Around the Bend Read Online Free PDF Page A

the guy, then turned back to my mother. “That’s what I always order, too.”
    My mother smiled. “I’d call that common grounds.”
    I laughed, surprised more by the commonality we’d found in a coffee shop than by the fact that my dour mother had made a joke. A wave of something—sentimentality, residual childhood angst—swept over me and for a second, I wanted to hug my mother. Hug her tight, like I had when I’d been four and trying so hard to crack the tough shell around the woman who may have given birth to me but who’d never let me see inside her, not really.
    I shook off the feeling, paid the barista, who hadn’t even cracked a grin, waving off my mother’s offer to cover the bill. “I work, Ma, I can afford to pay for your coffee.”
    I saw her open her mouth to argue, then shut it again. Maybe she didn’t want to ruin the moment of détente, either. A smile winged its way between us, as fleeting as the steam coming from the cappuccino machine.
    As we waited for the barista to finish making the mochas, my mother turned away and reached for the back of one of the chairs that ringed the tables in the shop. A sound escaped her—a moan, a grunt, I wasn’t sure. She stood still for a second, holding on to the maple arch of the chair back.
    “You okay, Ma?”
    She nodded, then straightened, but it seemed as if she had to put a bit of effort into the movement. “Yes.”
    My mother had always been the stoic type. Went to work, rain or shine, cold or flu. She wouldn’t let me stay home from school unless I had a temperature in the triple digits or had deposited my breakfast into the toilet. Anything other than that—stomachache, headache, nausea—wasn’t enough to merit missing a day of school. She didn’t hold much faith in doctors, and was one of those people who put off her annual physical for years, only going when she absolutely had to because my father insisted she needed a checkup at least once a decade.
    After my father died, she’d done two things—she’d quit smoking, giving up a lifetime habit in one afternoon, and avoided doctors altogether for four years, as if they might diagnose something fatal in her, too.
    But last month something had sent her into the hospital. She’d never told me what it was and hadn’t even, in fact, told me she’d been at Mass General. I learned it secondhand from Mrs. Whittaker, her next door neighbor, when I’d stopped by for Easter dinner and run into her on the sidewalk. Mrs. Whittaker lived alone with seven little dogs of mixed breeds and varying bowel issues. Incurably nosy and given to long-winded speeches about the Medicare system, Mrs. Whittaker liked to make herself useful by tattling on every incident up and down the street.
    “I just need to walk around.” Ma circled the room, returning to my side when the barista called out our orders and handed us two paper cups. Happy dancing coffee cups with skinny, Rockette legs ringed the paper sleeve.
    “We’ll take our time then,” I said, hovering close to her as we left the coffee shop, insisting on holding both coffees, my arms wide like I might catch her, but not touching her, because I knew she’d only shrug off any attempt at assistance.
    The bright sunshine hit us square in the eyes when we exited the building, blinding us for a moment to the parking lot. A second later, my eyes adjusted. I walked at a slower pace than usual, waiting for my mother to catch up, her breathing more labored than usual. Clearly, she was having difficulty, trouble she was keeping from me. “Ma, when are you going to tell me why you were in the hospital last month?”
    “It was nothing.”
    “That’s what you said the last three times I asked. I’m your daughter, I have a right to know, HIPAA or not.”
    “Really, Hilary, it was nothing much. I got nervous, was all. I live alone and every little bump on your nose gets blown out of proportion.”
    “What do you mean, every little thing? Did you fall? Have