Phantom Itch

Phantom Limb
M.R. Nadler

Jill hung up the phone, the plastic handle tacky against her clammy hand. The air of the apartment kitchen stifled her. She leant against the countertop behind her, staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring again, waiting for that next intrusion into her crumbling world, waiting for what would come next.
In the living room Angie lay on the couch on the far wall, curled beneath an old crocheted blanket. She grasped a note pad and pen in her hands. She had been curled up in that position for hours. Her thin legs and sharp hips were almost lost beneath the rumples of multi-colored blanket. Jill tried to remember the feel of Angie's healthy body pressed against her own at night, the cup of her hand resting against her hip, her palm fitting perfectly around the curves of Angie's now fading body.
"Who was on the phone?" Angie asked, covering the pad with slender palms and looking up at her lover. "You know you don't have to take every call in the kitchen, it's not like talking on the phone is going to make me sicker." There was a hint of jest in her voice, but only a hint.
"I didn't want to break your concentration. It wasn't the doctor, no more bad news on that front just yet."
"So who was it?"
Jill sighed. "It's my mother. She's coming to stay for a couple days."
Angie paused for a moment. Her dark eyes narrowed, eyebrows tilted, and she nodded slowly as if she were a critic reviewing a fine meal. She was like that; the kind that took each word, tasted it, tested it, let it roll around in her mouth as she detached every possible meaning before finally consuming it. Then she did the same with the words that she brought back up, ever thoughtful.
"It's been what, three years?" She slid her hands off the pad, making and few notes and dashes and nodding her head absently.
"Closer to four." Jilly crossed her arms. Angie's calmness, her ability to take everything in stride was always a nuisance to Jill. That calm started more than one fight over the years in regards to Angie's apathy towards everything. Now Angie was dying and Jill imagined she cared more about it than Angie did.
She had seen her cry once, in the hospital, after her first round of chemotherapy.
"You and your mother could use some time together," Angie said, continuing to script the notepad before her. "She's always been so kind to me, especially since the cancer. Remember that beautiful bouquet of flowers she sent to the hospital when I started chemo?"
"Well, you didn't have to grow up with her," Jill responded. She cast her eyes down and reached to the coffee table before her at the stack of books, papers, and journals, picking up a paperback she wasn't sure she had read yet.
A visit from her mother, Jill decided, was really the last thing Angie needed. Jill had looked forward to a quiet weekend; a time to be tender and help Angie rest. It was a time to relax, to be, maybe to heal. Jill’s mother never did have the best timing.
"I know you had a rough time with your family, Jill. But for God's sake, just let bygones be bygones, why don't you?"
Jill didn't reply, instead opening the book in front of her and proceeding to read the first sentence repeatedly, never really registering what the words meant. The doorbell rang an hour later.
“That's probably mom." Jill got up from the chair and walked to the door and looked through the peephole.
Distorted, Jill’s mother stared into the door. Janet did not look her sixty years; lanky and slender, much like Jill herself, her mother had thick and dark hair that curled around her head like briar bushes, a narrow face, a sharp nose, and oddly curled lips that Jill could never tell were smiling or scowling. Through the peephole, Jill imagined she resembled a barracuda in a fishbowl, her nose the center, ballooned to a comically large size. Jill sighed again and unlocked the door, threw a “Brace yourself, Angie” over her shoulder and pulled the door open.
“Hi, mom.”
“My goodness, Jillian, you look terrible!” The tall woman brushed past her daughter and took a lengthy step into the apartment and set her purse onto the chair where Jill had sat. She leaned down and straightened the pile of capriciously placed books on the coffee table and looked up at Angie.
“Angela, my, it’s good to see you,” Janet said.
Jill shut the door and turned back to the living room, catching Angie’s eye.
Angie smiled. "You too, Janet. Always a pleasure."
