She's always hated the cold, the first bite of winter's frost. The way it seeped in slowly through cloth and skin until it laced along her bones. She can remember her first evoked taste of the cold, four and sticking her pink tongue out to catch white snowflakes. Recoiling away from the sharp shock that ran through her little body. She'd hugged one mitten clad hand tighter around herself, the other firmly clasped in the gloved hand of her mother. Everything about her had felt cold but her mother had emanated a steady source of heat and she had pressed herself into the many coats her mother wore.
"Katie?" her mother's voice floated down from above in her memory, soft and warm and strong and loving and breathing. "Are you cold, chickadee? Don't worry, we're almost home."
"Can I have hot chocolate?"
"Sure, chickadee. With some chocolate chip cookies?"
"Pleeeeeaaase?"
The memory blurs after that into different days, all similar in temperature. Of sitting in front of the fireplace, her parents in a loving embrace on the couch. Her sister doing her homework, curling her hair around her fingers. And she would be splayed out on the rug in front of the fire, legs restlessly kicking, fingers tapping along as classical music played in the background. This was their winter time ritual as a family unit, together. Not perfect, but whole.
The years would pass, existing as a family indefinitely it had seemed. The seasons passed leading with it yin and yang. Growth and decay. Before they knew it Kate was ten, Susan turned fifteen, her father got richer, and her mother had cancer.
The day the diagnosis came back, she recalls her mother absentmindedly rubbing the bruise on her arm that never seemed to go away, her hands shaking. Big brown, red streaked eyes staring down at her watery and flooding down onto her cheeks. Her father's door closing and locking with a deathly sounding click, like the sound of a jail cell sliding shut. Susan collapsing in a heap of sobs, still in her dressage outfit, smelling like hay and other horse smells. Her mother, who had always seemed so kind and vibrant and brave and beautiful, was curled up into herself with tears running down her face. Her long light brown hair was messily thrown up in a bun that she kept trying to fix with no success. Kate had tried to offer comfort, wrapping her arms around her mother and squeezing tight. Her mother had held her close, carding a thin hand through her daughter's black hair over and over while trying to pull together her strength.
Kate could feel her mother's warmth begin to slip away.
After the first few months, her mother had no hair and slept all day, eating little and saying little. Dark bruise-like abrasions hollowed out the underside of her eyes, blue veins sticking out of her arms and legs. Daddy had explained that her mother was going through a depression due to her cancer. He didn't say much else on the matter, returning back to his work as soon as the explanation was over. Susan was never home except for at dinnertime, preferring her many boyfriends' houses to her own home which was now too large and too cold. Kate played her cello, starting from the time she came home from school until she had to eat until she had to do homework until she had to go to bed.
A year passed morosely when suddenly, a few rays of sunlight seemed to escape into their dreary mansion. Eleanor Hawkins Bishop was getting better, stabilizing after her surgery that had removed nearly all of the cancer growths. Her hair grew back out, shorter and darker. The shadows under her eyes lessened. As she got better, there was a new mission that she was hell-bent on doing with or without her husband's consent.
"Derek, I've been given a few more years-"
"Ellie-"
Her mother had raised her voice over his protests," and I know I won't have much more than those few years. I want to do something besides throw money at whatever charity organization the board thinks will be good for publicity. It's about damn time I showed my girls that there's more to this world than money and mansions. I'm going to set a good example for them and God help any soul who dares to get in my way."
Kate knows that there were many more arguments between her parents about the issue but all of them boiled down to the same point; Eleanor would do whatever the hell she wanted to do. Her sister and father pleaded and yelled at her to lay down and rest. Kate eagerly tagged along to the homeless shelters, the veteran housings, the orphanages. She tried to emulate her mother's quite grace and strength that could be backed up with a barbed tongue and four inch heels. She never really learned the whole grace part of it, to be honest, and she hated high heels.
Kate loved helping others and loved being praised by her mother for doing good. One of her favorite memories was cooking in the orphanage, her mother having bought enough ingredients to cook an individual cookie cake for each little resident one time. Her mother and her getting flour everywhere, egg yolk in their hair, milk splattered all over their clothes, butter smashed between their fingers. Her mother, an image framed forever in her mind, head thrown back eyes closed in bliss mouth parted in laughter hair clumped up like a halo around her face.
