Part 12 (1/2)

Bibi grabbed Faith's chin and gave it a shake. ”Don't you be a martyr, Faith Anne. This is family. Margot and you are family. You are not in this alone. We take care of each other. So, we'll make a plan.”

Liking the thought of having a support system, one she knew and understood, people who knew her mother and could understand Faith's worries and frustrations, Faith swallowed back the lump in her throat and nodded. ”Okay. Thank you.”

”Don't you thank me for doin' what I should do, baby. I love you. You're back home now. We'll make your mama's life as good as we can. We're gonna make it through this and be okay. Okay?”

She nodded again. She even believed Bibi. Because she wasn't alone. She had her family, and she had Michael, too. With Michael, she could almost imagine a future in which living in Madrone was her best-case scenario.

”We should go in and see her.” Bibi's voice didn't project a lot of enthusiasm for that idea. Faith's mother was lucid today and had talked to Dr. Tomiko already. There was approximately zero chance that she would be glad to have visitors. And, Faith thought, even less chance that she would be glad to hear the plan.

”Yeah. Together.”

Bibi stood and held her hand out to Faith. ”You know it, darlin'. Together is how we go.”

Margot was lying with her eyes closed when they came into her room. What Faith noticed next was that the arrangement of flowers she'd picked up that morning from the gift shop downstairs-nothing fancy, just a dozen daffodils in a green gla.s.s vase, but daffodils were her mother's favorite flower-were gone. It had been a random impulse to buy them, a half-considered attempt to start a detente, but Faith was still hurt that they had been discarded already. When she moved toward the chair nearest the bed, she saw a small wedge of broken green gla.s.s on the floor next to the bedside table. She had an image of her mother, no longer restrained, sweeping the flowers off the table.

That hurt more.

But she shook it off, and she and Bibi sat side by side.

Margot sighed. ”What do you want?” she asked, without opening her eyes.

Bibi answered. ”Dr. Tomiko talked to Faith and me. I'm so sorry, baby.”

”Not your problem. Or hers, either.” She hadn't yet opened her eyes.

”Mom, I'm here.”

”I know. I don't know why.”

Bibi reached over and squeezed Faith's hand, and then she did something that Faith would cherish until she died. She stood up and leaned over the bed, getting right in her mother's face. ”You listen here, Margot. This is me. I know you. We have been friends for almost forty years, and I know everything there is to know about you. I know what you hate, what you love, what you regret. I know what you're afraid of. So you can lie there and be a cold b.i.t.c.h all you want. But you are losin' your mind, baby, honest and true. Bein' a b.i.t.c.h ain't gonna change that truth. You have this one chance to settle things up before it really leaves you. I love you too much to let you f.u.c.k that up. So here's how it's gonna be. Faith, because she is the good girl you raised, is here to move in with you and help you. I'm not sure you deserve that, but you're gettin' it. Hooj and me, and Connor, and the whole club family, we are here to help you.”

Now she opened her eyes. Faith, still seated at the side of the bed, couldn't see into those eyes, but she could see the rage on her mother's face as she glared at Bibi. ”Help me? You mean watch me drool and p.i.s.s myself. I don't think so. I don't need help to do that. I d.a.m.n sure don't need hers.”

Bibi smiled and brushed her friend's blonde hair back. Margot knocked her hand away. ”That's a good show, baby. But I know you know you need Faith's help. I also know you don't think you deserve it. Good thing no one here gives a d.a.m.n what you think.”

”What about...where's...” Margot stopped, and everything about her att.i.tude changed with a blink. Her expression went slack and then became worried. ”Where's...the other one?”

Tears p.r.i.c.ked at Faith's eyes when she realized what her mother had forgotten. Her welling eyes met Bibi's-she was just as saddened.

”Sera, Mom. You want to know where Sera is?”

For the first time since she'd come into the room, Faith had her mother's attention. Margot turned and looked at her, without recognition, her brow furrowed. ”Sera? No, that's not right. My daughter.”

Daughter, in the singular. ”Serenity?” Faith guessed, using her sister's full name.

Her mother smiled, relieved. ”Yes! What about Serenity? Is she here? Who's picking her up? I need to call Blue.”

Dr. Tomiko had said that stress could trigger lapses. Faith hadn't expected it to happen so abruptly, in the middle of a sentence like that.

