Best Friends Through Eternity (16 page)

I borrow the Aggarwal phone. Step one, I have to at least try to reconnect.

The phone rings once before Kim’s mom picks up.

“Hello?”

In the one word, a flood of memories returns. She used to make crafts with Kim and me, shopped for candy to decorate a huge birthday cookie. She French-braided our hair and stuck in white baby’s breath.

“Hello?” she repeats. “Who is this?”

“Aunt Bev? It’s me.”

“Paige.” She answers in a sigh. Not with sadness but with warmth. I can hear a smile in her voice, and suddenly all I want to do is to see her and hug her and live my whole childhood through again.

“Can I come to see you?”

“Of course. Anytime.”

“Today? Right now?”

“That would be wonderful.”

I ask her about bus directions since their house is at the other end of the city for me. She tells me she would pick me up except that Uncle Jack is at the hardware store with their only car. When I get off the phone, Mrs. Aggarwal offers to drive me.

“Thanks,” I tell her.

Jazz jumps in the back of the large black truck her family drives, just to keep me company.

Tiny Mrs. Aggarwal peers through the steering wheel as she maneuvers through the slow streets of Burlington to the southeast end.

At the small ranch house that I once knew so well, she lets me off.

“Want me to come, too?” Jazz asks.

“Thanks, but no. I’ll be fine.” I climb out of the truck and wave to Jazz and her mom.

Before I can knock on the door, it opens, and Kim’s mom spreads her arms wide to me. “It’s so good to see you.”

I fall into them. Aunt Bev is a short round woman with light brown hair, blue eyes and freckles. Strands of silver glint from her hair now, less gray than Mom’s, though. Wrinkles fan out from her eyes and the corners of her mouth, but she feels like bed cushions when I hug her back. I can smell vanilla and chocolate warm in the air as I step into the house.

“As soon as I got off the phone, I started baking cookies.” With her arm on my shoulder, she leads me through the living room, where I can see pictures of me and Kim everywhere. So different from my house, where they are all locked away. The kitchen looks different: no rooster wallpaper; the cabinets are painted a butterscotch color. Before, I’m sure they’d been white. “Do you want milk or tea with your cookies?” she asks me as I sit down on the stool at the counter.

“Tea, please.” Now I remember a tiny pink and white set of cups and saucers and little teapot that sang as Kim poured. What was that tune? Her dad used to sing along in a funny papa bear kind of voice.

Aunt Bev plugs in the kettle, then bends over to pull the cookie sheet from the oven. All this I missed. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly.

“How is your mother?” she asks as she places a plate of cookies in front of me. “Careful, they’re still hot.”

I lift one up anyway, and it breaks in my hands. “Mmm. She only makes carob.” I bite into the melting buttery sweetness. “Mostly she brings home organic.”

“But she’s kept her figure after all these years.” Aunt Bev smiles. “You’re so beautiful.” Standing next to me, she strokes my arm.

“You’ve seen Mom?”

“From a distance. I’ve always respected her space.”

“I didn’t even know you still lived in Burlington.”

“It’s what your parents thought best. I knew someday you would look for us.” She pours from the kettle into a teapot now.

“But I thought you had moved to another part of the country.”

“Sooner or later, you would have discovered the truth.” She sits down beside me, placing the teapot on a trivet.

“I didn’t know about the
E. coli.
” I hesitate. “I’m so mad at Mom. I would have gladly done anything to keep Kim alive.”

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault.” Aunt Bev bites into a cookie, and I watch as her eyes turn teary. “But your mom just couldn’t give up on Kimberly.”

“What are you talking about? She should have insisted on a kidney transplant. Mine had to be a perfect match.”

Her tears spilled over. “Kimmee was so weak, honey. I couldn’t allow it.”

“But Mom said …” I stop.

“No doctor around here would consent to a live organ transplant from such a little girl. You would have had to be at least sixteen. Your mother found a doctor in India, but we couldn’t go along with it. It was too big a risk.”