When they got home that night, the head maid (Ophelia) had sighed and shook her head upon seeing the white tracks atop the blue-green marble floor. Susan had appeared at the top of the stairs, seventeen with a short clubbing style dress on with her black locks teased up, frowning and snapping with her neon pink lips curling angrily, "Shouldn't you be in bed? It's eight o' clock Mom! You have a doctor's appointment tomorrow!"
The floating feeling that had guided Kate's steps all day started crashing down, her dream day turning into a nightmare. Again.
"Calm down, Susie," her mother had laughed, still filled with the warmth that always reached her after helping others," The appointment isn't until ten tomorrow, I'll have plenty of sleep."
Susan's pumps clacked loudly on the stairs as she marched down," That's not the point. You're out all the time when you should be resting. Don't you realize that you're still sick?"
"And I'll always be sick, Sue," her mother didn't hold back that harsh truth. Susan stubbornly set her jaw, looking like a younger version of Eleanor their poses were so similar.
"Well, maybe if you actually took care of yourself instead of going all over this fucking world helping people instead of helping yourself-"
"Enough, young lady," and for the first time Kate had seen her mother truly enraged. Her familiar warm eyes were frozen over, slit like a snake's. Her shoulder's squared and her hands curled into claws reflexively.
"In case you've forgotten, I am still your mother and I will not tolerate such disrespect. You might feel fine lazing about all day and ignoring the strife in this world, but I cannot stand to let it be. You and your father-"
"Dad has-"
"I am talking," her mother had bellowed, Kate had decided then would be the opportune moment to run and hide. So she scampered off to the top of the stairs heading in the direction of her room. She slowed down in front of her father's office, hearing him clicking away on the computer through the wooden door. She could hear her mother and sister's voices in the back of her, indistinguishable. She was mute. Too young to be taken seriously. But her mind had wandered. What if she marched back there and told Susan to shut her big Pepto-Bismol pink mouth? What if she barged into her father's office and cried into his shoulder about how her perfect day was ruined?
Susan slamming the front door knocked Kate out of her thoughts and she ran the rest of the way to her room.
A few more times, almost identical to that memory. A good day, her mother smiling. Coming home to either Susan or Dad for an argument. Her mother's face getting thinner with each flashing memory. Her voice remaining steady as she defended her actions. No. Not defended. Stated why she did what she did in a matter of fact voice. As if she were born to take the weight of the world on her shoulders and had rejected the responsibility until she was teetering on the edge of leaving it.
If there's one thing that her mother's illness taught her it's that hope is a fickle thing. It loves to lift people up and make them think everything is going to be alright. Just hang on a little longer…just a little longer…hang on…longer…
Her mother, after another long argument with her father, hopped on a plane when Kate was fifteen. The fight had been about Susan's impromptu engagement to a man she had only known for approximately Ya month. There had been a lot of talk about Sue throwing her life away to become a trophy wife. He mother had left, already having a charity ball set up in Colorado that was mandatory for her to attend. They were supposed to go with her but in her rage had left without them. No one knew that would be the last time they'd see her as her.
She left a twelve p.m. The call came at six p.m. We're sorry. She collapsed while putting up decoration, hit her head. Hasn't woken up. Scans showed cancer lighting up everywhere. It's back. It's back. It's back. Y s dyinge. g up decoration, hit her head. ing her life away You didn't know she was dying? She had a scan a few months ago, refused treatment. She has a few days, maybe weeks left. It's back. It's back. It's worse. It's worse.
By the time they got to the hospital, Eleanor was sitting up, her eyes glazed. For the first time Kate saw how her bones shifted under her skin like knives, how her hands were skeletal with the nails bitten to the quick, how her face was shrunken in. Had she been able to hide all this with makeup or had they been wearing rose-colored glasses? Were their false hopeful stares what really killed her?
Susan was mad, her father was mad, nagging her mother about how her health was more important than anything else and how could she be so stupid, etc. Her mother sat there, staring off into the distance. She didn't seem to hear them or see them. It was like looking at a stranger. This wasn't her mother. This wasn't Eleanor Beatrice Hawkins-Bishop. Those weren't the hands that would tuck her in at night, that wasn't the mouth that whispered I-love-you over and over into her hair, those weren't the shoulders she rode on when she was small, and those eyes weren't the ones that saw straight through her and Susan. This wasn't true. It was all a joke. Her mother was in another room, waiting to spit venom and fire at Susan and Dad for bitching at her, vivacious and full of life.