Looking plenty stressed herself, Bibi patted Faith's mother's hand. ”I'll handle it, baby. You just rest.”

”Thanks, Bibi. I don't know what I do without you. This d.a.m.n leg is really cramping my style.” She patted her cast absently and closed her eyes.

Bibi smiled down at Faith, her mouth trembling. ”C'mon, honey. Let's start working all this out.”

Bibi and Faith sat in the hospital cafeteria for a couple of hours and pored over the pamphlets the doctor had provided. Then they both had whipped out notepads-Faith's on her phone, and Bibi's a little spiral-bound journal from her purse-and divided up the tasks. They had a few days before Margot would be released. In that time, they'd have to get a lot of things set up for a new life.

The first item on Faith's to-do list was to call her sister. So, after Bibi left to head home and take over Tucker so Michael could go to the clubhouse for their Keep meeting, Faith sat in the cafeteria, which was starting to fill up with dinner-seekers, and dialed her sister's number.

She expected to leave a voicemail, but Sera answered. ”Faith? Hey, what's up?”

Faith and Sera got along, but they had never been the kind of sisters who were good friends. They were much too different in personality and interest for that. They were so different that they had barely competed. They hadn't even had much of a rivalry about their parents' affections. Their mother had preferred Sera, and their father had preferred Faith, and everybody had just sort of accepted that as the way it was supposed to be. Until Sera, three years older, left home. That was when things had gotten really dicey between Faith and Margot.

When Faith left home, she and Sera began keeping up a casual correspondence, talking maybe four or six times a year. As far as Faith knew, her sister had never told their parents where she could be reached. They had that much trust between them, anyway. And after they'd both gotten out on their own, Faith had come to know that Sera's feelings toward Margot were less than completely devoted. Their mother's demanding kind of love had been its own burden. Until the end, Faith had had the better deal. She and their father had been legitimately close. They'd understood each other.

Faith would never say it to her sister, because there was nothing productive in the observation, but she thought the same was true between her mother and sister. Though that relations.h.i.+p had been fractious, Sera was, in fact, quite a lot like their mother, despite being an up-and-coming international finance executive instead of a retired p.o.r.n star-and, in general, a much nicer person.

”I have a diagnosis. It's Alzheimer's.”

”f.u.c.k,” her executive sister muttered. ”How advanced?”

”Stage Four, which is the first stage of real impairment, if I understand everything right. Her doctor talked to me and Bibi for a long time. It's a lot of information.”

”I've done some research, too, and that's how I understand it. What about her leg?”

”It's setting well. They'll release her after the weekend. Sera, I need you to come home. I need help with this.” Faith knew when she said it what Sera's answer would be. It had to be said, but she and Bibi had started planning with the understanding that Sera would not be around.

”I can't, sis. You know I can't. I can't just walk away from this job, and I asked for this transfer. I can't even take time off right now. I'm working on a huge project, and I'm closing on a house, and things are just crazy here.” She paused, and Faith could almost literally hear her dragging the next words out. ”But I can cover the cost of a facility. I did a little looking online already. There's an excellent place right there in Madrone. The San Gabriel Rehabilitation and Care Center. They have a wing specifically for patients with dementia. It's first-rate.”

That, Faith had not been expecting. ”Sera, she's still lucid sometimes-maybe even most of the time. We can't put her in a place like that while she's still Mom. It'll kill her.”

”And you care because...”

”f.u.c.k you, Serenity. You're the one she asks for, you know. She doesn't even want me here.”

”Then leave. Let her deal with this on her own. Don't play the martyr with me, Faith. You bailed on the family a long time ago, and I don't blame you. Maybe I don't miss her much, either, but don't think you can slide in now and make me feel like I'm not pulling my weight. Mom made her bed. With both of us. I have a life, and I'm not giving it up. If you decide to be there, then that's your call. I won't hold it against you if you go back to Venice Beach and weld trash together.”

Angry and hurt, Faith just wanted off the call. ”Fine. I'll call you if we need money.”

”Do that-really, sis. Do that. I'll help that way. And I can help a lot.”

”Great. Bye.”

”Faith, wait. What I said was b.i.t.c.hy, but really think about keeping your life. We owe her nothing.”

”It's not about owing, Sera. It's about...I don't even know. But I can't know that this is happening and just go on like I don't.”

Sera sighed. ”Okay. Then do what you need to do. Send me the bills.”