The Cake is Stale Now

"... I couldn't tell him "No." Kurt just has that personality, and I thought maybe, since I planned on just staying in the parking lot... but with Kurt, I had to go in, or he'd start asking questions... and I saw how crowded it was... Kimmy has so many friends, Mom... she's grown up so beautiful..."

"Mike and I did a good job." Margie stated, implication ringing in her voice.

"Yes, he did." Mary confirmed regretfully. "I'm glad."

"What's this about you wearing white?" Margie asked, even though it was a minor thing against the greater travesty that was happening. Too many people had asked Kimmy, and nobody knew.

"It wasn't white!" Mary protested. "It was just a summer-weight tan cotton jacket with a matching skirt! I had on a white blouse! In the sunlight, it only ~looked~ white!"

That sounds pretty white to me, thought Margie. "You don't wear white to someone else's wedding, Mary. You know that!"

"Mom, it wasn't white! It's perfectly acceptable for American women to wear what I did in the Middle East!"

The tremor wasn't slowing down. Margie was bouncing the phone off her cheek now.

"... you are lucky Junior didn't see you." Margie said.

"Why?"

"That girl... the FIRST girl you named after yourself..." Margie was having a hard time controlling herself. Her other hand was bouncing in her lap now. "... is very, ~very~ angry with you. She doesn't have her fathers control."

Mary had no reply. The silence gave Margie a chance to calm down a little. She pressed her left hand into her lap, trying to mute the tremor.

"Kimmy is better... but she doesn't understand you." Margie said after a little time. "She's not alone there. Kimmy is asking questions. Junior isn't. Mike isn't either."

The person on the other end of the connection said nothing.

"Mary, I think you need to stay away from them." Margie told her daughter.

"... Mom, I need them... now that I've seen them... I was thinking..." Mary said, faltering.

"You stupid little bitch." Margie growled. "Don't you dare harm my grandchildren..."

Mary had nothing to answer with. Margie thought she heard a quiet sob. It was getting hard to tell. A ringing had started in her ears.

"... you have already done so much damage to those girls. All because you are such a selfish little whore."

"... I'm sorry, Mommy." Mary said, sounding far away, and very small.

"No." Margie growled, closing her eyes in concentration. "You never get to do that again. You made a big-girl decision, you don't get to act like the child you really are now. I don't know why..."

Margie had to stop. There was a display of rolling colors behind her eyelids.

"... I don't know what me and your father did wrong, that you have done this... but ... You let me think you were dead for eight years! Your father died thinking that! How could you?!"

It was quiet on the phone. The metallic whine in Margies ears was growing louder, overwhelming everything else.

"You hurt us all!" Margie would be screaming if she could, but her breath seemed to not be enough. "We all loved you! Those girls loved you! Mike loved you! And you just ran off, like this was some stupid fairy tale! How could you do this to us?!"

"...I'm sorry." Margie heard finally.

Margie sat in her chair, trying to catch her breath and stop shaking. She grabbed her wrist with her left hand, trying to get control of herself.

"I should have told them when you contacted me." Margie confessed to her daughter. "I knew I was wrong then, and I'm doubly wrong now. I lied to those girls and Mike by not telling them. I kept that lie for almost three years... I was just grateful to have you back... but now that I know more, and what you've done... Mary Margaret, you should have stayed away..."

Why did Margie feel so hot? It was a nice day, but not as hot as all that.

"Mom, I couldn't..." Mary said, Margie could hear her crying now. "I missed you so much. I wanted you to meet my family, I wanted to share with you... You needed to know, and I felt so guilty for what I'd done..."

Margie sighed. This was such Mary reasoning. Margie never knew where she learned to think like this.

"I get that, Mary." Margie said. "But you were just making more secrets, and stacking them on top of more secrets... now it's all tumbled down on you, and you made me part of it."

"Mom, I need help." Mary said, sniffling.

Oh what now, thought Margie. Her IV tube was bouncing as she shook, and the port in the side of her stomach was bothering her suddenly. Margie waited for her child to speak her needs.

