it, and when I got on the phone for clarification, he said she needed to go back for more tests as soon as possible, and to discuss “paths of treatment.”
“Paths?” Mama asked when I hung up. “What paths?”
“Treatments, Mama.”
“I don’t need treatments. I need to get back to work.”
She went about the rest of her day as if nothing had changed. When I told her we needed to schedule the appointment, she said she’d be fine and not to worry, but it’s all I could do.
The next few weeks, Teddy sprang into action, going about the task of getting Mama well the way he would approach a project at work: methodically, persistently, and calmly. He secured Mama appointments with the best specialists in Washington, then Baltimore, then New York.
But after going from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist—including a Chinese herbalist who looked at Mama’s tongue and gave the same diagnosis the others had—Mama told me she wanted to stop all treatments. “What will be, will be,” she said one night as I was serving her the tuna casserole one of our neighbors had brought over.
I served her three helpings, even though I knew she had barely the appetite for a few forkfuls. “What do you mean, what will be, will be?”
“It means what it means. I’m done.”
“You’re done?”
“I’m done.”
I set the Pyrex casserole dish down with such force that the glass cracked.
Mama reached for my hand, but I refused and stormed out.
When I came home later that evening, Teddy was gone and Mama was at the kitchen table. I went into my bedroom without saying a word. I was so angry at her, at the world, at everything.
In hindsight, I wish more than anything that I’d taken her hand that night in the kitchen and told her I was sorry. I thought there’d be time. Time to make amends, time to let her know I supported whatever decision she made, time to tell her how much I loved her, time to embrace her as I hadn’t done since I was a little girl. But there wasn’t. There’s never enough time.
* * *
St. John the Baptist was filled with friends and acquaintances of Mama’s I never knew she had. One person after the next gave their condolences and told me things about my mother I wished I’d known while she was alive.
We unveil ourselves in the pieces we want others to know, even those closest to us. We all have our secrets. Mama’s was that she’d been generous to a fault. I discovered she’d clothed nearly our entire neighborhood for free: she’d tailored a secondhand suit for an out-of-work veteran with an interview to be a cashier at Peoples Drug, repaired the bridal gown of a woman who could only afford to buy one with a broken strap and a wine stain on the bodice from the Salvation Army, patched the coveralls of a bottling plant worker, and mended many socks for an elderly widower who just wanted some company.
And that yellow prom dress I’d helped Mama rebead a year earlier? It had been a gift, not a commission. Mrs. Halpern’s teenage daughter wore it to the funeral, and the sight of her twirling to show it off made me dizzy with appreciation for the person my mother was.
Mama herself wore a black dress with intricate flower beading running down the sheer sleeves. The dress had been another secret. How long she’d been working on it I didn’t know. But I did know she’d made it to wear at her own funeral, as I’d first seen it the morning she didn’t wake up—pressed and laid across the rocking chair in her bedroom for me to find.
* * *
—
Inside the church, the Orthodox priest circled Mama’s casket, swinging his incense, the scented smoke billowing out over his gold cassock and dissipating above his head.
I turned away for a moment and that’s when I saw her: Sally had come. She was standing toward the back, wearing a short black birdcage veil. I turned back toward the priest, who was still swinging his incense—my thoughts on Sally instead of my mother. I wished she would walk down the aisle and stand next to me, take Teddy’s place, then my hand. But she stayed in the back and Teddy by my side.
The funeral ended and I followed Mama’s casket out of the church. As I passed Sally, she touched my arm. Her veil was askew and she had tears in her eyes.