Page 78 of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

After we finished, my mother presented a three-tiered white cake with cherries spread around the top. She convinced Meemaw to let her use the silver dessert forks and cake server, and once everyone had a slice in front of them—served on the good china—Meemaw said, “It’s time for my announcement.”

We all turned to her, waiting, and my stomach clenched in a knot. I would have known whatever she was about to tell us wouldn’t be good, even if she hadn’t mentioned it was unpleasant. Meemaw was acting too weird for it to have been good news.

“I always tried to do right by you kids,” she said. “Both my children, and their children.” Her gaze swung from my mother to me and then to my cousins. “Lord knows I made a mistake or two.”

Dixie’s mouth pressed into a thin line. I wasn’t sure she’d ever get over our grandmother’s betrayal, and truth be told, I wasn’t sure I would either.

“I’ve decided that it’s time for me to come clean about something,” she said, suddenly looking sad. But then her back straightened and a fire filled her eyes. “There’s no way to sugarcoat this, so I’m just gonna say it straight out. I’m dyin’.”

We all gawked at her, speechless, until finally I said, sounding harsher than I’d intended, “What are you talking about, Meemaw?”

“I’m dyin’,” she said bluntly. “I don’t know how to be any clearer than that. Dyin’ as in dead in the ground. Dead.”

I cringed at her coarseness, and Dixie continued to gape at her. Teddy had a dark look on his face.

“I understand the word dying,” I said. “I’m asking you how you know that you’re dying. We’re all gonna die someday, so what makes you think it’s gonna be sooner rather than later?”

“Because I’m sick,” she said, her face screwing up. “I got cancer, and I told ’em I wasn’t gonna have it operated on or have any of that chemo, and now it’s gettin’ close to the end. My doctor told me I had to tell you all so that you could make plans.”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about, Meemaw?” Teddy asked, his voice rising with an edge of panic. “You’ve haven’t been to the doctor in the last six months. How the hell can they know you’re dyin’?”

He was shouting now, and Dixie started to cry. My mother just continued to stare wordlessly at her own mother.

Meemaw pinned him with a defiant glare. “I’ve gone to the doctor. You just haven’t noticed.”

“Then we’ll find a specialist,” Teddy said. “We’ll find you a doctor that can fix this. What kind of cancer do you have?”

“I got breast cancer,” she said. “And they said I was gonna have to have my breast whacked off, and I said, ‘There ain’t noway I’m gonna do that. I came into this world with two breasts, and I’m going out with two breasts.’”

“Momma!” my mother shouted. “Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind? Don’t be ridiculous. They have plastic surgeons to fix things like that! I have a great surgeon on speed dial who would’ve given you a new one!”

“Are you crazy?” Meemaw asked, looking her up and down. “You think they can give me a wrinkled breast to match my old one? Or am I just supposed to walk around with the perky breast of a twenty-year-old on one side and a saggy witch’s teat on the other?”

“Momma!” my mother protested.

Luke and Bill grimaced, while Teddy’s face turned white then a deep shade of red. “Meemaw, you can’t be talkin’ about things like that!”

“Why the hell not?” she demanded. “It’s the truth.”

My mother shook her head. “I’m sure they’d spruce up the other one. You know, like trim it to match. Like topiaries.”

“So they’d use pruning shears?” Dixie asked, feigning innocence.

“Well, no,” my mother said with a frown, though her forehead remained line-free. “I’m sure they’d use all their cuttin’ tools. A snip here. A slice there.”

“I ain’t gettin’ my breast trimmed like a shrub,” Meemaw groaned.

“Nobody wants you to!” Teddy said, his face looking a little green.

I put both of my hands on my cheeks and took a deep breath. “Okay, slow down, Meemaw. Start from the beginning. How did you find out you had cancer, when exactly did this happen, and what’s been done since?”

She told us that she’d gone to the doctor last fall and found out that she had a mass. They’d done a biopsy and informed herthat it was cancer and that it looked like it had spread to her bones. When they told her that she only had five years to live if she agreed to chemo and a mastectomy, she decided that she wasn’t going to have any of it. She planned to let nature take its course, just like the good Lord had intended. She said she’d tried to tell us last summer, but the whole family dinner had devolved into chaos, and she’d been sitting on it ever since.

“And now,” she said, sounding more subdued and quieter than I’d ever heard her, “it’s startin’ to look really bad. It’s in my brain and my liver. It’s in more of my bones. They say the end is sooner rather than later, and I need to start makin’ plans.” She nodded, ever the pragmatist. “So it’s time. We need to plan my funeral and what’s gonna happen to the land after I’m gone.”

“Nobody wants to think about that right now, Meemaw,” Dixie said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “We’re still tryin’ to catch up.”

“Then you better start catchin’ up quick,” Meemaw barked, “because I’m only talkin’ about all this once.” She nodded to Teddy. “You’re the farmer of the group, so of course the land’s gonna go to you. But only if you agree to let your sister and your cousin still live here as long as they like. Summer made that overseer’s house all fancy, so I’d sure hate for you to kick her out.”

---