speak her mind, she’d call them something a little less amiable. They drank too much, spent too much, were too noisy and full of themselves and, above all, far too concerned with social status for her taste. But Frances kept those feelings to herself, especially because Nicholas had never sought her opinion or her approval. Instead, he had merely encouraged her to be friendly with the woman and accept her invitation to be a part of the fund-raising committee.

  Frances suspected his request was more for social positioning rather than just social interaction.

  “Debbie Weaver!”

  They leaned forward, air-kissing each other on the cheek.

  “What a pleasant surprise!” Frances could only hope that her voice sounded sincere, given the location of the encounter.

  “I was just dropping off some paperwork to a client of mine,” she said casually. Her eyes swept over Frances as if she were appraising an object, not a person. “He just sold his house before he was admitted. Needed to get this signed quickly. What are you doing here?”

  Two years back, Debbie had become a real estate agent. Frances was reminded of that fact almost every week when a slick postcard would show up in her mailbox, announcing the houses that she had either just listed or sold. Usually, these were mini-mansions in upscale neighborhoods. It was easy to see that Debbie was doing quite well in real estate.

  What she couldn’t figure out, however, was why Debbie would waste any marketing efforts on her, when she clearly knew that Frances and Charlotte were friends.

  When Charlotte and Gary had been married, they were often part of the social circle at the country club. But once Charlotte had filed for divorce, it was almost as if she didn’t exist anymore. Frances often wondered if her unspoken shunning came from the women who feared their husbands might be interested in the soon-to-be-single-again young woman, or the men who feared she’d influence their wives to do the same and go for a large share of their assets. Probably both, she thought.

  With appearances at the country club meaning everything, Debbie had led the pack in determining what was socially acceptable or not. Divorce was clearly on the not-acceptable list, as was a working wife, the latter ranking next to children attending a public school. So it had surprised everyone when Debbie started to work in real estate. Suddenly, being a simple housewife and stay-at-home mother wasn’t enough. The other women began talking about revamping their careers. But Frances refused. Even if Debbie wanted to change the rules, Frances had refused to follow her back into the workforce. The irony of the situation, Debbie’s flip-flopping on the subject, wasn’t lost on many people. Even Nicholas had wondered if the Weavers were having money problems, but Frances turned a deaf ear to his comments. It wasn’t that she didn’t like gossip; it was that she didn’t particularly like the Weavers.

  And it wasn’t just Debbie. It was the others: the Campbells and the Jacksons. Darcy with her weight obsession, which was odd considering her husband was four times her weight and a prime candidate for diabetes, and Jennifer with her denial that she had married her husband because they both needed a spouse to advance in their careers. Both of those women were similar to the woman who now stood before Frances: self-centered and in denial, at least in public, that their lives were structured in a way to fit the expectations of society, rather than fulfilling the dreams of little girls fantasizing about a knight in shining armor.

  In either event, they had all failed.

  Debbie was still staring at her as if waiting for her to say something. And while she wanted to comment on Debbie’s subtle remark about getting the papers signed quickly—a typical self-serving attitude displayed by the entire group of fellow A-listers—she managed to hold her tongue.

  “Oh! I, uh . . . I’m visiting a friend of mine.”

  “On the cancer floor?” The way Debbie said the word cancer was almost with the same level of disgust as she had uttered divorce when she had contemptuously mentioned Charlotte and Gary’s split.

  Frances glanced around. She hadn’t realized that there was a cancer floor, not beyond the chemotherapy center. “Is that what this is considered? The cancer floor?”

  Debbie gave her a look that immediately made Frances feel ignorant. “Well, I’m sorry for your friend, whoever he or she is.” Then she peered down the hallway. “This place is so forlorn! It just reeks of death, doesn’t it?” She turned back to Frances. “Poor creatures. Cancer will kill half of them, no doubt. Such a pity they don’t know it. Or, rather, cannot accept it.”

