of the dreams she used to have when she was younger, where she was a part of the Huxtables or the Full House family.
Dr. Baer told her she might be getting a little too involved. “I understand it’s hard when you spend so much time with a family, and you get wrapped up in their business. But just remember to keep a little distance. You’re there as the caretaker.”
People were always telling Martha not to get too involved. She didn’t understand it. How could anyone be too involved? Didn’t that just show people that you cared? What did people want? Did they want everyone to just walk around, pretending that they didn’t see anyone else, didn’t notice a thing? That was ridiculous.
In college, Martha was always the first one to step up and tell one of the girls if she needed to break up with her boyfriend. “He’s not treating you right,” she’d say. She’d demand that the girl end it. How could she not step in when she saw something bad happening?
The girls that she was trying to help almost always got annoyed with her. “Mind your own business, Martha,” they’d say. But she wouldn’t let it drop. After all, they were the ones who offered up the information in the first place, who told her about the things their boyfriends said, the suspicions they had about cheating. What else was she supposed to do?
“People don’t want to hear that they’re with the wrong person,” Claire told her once. “And unless they’re being abused in some way, the most you can really say is that you think they can do better. Or that they should be treated better. But that’s it.”
Martha disagreed. She’d just ended a friendship with a girl in her nursing program, Ann, who had refused to break up with her boyfriend.
“Look,” Claire said. “I get what you’re saying. But at the end of the day, it’s not really your business. People don’t always want the truth, and you don’t always know what the real truth is. It’s not worth losing a friend over.”
But Martha had lost a friend. Ann never forgave her for the things that she’d said, and she ended up marrying the guy. Martha didn’t get it. Weren’t friends there to tell you the truth? Weren’t you supposed to get involved?
WHEN MR. CRANSTON HAD A doctor’s appointment, either Jaz or Ruby took him. He preferred Jaz, because Ruby usually got herself all worked up, thinking the doctor was going to find something fatal during these visits.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mr. Cranston told her once. “I’m already dying. What else could they tell me?”
“Oh, Dad,” Ruby said. She went to the upstairs bathroom and shut herself in for almost fifteen minutes.
“Well, now we’ll never get out of here,” he said. He crossed his arms and waited for her to come downstairs.
“Why does he have so many appointments?” Martha asked Jaz. “Is there something wrong with him?”
“He’s old, child. Things have started failing. He’s having trouble breathing, his heart’s giving out, you name it, it’s happening to him.” She didn’t know how Jaz could be so matter-of-fact about it.
It seemed to Martha that Mr. Cranston got a little smaller each day, just a tiny bit weaker than he was the day before. Could she be imagining it? When they sat together and read, sometimes he fell asleep in the middle of a page, the book open on his lap, his mouth open with a little bit of drool at the corner. His skin looked so thin while he slept, the veins so close to the surface. Martha knew he should rest if he was tired, but what she really wanted to do was make noise until he woke up and moved around, until he looked alive again.
MARTHA COULDN’T HELP BUT TALK about the Cranstons when she was at home. She was always dying to share new information about them, or tell her family what she thought was behind the rift between Ruby and Billy.
“You sound a little obsessed with them,” Claire said one night. Claire had started cooking dinner for the family, claiming that she was so bored at her temp job, all she could do was look up recipes on the computer. She’d made some truly amazing things, like tonight’s dinner of tarragon chicken in cream sauce, scalloped cherry tomatoes, and twice-baked potatoes.
“You’re going to send us all to the fat farm,” Weezy said when she sat down that night.
“I’m not obsessed with them,” Martha