Untitled.FR11 by Unknown Author

tracks—and be on her way upstairs.
    ‘'‘Katt. Hi. It’s your mom.”
    They were like an identifying logo, those words, an unwavering intro to newness and a lure into Katt’s past. The parlor, with its dark-stained angular antiques, rose to envelope her. “Mom, hi, can I call—”
    “Listen, I just can’t get over the awful news about Marcus. Your father agrees.” Her father always agreed. “Are you holding it together? Is the marriage doing all right?”
    Sure, except for the fucking strain impending death brings with it, wet blanket that way. “It’s fine, Mom.” Sounded odd. “That is, under the circumstances.”
    “Katt, I don’t like the sound of that. Not meaning to be a busybody now, you understand?”
    “Yes.” A prelude to rampant busybodyness. But her voice was bringing back the closeness and the woody air, Granny Hunt and her mother colluding over tea, gossiping about this or that man or woman cheating on a mate while Katt gazed over her playpen or played with dolls, taking it all in. They spoke deep truth, their moods bedrocked her childhood, gave it close confiding comfort. It felt so soothing to slide into it. She slid into it now.
    “But the vows say in sickness and they’re good vows you two took when you hooked up so many years ago. They keep you in mind of the whole person, not just the hunky-dory times, but the ugly times too. You gotta, like the song says, stand by your man. Relationships take plenty of work, and never more so than when he’s felled and you nurse him and soothe him and baby him through it, giving your all, nursing him like Clara Barton in the Civil War or whatever war she was in. You gotta wipe his brow and rush for the bedpan and just be like a shiny beacon; and then when he’s all better . . . oh, Katt,
    I’m sorry, I’m so bad at remembering and it’s so awful about Marcus.”
    “Yes, Mom.” Anyone else, she would have felt anger toward. But her mother crept inside into places she had long thought vacated, eased in and sank down roots along old rootways, every word coated with baby oil. Although Granny Hunt had died years ago, Katt always imagined her standing near her mother, that look that was not quite a smile glowing through her wrinkles.
    “It’s just so precarious out there—people slipping their vows like dogs out of loose collars. Granny Hunt, she stayed with the same man for sixty-four years, loved him fiercely. Then he died and she started visiting her son and me lots. Maybe you recall that. They were good folks. Adopted me out of my horrendous lot, raised Bill and me, didn’t flinch a muscle when him and me realized, as one, that we were a seamless match. Your father, you surely know, is a magical man. He doesn’t say much. He doesn’t have to. But what he tells me is pure love that comes right back, that redounds on me. All you gotta do is give Marcus your love and take his in return and work work work to stave off the D-thing. Especially now when Marcus needs you most. Are you hearing me, Katt?”
    “Yes, I am.” She wanted to hang up but the hood of the cobra was hypnotic. It lulled. And wove. Gave its slow dance to the words. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m giving Marcus all I have. Conner’s helping too.” “That’s good, Katt,” said her mom. “Us Hunt women, every last one I know about, are a loyal bunch. We take our vows and we mean them—faithful one hundred percent, like Hortense.” There was more, much more, the drumming of thousands of tiny raindrops on a soft roof. As usual Katt asked her to fly out, and as usual Mom had the same penurious No out of her mouth before the offer was made. Airplane flights were too damned expensive. Phone calls got the job done. Kept her plugged in but out of Katt’s hair. On and on and on, as Katt felt the sunlight-swath dye down with a gray pour of cloud, heard the house tick and close about her once more.
    By the time she hung up, her murderous resolve, not partaking of the least wicked or