  The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Frances made no movement to step forward.

  “Aren’t you waiting for the elevator?” Debbie asked as she started to step inside.

  Frances shook her head. There was no way she wanted to spend one more second with that woman, even for just a short elevator ride. “I was just stretching my legs for a minute.”

  As the doors shut, Frances turned and leaned against the wall. Her chest heaved as she gulped for air. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until the moment Debbie Weaver disappeared from her sight. A chill traveled up her arms, so she rubbed them with her hands. How could people be so cold and callous? Cancer was not a form of corruption. Not the result of deviant behavior by social standards. It could target anyone at any time. The shadow of its hand lingered over everyone. Why did it carry such a stigma, almost as if it was a disgrace to contract the disease? Couldn’t people look at it like they would renal failure, diabetes, or emphysema?

  And while she could excuse her family, she could not excuse people like James or Debbie, who didn’t understand that the people in those hospital beds on Franklin Four, the so-called cancer floor, were not poor creatures to be pitied. They were people who needed to be uplifted and loved. Past differences needed to be set aside. And people needed to think about the patients’ needs, not their own.

  If these were examples of the type of support cancer patients would receive, then Frances was beginning to think that God had placed all of the obstacles in her path so that she didn’t have the opportunity to tell Nicholas. She could hardly imagine how he would have reacted. Even now, he was barely any help on the two days she’d been sick. Why would learning about her cancer make him any more attentive?

  CHAPTER 16

  She never would have believed that she’d actually look forward to Thursday, chemotherapy cocktail day. But after the grueling weekend and added stress over the upcoming holiday, Frances breathed a sigh of relief when she sat down next to Madeline, who faced the bird feeder as usual.

  “That bad, eh?”

  Frances nodded her head. “And then some.” Plopping her bag onto the floor, she turned to face her new friend. “I hope you’ll fill me in on what, exactly, happened the other day with your son James.”

  “It’s nice to see you, too,” Madeline said. “Where h
ave you been?” Clearly, she wasn’t responding to the question on purpose.

  “I’m terribly sorry. I was volunteering at Carrie’s school for a two-day book sale and forgot to mention it to you.” Frances hadn’t felt up to working the book fair, but had committed to it the first week of school when Carrie brought home volunteer slips for her to fill out. She did not want to breach her obligation. And, of course, rather than appear grateful for her mother’s assistance, Carrie had merely rolled her eyes when she saw Frances in the gymnasium standing in front of the book display and taking orders.

  “So, what happened with your son last week? I tried waiting until he left to say good-bye, but it was getting too late and I had to get home to the children. I hated to leave without letting you know.”

  “The nurse gave me your note,” Madeline said. “I understand.”

  “I felt awful. He seems to have a big chip on his shoulder.”

  Madeline appeared unfazed by Frances’s comment. “That he does,” she said. And then, as she turned her attention toward the window, her eyes sought the birds that were usually flying about and fighting for a turn at raiding the feeder.

  Only it was empty and there were no birds to be seen today.

  “I wonder who fills that?” Frances asked, more to herself than to Madeline.

  “Whoever fills it should be fired,” she replied in a resigned voice.

  A silence fell between them, so Frances turned her attention to the other patients. As usual, most of them had someone at their side. Madeline and Frances seemed to be the only two who consistently arrived and departed alone. Yet, even though the others had company, it seemed there was little, if any, conversation taking place, at least not between the seasoned veterans and their visitors.

  By now, Frances could easily identify the Chemo Cocktail Lounge newbies. Whoever accompanied them seemed to talk incessantly, often to the point of being overbearing and tiresome to the other patients, who would much rather go through their treatments in peace and tranquility than overhear the usual banalities. Frances had noticed that by the end of the first treatment, the patient would usually transform from a scared cancer victim to an irritated chemotherapy survivor. And as they transformed, their visitor would slowly become aggrieved at being an underappreciated companion.