"Mom?" Kate had whispered, moving forward, clasping an icy hand which did not curl around her fingers, just hung limply.
"Didn't you think about us?" Susan was sobbing, hands clenched into fists, tears dripping down her cheeks. Her sister always cried when she was mad, but Kate didn't think that was why she was crying this time. "Why couldn't you have taken a few moments out of your life to tell us? We could have helped you!"
Her father had stopped yelling, he was sitting in a chair across the room, and his face was cradled in his hands as his shoulders shook. Her father had always been strong, distant but strong, and now Kate had to look away because seeing her father broken as well made everything worse.
Kate doesn't know if she cried. She sat there staring at the stranger before them and tried to picture this shell of a human being as her mother. She detached her hand and walked out the room. She couldn't do this. She wasn't ready. Her mother had pulled through once, she was strong, and she'd do it again.
If she wasn't seeing what was happening, then it wasn't really happening.
She didn't go back into the hospital for three days. On the third day, Susan called and said mom was having a good day. When was the last time they used that term? Good day. Just last week every day would be considered a good day.
Kate walked into the room, cursing the smells of cleaners and chemicals. It was quickly made apparent that her sister's idea of a 'good day' differed from her own. Her mother didn't look any different, even though she was sucking broth through a straw and actually flicked her eyes in Kate's direction.
"Susan?" her mother's voice cracked, rough and raw. "Could you…?"
Her mother looked exhausted just from saying those few words. Susan chirped, in a fake happy this-is-all-completely-normal voice, "Sure, Mom."
Kate wants to punch Susan in the face.
They are alone together and for the first time Kate hates this one-on-one situation.
"You're just like your father, "her mother finally huffs, crossing her arms in front of her self.
Kate glares at her, "I am not. I'm my own individual person."
"I know. But you're an individual person who has the same genes as her father," her mother whispers and Kate wishes she hadn't snapped. They both don't have the strength for bickering. She settles down by the chair by her mother's head rest. She flicks her eyes at her mother's hand and wants to grasp it, but she doesn't want to remember her mother as cold. Her mother is warm like sunshine on a summer's day, her touch shouldn't feel like frostbite.
They chat for a while, meaningless and pointless words falling from their lips. Her mother prompting Kate's practically one-sided babbling with three or four word sentences. Kate talks about how she tried archery for the first time last year at music camp, her intense hatred for horses, how Susan's fiancé is douche with a capital D, and the novels they were reading in English this year. Speak she found to be overdramatic and a little funny with a skewed view of teenagers. The Great Gatsby was brilliant and Dante's Divine Comedy was creepy as hell. Things her mother already knew.
The sun was setting and Kate was out of breath. She stood up to leave, whispering her goodbye. She wanted to hug and kiss her mom before leaving, but once again the fear of coldness kept her at bay. Her mother's eyes are hooded, just the barest trace of black-brown eyes peeking out under sparse lashes. Her chapped, thin lips whisper as Kate turns backs one last time to walk out the door, "I love you, my little chickadee. Don't forget that."
Her mother is gone, her spirit, her essence, her mommy is dead by three forty-five a.m.
Susan was screaming and ripping out her hair, throwing things and snarling and snapping at her fiancé when he tries to comfort her. Her father is crying, big fat tears rolling down his cheeks. Muffled sobs escape him. Kate wraps him a hug, one which he returns, crying into her shoulder. Shouldn't it be the opposite? Shouldn't she be crying? Shouldn't she be relying on them? All she knows is that her veins are filled with ice water, her muscles practically in rigor mortis. She can barely move, everything is moving like a really bad cutaway scene in a movie. The angles are all wrong and she can't compute what's going on. A numbness is in her brain and her heart. She can't feel her hands or her emotions. They are talking about the funeral and she can't speak because her lips and face are frozen. The funeral is in two days. Kate doesn't want to go. Her mother isn't going to be in a box in the ground. Her mother can't be dead. She can't be.
Her mother has to be here to make the cold go away. She needs to be here to ask her if she wants hot chocolate and to tell her she loves her and to help her practice for her cello recital and to hug her and tell her everything will be alright and-
-her mother is dead.
No one is going to make the cold go away.