Jill came up behind her mother and offered her hands. “Let me take your coat, mom. Do you want a cold drink or something? I’m sure you are tired after the drive. You can sit in that chair there if you want.” Jill hung the coat in the closet and came back to the living room and stood on the plush rug as she observed her lover and her mother smile at each other from their respective places on the couch and the chair.
“Angela, you look like you’ve lost weight. Has Jill been feeding you okay?” Janet crossed her legs and frowned at Jill. “How about some tea, sweetheart. Angela might want some too.”
Angie twisted her pen between her pale fingers. "I don't really drink-"
Jill waved her hand. “It’s fine. Make yourself at home, mom.” Jill ducked behind the kitchen wall, leaned against the counter and took a few deep breaths.
She could take care of this, she was sure she could. Give her mom some tea, chat with her for a moment, and then make up the guest room. Hopefully her mother would spend the weekend watching television, and Jill could grade papers, and maybe they didn't even have to talk.
She took a deep breath. It would be fine.
Jill prepared tea – hot for her mother, iced for herself, no tea for Angie – and attempted not to eavesdrop on the conversation in the living room. The sporadic voices were not engrossed in riveting conversation as they exchanged meaningless words about the weather. Janet’s voice was similar to Jill’s in thickness, but not in tone, and Angie’s light voice floated above Janet’s low tones, like jingle bells on the fingers of a tuba player.
Jill gave them a few more minutes before appearing with Janet’s tea. She handed her mother the mug as she settled down by Angie’s feet at the end of the couch. She clasped her glass between her hands, fingers intertwined.
“So, mom… how are things at home?” Her mother’s thick eyebrows ruffled, and Jill cleared her throat. “What brought you down here anyway?"
“The last two times I’ve called you two have had plans.” Janet straightened herself, took a sip of tea and stared down into the cup. “I was in the city anyway, I thought maybe I could stay here a few days. Of course, if you don’t mind, Angela.” She lifted her eyes and smiled at the young woman on the couch. “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“No, not at all, Janet.” Angie grinned. “Jill could use the excitement.”
Janet raised her eyebrows and Jill glanced at her lover, horrified, and clutched her glass tightly. “Well, isn’t dad expecting you, mom? You don’t want to leave him by himself.”
Janet laughed a loud laugh that seemed to leap from her mouth and lay like a winter blanket over the living room. “Don’t worry about you father, Jillian. He is much more capable than you give him credit.”
“It’s fine, Jilly, really,” Angie said, tousling her hair with her fingers. “You can stay in the extra bedroom. I’ll put fresh sheets on for you.” She peeled back the blanket and stood up, Jill reaching out to take her hand.
“I can do that if you want to rest.”
Angie pulled her hand away and frowned. “Jill. They’re sheets. I can handle it.” She clutched her writing pad and strode past Jill, and Jill watched the pale, slim figure and sloppy pajamas disappear down the hall. Jill took a sip of her tea and closed her eyes.
“Jillian, dear.” Her eyes opened and she stared at her mother, Janet’s forehead wrinkled above her eyebrows. “She looks well. For being so sick, I mean.”
“She’s fine, mom,” Jill snapped. “I mean, well, she’s getting a lot better, I mean, uh… Well, it could be worse, at any rate.” She took another sip of tea, feeling very hot, even though the room had previously been a fairly comfortably temperature. “Um, how are you and dad doing? Is retirement treating him well?”
Janet smiled, setting her tea onto a coaster on the coffee table. “Your dad is bored out his mind, sweetheart. I’ll never quite understand how that man cannot sit still. His first day off I told him to go fishing, watch a game, read a book. But all he can talk about is how much he misses the warehouse.” Janet’s eyes seemed far away as she spoke. “He’s a working man, Jillian. Working men can’t rest, even when they deserve it.”
“Yeah, that’s dad.” Jill raised her eyebrows, shrugging. “Are you two getting along okay? You know how he can be when he’s bored.”
“Oh, we’re fine, dear,” Janet replied quickly. “You’re father is… well, your father.” She looped her finger through the ceramic handle of the mug. “And you and Angela?” Jill tilted her head, unsure of what her mother was getting at. Janet shifted in her seat. “Are you two, umm, doing ok?”
