Page 30 of April Flowers

“You haven’t been here in years, Margot,” Lillian said. “You could have called beforehand. I would have put something on the stove.”

Margot remembered what she’d read about Alzheimer’s—that in the early days of it, it was a little like turning on and off the switch of the mind. But now that her mother’s eyes glinted with ferocity again, just as they always had, Margot was even more terrified. There had been a comfort with that other version of Lillian—the Lillian who didn’t remember her.

“Are you going to say something? Or are you going to sit there, staring at me?” Lillian continued.

The knock on the front door nearly made Margot leap out of her skin.

“What is that racket?” Lillian demanded. “Margot, what is going on?”

Margot hopped to her feet, nearly spilling her green tea. “A friend is coming by.”

“A friend? You have all these friends coming and going all the time. I’ve had enough.”

But now the blond woman was back on television with her soufflé, and Lillian was distracted again. “Here we go,” Lillian said. “Let’s see what you’re made of,” she said to the blond woman.

It was, incidentally, what Lillian had previously said to Margot when she was growing up. “Let’s see what you’re made of” when it came to everything from riding a bike to baking cookies to cleaning the bathroom.

Margot swept across the room and into the foyer. Sam was on the front stoop, wearing a strained smile and shivering. As soon as she was inside, Margot hugged her harder than she’d hugged anyone in years. Sam seemed to sense how much she needed it.

Their hug broke as Lillian yelled at the blond woman on television. “Give me a break! You did not make that yourself! It’s all a big lie!”

Sam gave Margot a confused smile.

“She’s angry at The Cooking Channel. I’m just glad she isn’t angry with me,” Margot said.

Sam grimaced. “This isn’t how I imagined you coming back. What a mess! I’m sorry it’s been like this.”

Margot raised her shoulders and bit her tongue to keep from crying. She suddenly remembered how, yesterday, Estelle had told her that Sam’s daughter Rachelle had been on The Cooking Channel last year. She wondered if Lillian had watched Rachelle; she wondered if she’d rooted for her or yelled at her from this side of the television screen.

“I’m sorry. You should come in,” Margot beckoned. “I have tea and, um, pudding?”

“Listen,” Sam said, looking nervous. “I need to talk to the girl.”

For a split second, Margot couldn’t remember what Sam was talking about. Her brain was overcrowded.

“Oh. She ran off, I guess.”

Sam looked deflated.

“I don’t know her,” Margot said, feeling defensive, as though it was up to her to take care of the girl and she’d failed. “She came into my life and left just as quickly.”

Sam rubbed the back of her neck. Margot’s instinct was to offer her pudding again, but she’d already done that. They stood stupidly in the foyer until Lillian called out to them, “Margot? Are you going to do the dishes like you said you would?”

Margot’s stomach ached with hunger and confusion.

“I don’t think she fully knows what’s going on right now,” Margot said.

“I imagine not,” Sam said. “It’s good you’re here.”

Margot sighed. “You think you know the girl?”

“Hmm?” Sam seemed distracted.

“The teenager. Why do you want to talk to her?”

Sam was hesitant. It was increasingly clear that something was going on, something Sam didn’t want to tell Margot about. Margot couldn’t take it.

“Come on, Sam. I need to know what I’m dealing with here.”

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