I said, and Maw Hamrick threw a sheet of wrapping paper into the fire, saying, “Oh, I wouldn’t call that living.”
“But it was inside of you?” Lisa said, and I could see her wheels turning: Have I ever used the toilet after this woman? Have I ever touched her coffee cup, or eaten off her plate? How soon can I get tested? Are the hospitals open on Christmas Day, or will I have to wait until tomorrow?
“It was a long time ago,” Joan said.
“Like, how long?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t know — 1968, maybe.”
My sister nodded, the way someone does when she’s doing math in her head. “Right,” she said, and I regretted having brought it up. She was no longer looking at Maw Hamrick but through her, seeing what an X-ray machine might: the stark puzzle of bones and, teeming within it, the thousands of worms who did not leave home in 1968. I used to see the same thing, but after fifteen years or so, I got over it, and now I just see Maw Hamrick. Maw Hamrick ironing, Maw Hamrick doing the dishes, Maw Hamrick taking out the trash. She wants to be a good houseguest and is always looking for something to do.
“Can I maybe . . . ?” she asks, and before she’s finished I answer yes, by all means.
“Did you tell my mother to crawl on her hands and knees across the living room floor?” Hugh asks, and I say, “Well, no, not exactly. I just suggested that if she was going to dust the baseboards, that would be the best way to do it.”
When Maw Hamrick’s around, I don’t lift a finger. All my chores go automatically to her, and I just sit in a rocker, raising my feet every now and then so she can pass the vacuum. It’s incredibly relaxing, but it doesn’t make me look very good, especially if she’s doing something strenuous, carrying furniture to the basement, for instance, which again, was completely her idea. I just mentioned in passing that we rarely used the dresser, and that one of these days someone should take it downstairs. I didn’t mean her, exactly, though at age seventy-six she’s a lot stronger than Hugh gives her credit for. Coming from Kentucky, she’s used to a hard day’s work. Choppin’, totin’, all those activities with a dropped g: the way I figure it, these things are in her genes.
It’s only a problem when other people are around, and they see this slight, white-haired woman with sweat running down her forehead. Lisa and Bob, for instance, who were staying in Patsy’s empty apartment. Every night they’d come over for dinner, and Maw Hamrick would hang up their coats before ironing the napkins and setting the table. Then she’d serve drinks and head into the kitchen to help Hugh.
“You really lucked out,” Lisa said, sighing, as Joan rushed to empty my ashtray. Her mother-in-law had recently moved into an assisted living development, the sort of place that’s renounced the word “seniors” and refers to the residents as “graying tigers.” “I love Bob’s mom to death, but Hugh’s —my God! And to think that she was eaten by worms.”
“Well, they didn’t technically eat her,” I said.
“Then what were they living on? Are you telling me they brought their own food?”
I guessed that she was right, but what do guinea worms eat? Certainly not fat, or they’d never have gone to Joan, who weighs ninety pounds, tops, and can still fit into her prom gown. Not muscle, or she’d never be able to take over my chores. Do they drink blood? Drill holes in bone and sop up the marrow? I meant to ask, but when Maw Hamrick returned to the living room the topic immediately turned to cholesterol, Lisa saying, “I don’t mean to pry, Joan, but what is your level?”
It was one of those conversations I was destined to be left out of. Not only have I never been tested, I’m not sure what cholesterol actually is. I hear the word and imagine a pale gravy, made by hand, with lumps in it.
“Have you tried fish oil?” Lisa asked. “That brought Bob’s level from three-eighty to two-twenty. Before that, he was on Lipitor.” My sister knows the name and corresponding medication for every disease known to man, an impressive feat given that she’s completely self-taught. Congenital ichthyosis, myositis ossificans, spondylolisthesis, calling for Celebrex, Flexeril, oxycodone hydrochloride. I joked that she’d never bought a magazine in