Jill groaned and took a long gulp of her tea. Women like he mother did not change, she supposed. Ten years to grow accustomed to her daughter being in a romantic relationship with another woman, and yet her mother still could not even say it. It had been the drift between them; the way that Janet had looked at her when she first told her that she was in love with Angie. It had been that hollow shame in her mother’s eyes that had made Jill cower, turn away, and not speak to her parents for months. It was a shame that haunted her.
“Yes, mother. Angie and I are fine. We’re not any worse off then you and dad.” Jill set her glass down and crossed her arms. “Mom, if this is going to be a problem--”
Janet shook her head. “No, no, it’s fine. You know its fine, honey. I just…” She sighed. “Honestly, Jillian, I miss you. And I know you are going through a tough time right now with Angela being so sick, and I thought I could…”
“Help us?”
“Something like that.”
Jill sighed. “Then go home, mom. Angie and I are fine, really. You and dad should spend some time together. Angie and I will be fine.” She repeated the last sentence, quietly.
Her mother looked up at her daughter, clutching her mug. “Jillian, please. Just the night at least. It would be nice.”
“Janet, of course,” said Angie from behind Jill, and Jill turned to face her. Angie raised her eyebrows at Jill before she gave a warm smile to Janet. “I have your room set up, if you want to take your things into there and get settled in. Stay as long as you want.”
“Thank you so much, dear.” Janet stood up, clutching her purse, and brushed past the couch and toward Angie. “Changing those sheets was good for you. You look pinker.”
She entered the hallway and Angie, with a shake of her head towards Jill, followed. Jill sat, nursing her cooling tea and listened to their voices.
“It’s right there, across from our room.”
"Oh, of course." Janet's voice trembled, only a little.
She seemed to be genuinely surprised, and Jill groaned, covering her face with her hands. This was a mistake, she convinced herself. Angie would see that sooner or later.

As Janet settled in, Angie sat down on the couch, resting the palms of her feet against the corner of the coffee table. Jill set her glass down.
"Are you sure you are okay with this?"
Angie nodded. "It's fine, honey." She crossed her arms. "I know you guys had a rough time, but that was a long time ago. And she's trying, Jill. The least you can give her is that she is trying."
"Well," Jill said, shrugging her shoulders. "Maybe that will never be enough."
"Oh, Jill." Angie leaned back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. "Don't be so melodramatic."

By mid afternoon, the three women resigned themselves to a quiet day in the living room. Jill half-heartedly graded her students’ biology examinations in the rocking chair by the fireplace. Her attention split between her mother, who clutched the remote control, apparently unable to decide on what to watch on TV, and Angie, who still scribbled distractedly on her notepad. Every now and again, Janet remarked on the bad reception of the television, and after a while, Angie said she needed a nap and left for the bedroom, taking her notebook with her.
The living room filled again with the far away sounds of the voices on the television and, after a few moments, Janet switched it off and the room plunged into silence.
"What," Janet said after a moment, "do you think Angie is scribbling away about in that notebook?"
"I don't know," Jill replied. "I guess one of her stories." She paused for a moment, the still air of the room pressing down on her. "I hadn't really thought to ask."
"She not still travel writing, is she?" Janet's voice carried a familiar false cheeriness.
"No, mom." Jill let her words fall like rocks in a pond. "No, she's not."
Janet fell quiet, and Jill lost herself back into her quiet world of genetics and environmental issues. When she graded the last exam, she looked up. Her mother paced back in forth in front of the mantelpiece as she examined the picture frames there.
Jill sighed and closed her grading notebook, organizing her papers and trying to ignore the thickness in her throat. Janet picked up a photograph of Jill and Angie in Scotland, brushing her fingers over the glass.
“Her hair looks different. It used to be so thick.”
“She lost a lot of it to the chemo.” Jill stood up, and stood beside her mother. "She thought it was funny. She had so much of it than when it started falling out, it really only thinned. She kept talking about how much money we got to save by not having to buy wigs and hats."