"Kurt and I... I have to leave the house next week." Mary said, her crying growing more pronounced. "I need a place to live. Kurt has frozen all the assets, and I can't get to the money, until after the divorce..."

Margie instantly knew where this was going.

"You want to move into the house," stated Margie, referring to the house she had shared with her husband, until his death, then alone until she'd been forced to the terminal cancer ward.

"Please?..." asked Mary.

"What about little Mary?" Margie asked, her mind very clear suddenly, her tremor, pain, and woes forgotten. They weren't gone, but as angry as Margie was at her daughter, she would still look out for her third grandchild, especially since Mary did such a poor job of it.

"She's not with me." Mary sounded despondent now. More despondent. "Kurt is going for full custody in the divorce... If he can get it... he says he's worried Mike may make a claim of some kind..."

Margie didn't know how that would work out. But... it may be for the best that Mary wasn't around her children. Any of them.

"It's going to be so hard for her, Mom." Mary went on. "She needs me. She doesn't understand what's happening, only in the most general way..."

"Like another Mary we know?" Margie accused.

"Oh god, Mom...?"

Margie didn't have to spend more than a seconds thought on this. If Little Mary wasn't with Mary, but with her father, then her decision had already been made.

"Mary Margaret, you may ~NOT~ move into my house!" Margie found the strength to speak loudly into the phone, as she struggled to keep the phone close to her mouth. "Do you hear me?! NO."

"MOM?!"

"I want you to know this... I signed the new will today." Margie said, her volume lowering. The sound in her ears was distracting her suddenly. It was all getting out of hand. "I'm giving Junior the house! She's going to school near there next year, and she might as well live there! If she doesn't, she can do what she wants with it!"

The crying was barely audible over the noise, which was now becoming more of a water rushing sound.

"Most of my money is going to Kimmy!" Margie pushed on. She needed to finish this. "But don't worry, I'm giving most of my life insurance money to Little Mary, in a college trust! One you can't touch!"

Mary had to catch her breath, which didn't seem to be in reach. There just wasn't enough air anymore.

"I'm going to tell Mike and the girls everything!" Margie wheezed. "The story as you told me! I'm not going to be party to your lie any more! It's been killing me! They need an end to the pain, Mary Margaret! The pain you keep causing!"

"Mommy, no!"

"And one last thing... when I die? I want the girls... MIKE'S girls... to come to my funeral, for closure! My funeral is for my loved ones to grieve at, it's not for me! Not a lingering limbo where they question themselves and everything... because if you go, Mary Margaret, then Junior won't! Your daughter hates you that much! And right now, her pain is more important to me than yours!"

"...please, mommy... no..."

"If you want things to change, you little girl, then you need to start doing the right thing." Margie spat at her child. "No more chances. That's the best thing you can do for your dying mother. That's the only thing I want from you. But right now?"

Margie thought she could hear the sobbing from her phone. She wasn't certain. She was almost done though.

"Right now, I'm out of sympathy for you. ~Every~ mother gets overwhelmed! We all felt it." Margie spoke slowly. "You're the only one I know who ran from it."

"Fix it. Take your medicine. Grow the fuck up, Mary Margaret."

Margie opened her eyes, and tried to hold the phone steady in front of her. She managed to coordinate her shaking enough to hit the red "end" button on the screen, and then she was done.

++++++

Ten minutes later, the orderly came around the corner and looked for Margie where he'd left her earlier.

She was there, sitting in her chair, her humongous purse beside her. Her head was slumped onto her chest.

He walked quickly over to her, craning his head as he approached to see what was happening with the gaunt woman. He'd been taught to never shout or yell, to always be calm with the patients. Excitement could be bad for them.

"Margie?" He asked as he got within distance. "Cutie?"

Margie didn't respond in any way.

"Margie?" He asked, kneeling down and putting his hand on her shoulder.

"Umph..." Margie exhaled, her eyes opening as if startled. She looked about for a moment, then fixated on the orderly. "Oh."

"How you doing, cutie?" asked the orderly.

"I could really use a cigarette."