It makes sense. I can picture Mom at my bedside trying to get me to squeeze her hand or to blink my eyes long after everyone else has given up on me. “She should have let me visit Kim.”

“Maybe. But she went so quickly, and you were very young.” She hugs me. “Don’t waste your time being angry.”

She’s right. With only Monday left, I have no more time to waste. “Do you think Mom would be ready to see you?” I ask her.

“After all these years, I hope so,” Aunt Bev answers.

Maybe with some luck, they would bond again, and then when Mom needed to pull the plug and let me go, Aunt Bev would be there for her. “I have an idea,” I say, “let’s all go out for Chinese.”

Aunt Bev likes the idea, so for my last supper together on
this earth, I call Mom at the store and tell her we should meet at the Mandarin.

“For a Canadian, Chinese, Japanese kind of smorgasbord?” she asks, laughing.

“Yes. I’m embracing my roots. Mixed as they are. Mom? Aunt Bev and Uncle Jack are coming.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath. “I see.” Then there’s a long silence. Finally, she speaks. “It’s probably time. Okay, then. We’re locking up now. We should be there in twenty minutes.”

No argument from her, even though I put her on the spot. That was easy.

Uncle Jack arrives home as I set down the phone. “Well, look who the cat dragged in,” he says in a pleased voice. He’s lost most of his hair since I last saw him, and he looks shorter, if that’s possible. Like Aunt Bev, he’s put on weight.

“Don’t get too settled. We’re meeting Paige’s parents for dinner.”

“Really?” He looks me over slowly, his face opening like a sunrise. “Just see how beautiful our girl turned out.” He smiles. “Everything we could have imagined.”

It was exactly what I would have wanted my biological parents to say if I could have found them somehow. Uncle Jack and Aunt Bev instantly fill a hole; maybe it’s the one Kim and I were always digging.

Uncle Jack opens his arms. I stand up and step into his bear hug.

After a few moments, Bev taps my arm. “Time to go. Let’s get our coats.”

Jack holds Bev’s out as she slides her arms in. Then we all head out to the car in the driveway. They’ve replaced their larger four-door sedan with an electric blue hatchback. Kind of zippy and tiny for such slow-moving big people. I slide behind the pushed-up seat.

We beat my parents to the restaurant, so we put our names down for a table. When they finally arrive, I watch Mom hesitate and stumble over her words. “It’s been so long, it’s so good …” One hand lifts, then the other.…

Aunt Bev rushes to hug her. The dads shake hands and lie about how they haven’t changed a bit. One set of parents looks too thin and the other too heavy. They all look a bit sad and tired. Everyone and everything has changed.

The hostess interrupts to show us to the back, a room almost to ourselves.

By this time tears shine in Mom’s eyes. “We’ve let too much time go by.”

“I wish we could have been there for you,” Dad adds.

Uncle Jack shakes his head. “Seeing Paige today is just perfect.”

The waiter stops by, and I ask for chopsticks. He whisks away my cutlery and lays down a package.

“I’m a little nervous about eating here,” Mom says.

To say the least,
I think.
How do they feel about sitting and
dining with Kim’s parents after everything that happened?

“All that food sits out under hot lights for a long time,” Dad agrees.

“Don’t worry. This is a popular place. They replenish the dishes frequently,” Jack tells them.

“Let’s get up there,” I suggest, and we line up behind the other diners. I take shrimp, sushi, egg rolls, a steamed dumpling and something that looks like a stuffed dead leaf. I think it might be authentic Chinese. Back at our seats, I fail several times to lift the brown leaf bundle to my mouth. Finally, I lower my face and scoop it in. Instantly, I begin choking.

My mother rubs my back. “You’re not supposed to eat the lotus leaf.”

It’s dry and tasteless and doesn’t dissolve, so I spit it into a napkin.

“The dim sum chef steams food in the leaf to give it a good color and aroma,” Bev explains.

“You’re supposed to hold the chopsticks more like a pencil,” Mom continues.