Jill examined the pictures closely for the first time in a long time. Most of the had been taken while traveling; she and Angie had loved to travel. They had a solid seven years before Angie fell ill, though the school months had been hard. While Jill had no choice but to stay home and to earn a her living, Angie often had no choice but to leave to write her travel articles. Their freedom came in the summer months, their time to travel and experience the world together. It was the reason they never had pets, or talked seriously about children; Jill wanted nothing to tie them to the city she wanted so desperately to leave behind them. She stared at the picture of the Scottish hills that rolled behind them, and thought that Angie would ever see them again. Dust-covered pictures on a mantle piece were all she had left.
There were a couple photographs of Angie’s parents and sisters; her mother had died when Angie was still a teenager and her father after a heart attack when Angie and Jill were in their early twenties, not long after they started dating. Angie had never told him. Her sisters all live states away, with their own families, their own lives, their own problems.
There was only one of Jill’s parents, and it was over fifteen years old. Her mother looked young and gentle, her father slim, with soft eyes.
Janet put the picture back down and moved back to the couch to sit down. Jill ran her fingers over the corner of the picture frame that held her parents’ photo, and looked back to her mother.
“Are you and dad having problems?”
Janet shrugged. “Nothing to dwell on, dear. Your father is your father.”
“There’s nothing wrong with dad.” Jill muttered, and she faced her mother. “He just has a much of a problem living up to your expectations as I do.”
Janet’s eyes narrowed. “I have no idea what you are talking about, Jillian.”
“Every time something happens that messes up your idea of our perfect lives, instead of trying to fix it or understand it, you just push everyone away.” Jill crossed her arms. “Mom, what are you doing here, really? You haven’t visited me and Angie in three years.”
“Now, Jillian, you know I have called-”
“Oh please, mom. You don’t think I know that the only reason you ever call is to keep up appearances? You’ve always been so obsessed with me living the perfect life for you-"
Janet approached Jill quickly, shaking her head. "That's not fair, Jillian. If memory serves correctly it was you who stopped speaking to your father and I. I don't expect you to live a perfect life. I don't expect any of us to."
"Oh, mother," Jill stood up. "You've spent your entire life making sure I knew how much I have let you down."
"No, Jillian. You've spent your entire life blaming me because you let yourself down." Her mother's dark eyes softened for a moment, and she turned away. She sat on the couch and turned on the television, never glancing at Jill again.
Jill set the picture back on the mantle and slipped into the hallway next to the bedroom door. Beneath the white and pink blankets of the bed, Angie's sleeping form shifted slightly, her chest rising and falling with each breath. Jill backed out from the doorway and leant against the wall in the hallway, slipping to the floor, head buried in her hands.

Jill and Janet passed speaking sparse and only necessary words. When she woke up from her nap, Angie spent the evening watching various travel shows and critiquing the hosts as if they were writers. Janet had joined in now and then, remarking on her interest in visiting various places, which only cause Angie to start talking animatedly about her trips and pulling out old copies of her travel writing magazine. She didn't touch her notepad for most of the evening.
After Janet retired to the guestroom for the night, Jill joined Angie in their bedroom, abandoning her stacks of half-graded papers on the dresser. Angie was hunched over her notepad, and Jill tucked herself in the bed beside her, leaning her cheek against her lover’s shoulder.
"You’ve been scribbling over that thing for days,” she said. “You shouldn’t be working so hard.”
“Quit babying me,” Angie replied.
Jill pulled away from Angie’s shoulder, and leaned against the headboard. “Okay, but don’t get so upset. I just think maybe you should rest. Build up your energy.”
"So what?” Angie slammed down her hands on the pad in front of her. “So I can die with lots of energy?"
Jill pulled away and frowned, shaking her head. "That's not fair."
"No, it's not. But neither is you slinking around the house, snapping at your mother like she’s some sort of punching bag for your anger.” Angie's voice had risen to a volume that Jill couldn't recall having heard in years.
"Well, at least I actually care about what is going on. You… you sit here like you've accepted your fate and you don’t even fight anymore."
Angie shook her head. "I am fighting everyday. I fight and I cry and I hurt everyday but I get up and do it all again the next day."
Jill shook her head. "You never cry. I have never seen you cry."
Angie clutched her pad in her hands, and Jill saw the well of tears, the dampness in her eyes, the sign of an oncoming storm. "You are a very sound sleeper."
Jill sat and stared into Angie's eyes, unable to move, her breath catching in her throat. She wondered how long she had let her own pain blind her and separate her from the woman she loved in a cloud of fear. She wondered how long Angie had been shouting, how long Jill had been unable to hear.
Angie flipped open the pad and continued to scribble away, and Jill rolled over, burying her head in the pillow, trying to lose herself in the soft down beneath her head and the vague musty, soft sent of Angie that surrounded her. She didn't know how to make it better. There were no amount of words, she knew, that could save Angie. She was sure that Angie had already tried them all.

The sleep around her fell away at about two in the morning, and she sat up in the dark room, and her hand immediately sought out the form beside her. Her palm pressed Angie’s warm breast. Jill’s breathing calmed, in and out, in time with her lover’s. She closed her eyes and allowed the soft musty smell of hair and sleeping bodies wash around her with every breath.
Angie moaned and rolled to her side, and Jill leaned in to give her a gentle kiss on her still, warm lips, and rose from the bed. She gathered her robe and wrapped it around her and slipped out the door quietly, and walked down the hall towards the kitchen.
She wanted hot chocolate, maybe herbal tea. Something calming and warm, something to scare off the chill that seeped into her bones. She just wanted to calm down, go to sleep, and wake up in the morning with the hope that it was all a bad dream.
Janet was in the kitchen when Jill entered, sitting in front of a steaming cup of tea at the island seat in the middle of the kitchen. She smiled sleepily at Jill, pointing toward the seat.
“I made a pot, if you want any.”
Jill slipped on to the stool. “How did you know I was up?”
“I just knew.” Of course she did, Jill realized. She’s my mother.
“I’d love some, thanks.”
Janet poured another mug of tea and pushed it across the island. Jill tried to avoid her mother’s gaze and stared down into the murky tea, watching as thick brown liquid and stray leaves swirled around the shallow cup. She remembered being a child, crawling out of bed at night after a nightmare and finding her mother, with a warm cup of cocoa waiting for her in the kitchen. Those memories seemed so broken, so very far away.
“What’s wrong, mom? Bed uncomfortable?” Jill meant to sound jeering, but instead the words came out genuine.
Janet shook her head. “No… it’s lovely really. I’m just… having trouble sleeping.”
Jill’s breath stuck, and she thought back to the nights where Angie had been the hospital, when Jill would awaken and reach out, and not meet warm flesh but, instead, only cold sheets that slipped roughly under sweat-slicked hands. “I know the feeling,” Jill replied. She ran her finger across the corner of the island top. “It’s like those stories you hear about people who have lost limbs, how sometimes they can still feel the limb there even if it’s gone. You wake up with the feeling that something is missing that should be there, not really knowing what it is. A phantom limb.” Janet stared at Jill with unblinking eyes, as if she was trying to stare at herself. “You are dad are having problems, aren’t you?”
Janet nodded. “I don’t know so much us as him. Or me. I just… feel so suffocated all the time. I’m so used to us having our own lives, our own space. And now, suddenly, he's there, all of the time." She laughed. "I guess having him away for so long at the warehouse everyday; I'd make him breakfast and send him on his way. Now I can't seem to step anywhere without stepping into him. Everything we say or do tweaks the other's nerves. I suppose I just needed to get away for a while."
“Oh,” Jill said. “That’s good, I guess. I mean, I’m sure you two will work it out, anyway.”