“Okay.” I drop the chopsticks with a sigh. “I’ve changed my mind, Mom. Let’s go to China.”

“Well, that’s a big leap. From the buffet to another continent,” Dad says.

“I always wanted to take Kim,” Bev says.

“We were going to take you together; that was the plan,” Mom says, frowning.

“Why don’t we still do that?” I suggest. “The more the merrier.”
Is there even a million-to-one chance I can avoid that train tomorrow? Avoid some other death that may replace the train accident?
Will Mom and Bev somehow stay in contact after my death? In my mind, I picture them going together despite my death.

Everyone gets along well. It’s as though the tragedy of Kim’s death had bonded us instead of creating that seven-year rift. Mom is going to inquire at the travel agency next to their store about a group discount for five. Bev says to call her with a time and she will meet her there with a list of must-go- to places. We start tasting foods from each other’s plates. Mom accidentally eats some beef but doesn’t make a fuss about it.

When the tea comes at the end, I open my fortune cookie. It says:
Destiny has other plans for you.
I shudder.

T
his’ll be the day that I die.
It’s the line from one of my parents’ favorite songs, but it’s also true. I leap out of bed the moment the alarm sounds at seven, greedy to enjoy much more of the day than last time, when I buried my head under the pillow. After I dress, I head to the kitchen and pause when I see Mom staring out the window watching the sunrise.

“Good morning.” Mom sips from her coffee.

I sit down beside her and look outside, too. A thin line of orange glows along the horizon.

“Why did you make me think it was Aunt Bev who wanted the kidney transplant? Why didn’t you tell me it was you?”

The horizon swells with a bump of bright gold.

She turns to me. “Because I was ashamed.” She sips again. “I was so wrong about it.”

The bump becomes a perfect small orb, the gold spreading around it.

“How do you know? Kim could have been alive today.”

She shakes her head. “Did you ever hear the story of wise King Solomon and the two mothers?”

“This is from the Bible, isn’t it?” The sky transforms now. Clouds begin to light up in pink and gold.

She nods.

“When’s the last time you took me to church?”

“Never, but I thought you might have studied it in school, literature or something.” As she speaks, the sky continues to open into soft Popsicle pinks and purples.

I can’t believe I missed this display last time.

“Anyway, two women come before King Solomon, both claiming to be the mother of the same baby boy. One of the women had accidentally killed her son by rolling over in her sleep.” Mom pauses and drains her cup. “King Solomon tells his guards to cut the baby in half and give each mother a piece.”

“But that would be killing him. Neither would get a live child.”

“Exactly. So one steps forward and tells the king to give the whole baby to the other woman. At least he would stay alive.”

“Oh, I have heard this one. So the king declares that woman the real mother because she loves him enough to save him, even if it means giving him up.”

“That’s right.” Mom looks up at me. “So tell me, Paige, which mother was I?”

“Oh, come on. Giving away one kidney isn’t like cutting a baby in half.”

“Taking a severely ill child to India? Risking a healthy child?” She shakes her head. “Bev was right. This way, at least one child lived. But maybe I was the wrong mother to keep her.”

“How could you even think that?”

“Because Bev made the sacrifice without even asking. And I couldn’t even share you with her and Jack.”

“What do you mean ‘share me’? I was your adopted daughter. There was never any question about that.”

“But we cut off all contact. We said it was for your sake because you were too young to deal with death. But it was really because I couldn’t share you.”

The sunrise is complete now, and the sky looks bright and clear. No snowstorm today? No volleyball team at school to beat us up, except for Kierstead. No walk along the track necessary? Maybe the fortune cookie’s different plan does include a longer life. My heart double beats with hope.

I lean over and hug Mom tight, feeling her bones against me. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I hug her some more, and my body feels curiously lighter. When we let go of each other, I smile, feeling open like that sky outside. Maybe all those family secrets clouded
our horizon for too long. For the first time, I look at Mom without feeling angry. “I think you were meant to be my mother right from the moment I was conceived. It was destiny.”