Janet laughed. “He’s your father, Jillian. I love him. Of course we will work out.” Jill raised her eyebrows, but everything seemed to make sense to Janet, who now had a smile on her face. They sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments before Janet spoke again. “It doesn’t bother me, Jillian. Even if I don’t understand, it doesn’t bother me.”
Jill, confused, examined her mother’s face for clues. “Mom, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Well, Angela and you, of course.”
Jill felt her face flush hotly, and she shook her head and brought her mug up to her lips. “Really, mom, this is not the best time for this conversation.”
Janet blinked, resting her hands on the countertop. “Well, better now than never, I would think. I thought about what you said this afternoon, about me expecting you to have the perfect life. I never expected you to have a perfect life; but I wanted you too. I think every mother wants that for her child. And most parents confuse that, most of the time, with what their child may want for themselves."
Jill nodded, the words making more sense to her than anything had in a long while. And her mouth opened, and the words began to fall away like a fading fog.
“The last visit Angie had to the doctor, mom… We - she - found out the chemo isn't having an effect anymore. I mean, we are looking into different options and there's always a chance but...” Jill grimaced, laying her hand flat against the countertop and took a deep, trembling breath, fighting back the ache in her throat.
“Jillian.” Janet leaned forward, reaching out her hand toward her daughter. Jill shook her head.
“Really, mom, it’s okay. I mean, she could have years. She’s doing fine right now.”
“And how are you doing?”
Jill’s breath caught in her throat and she felt her face become damp with tears. She wiped her face with the palms of her hands. “I don’t know, mom. I don’t know what I'll do without her. I don’t know what she did to deserve to die like this. So alone. When I wake up sometimes, I have to touch her… to make sure she is still warm, still breathing. It’s crazy, I know.” Jill put her head in her hands, and she heard a stool squeak across linoleum, and her mother’s arms wrapped around her, her embrace blocky and awkward. Jill did not know how to respond, and she felt small in her mother’s arms.
“When you were twenty, around the same time you told us… well, you know.” Her mother sighed into Jill’s shoulder. “You weren't speaking to us at the time, and we didn’t tell you afterwards. Your father had a cancer scare.”
Jill stiffened in her mother’s arms, and sobbed. A million things ran through her mind - anger, sadness, and fear - none that brought coherent words to her lips.
“We didn’t know how to tell you," Janet continued, "and we didn’t want to scare you. It was already too hard for all of us. I remember those nights waking up, and being so afraid that I couldn’t breathe, and I had to wake him up just to hear his voice. He thought I was crazy but…” Janet was silent for a moment, and Jill pulled away and examined her mother’s narrow face. Somehow, she looked frail and helpless. “I couldn’t imagine waking up without your dad next to me, Jillian. And there is nothing wrong with missing someone you love.”
Jill sobbed again. "But I miss her so much, and she hasn't even gone yet."
"That's the hardest part, I suppose." Janet's hand brushed through Jill's hair, and she felt warm in her mother's arms. "It's difficult not to mourn when you know how soon you will have to. But not everyone is that lucky, you know, not everyone gets to know." Janet pulled away and held Jill's face in her hands, dark eyes examining her face, dark eyes that knew so much that they had yet to tell to a daughter who never had the strength to listen. "You'll have plenty of time to mourn later. Don't waste what you have left being angry at something you can't change. And don't be angry at Angie, not for this. She's dealing with it like you are - the only way she can. But you need to be there for her, too."
Jill thought about Angie, her notebook, the way that Jill always forgot to ask what she was writing, or how she was feeling. Angie had never been a victim and Jill waited for her to be; wanted her to be, wanted to see Angie’s anger and fear in order to validate her own.
Janet's mother held her until Jill's tears stopped and even longer after that. She finally felt her eyelids droop with sleep, and Janet helped her back up the hall to the bedroom door, before disappearing back into her own room. Jill slipped into the dark and under the covers, working her way into Angie’s arms. She sighed and let the cup of her hand rest gently on the sharp curve of Angie's hip. She closed her eyes and allowed the other woman to warm her, her cheek pressed against her breast, the gentle heartbeat lulling her to sleep.

A shrill ring of the telephone broke the morning air, awakening both Angie and Jill. Before she could grasp hold of the phone the ringing stopped, and she rolled over, catching Angie's sharp brown eyes.
"I need to stay in bed for a while. Do you think you can handle your mom for the day?”
Jill sat up and nodded. "I think so. I think we might have reached an understanding." She ran her fingers through Angie's hair.
Angie stroked Jill’s cheek. “You are going to need her, Jill. Maybe she can help you with this, when I can’t anymore.”
Jill’s throat burned again and she grabbed Angie’s hand, kissing her palm. “I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten I’m not the only one who is hurting."
"I know. But I am running out of time waiting for you to remember."
Jill’s eyes scanned the room, thinking of all that was Angie's around her, the things that would remain even after she would be gone. The stack of travel magazines on the floor near the window; a small collection of teddy bears saved from her childhood; the stack of unread and half-read books on the bed stand, with the tattered notepad on top. They seemed eternal, unmovable, waiting to become artifacts of another life.
“My mother… she told me that I’m already mourning.”
Angie actually laughed. “I’m not dead yet.” But she touched Jill hand softly, and her hollowed eyes swam with an understanding.
“I know.” Jill let her eyes wander around the room again, resting on the notepad Angie had been scribbling in. Something stirred in Jill’s mind, an interest that had been forgotten. "Speaking of which… I really would like to know what you are writing," Jill said, her vision hovering on the notepad.
Angie looked away. “It’s my will.” Jill convulsed and her hand grasped Angie’s tightly.
“God, Angie, why? Why do you have to do it now?”
Angie smiled. “Better now than later. I don’t know how much time I have, Jill. I don’t want to spend my last moments figuring out who gets and what and how much. I want to spend my last moments loving you.”
It was times like this that Jill remembered Angie was certainly a writer, and feeling herself warm, she nodded and leaned down and captured Angie’s lips with her own. Their mouths met and their breath melded, warm and gentle, and as Jill pulled away, Angie began to cry.
“Baby, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Angie put her palms on Jill’s cheeks, her watery, green eyes staring into her. “Nothing. I’ve just been waiting for you to ask.”
Jill leaned in, sighing, and pressed her lips against Angie’s again. The warmth of her lips clamed Jill’s aching head.
When Jill came out to the living room wrapped in her dressing gown, Janet was gathering together her purse and belongings. Jill crossed her arms.
"What’s going on, mom?"
"Good morning, Jillian." Janet pulled her overnight bag over her shoulder. "That was your father, on the phone. He burnt his toast this morning, and says he can't get the coffee machine to 'go.' I think he can't find the ‘on’ button."
Jill stifled a laugh and nodded. "Sounds like dad."
"At any rate, I told him to go out to breakfast but I best get home before he's burns the house down. Forty years of keeping house for him, I'm not going to wait for him to take it down in one day." She smiled.
As Jill looked at her mother, Janet seemed gentle, her features less sharp, and her eyes less narrow. She seemed younger, like in the picture on the mantle. She hugged her mother, giving her a peck on the cheek.
“Say hi to dad for me,” Jill said. “Tell him to come down and visit or something.”
“Of course,” Janet replied, ruffling her daughter’s hair. “Maybe next weekend?” Janet's tone was cautious, and Jill felt that she was speaking to a different person from the woman she thought she knew.
“I’ll call you,” Jill said, and she meant it.
“Jillian… I know what you are going through. A little anyway. I might not understand your feelings for Angela because I don’t understand… well, you know.” Her cheeks flushed a bit, and Jill shrugged.
“Mom, it’s fine--”
“What I mean,” Janet said, “is I don’t understand why you love Angela the way you do. But I understand that you love her. And maybe, in the long run, that is more important.”
Janet leaned in and hugged her daughter one more time, and Jill stood by the door and watched her mother walk down the hallway, until she faded from sight.