I Found Her Picking Up the Broken Plate

Lucy was on her knees beside a gray plastic bucket when I came home.

At first, I didn’t know it was her.

I had been standing outside my mother’s backyard gate with my duffel bag still over my shoulder, trying to figure out how to surprise everyone. Four years away had made the house look smaller than I remembered. The siding was new. So was the patio. There was a white SUV parked beside the garage that I had never seen before.

Then I heard my sister’s voice.

“You missed one.”

A woman in an oversized cardigan reached beneath the patio table and picked up another piece of broken ceramic.

Her hand shook.

She had almost no hair.

I stared through the wooden slats of the fence until she turned her face slightly, and I saw the little scar beside her eyebrow.

Lucy.

My wife.

She looked nothing like the woman who had hugged me at Denver International Airport four years earlier and told me not to worry about her.

Lucy put the piece into a grocery bag.

“I think that’s all of it.”

My younger sister, Brianna, stood on the patio drinking something from a plastic tumbler.

“Then dump the water before Mom gets home.”

Lucy reached for the bucket.

She couldn’t lift it.

She tried once, stopped, and pressed one hand against the patio.

“Can I do it in a minute? I’m dizzy.”

Brianna sighed.

“You’re always dizzy.”

Lucy stayed on her knees.

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

I took my hand off the gate latch.

For a few seconds, I just stood there.

Four years earlier, I had accepted a job at a specialty metal fabrication plant outside Denver. The money was better than anything I could make back home in Missouri, especially with overtime. Lucy and I had been married for three years, renting a small duplex and talking about buying a house.

The plan was simple.

I would go for eighteen months.

Save everything.

Come home.

Eighteen months became two years after the company offered me a raise. Then a large contract came in, and overtime became almost permanent. I was working twelve-hour shifts, sometimes six days a week.

Lucy told me to stay.

“We’re finally getting ahead,” she’d say on the phone.

I believed her.

I sent home between $2,000 and $3,000 most months. Bonuses went home too.

But I didn’t send the money directly to Lucy.

That was the mistake I would spend a long time trying to forgive myself for.

My mother, Theresa, had always handled money well. At least I thought she did. When Lucy started having problems with an old bank account, Mom suggested I send everything through hers until we got home and settled permanently.

“I’ll make sure Lucy has whatever she needs,” Mom had promised.

I never questioned it.

By the time I unexpectedly came home that Tuesday afternoon, I had transferred just under $100,000.

I pushed open the gate.

Brianna heard it first.

Her tumbler stopped halfway to her mouth.

“Nathan?”

Lucy turned.

The grocery bag slipped out of her hand.

Broken pieces scattered across the patio again.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then she whispered my name.

“Nathan?”

I dropped my duffel bag.

The Necklace Around My Mother’s Neck

I crossed the yard and crouched beside Lucy. Up close, the changes were worse. Her cheeks had hollowed out, and the cardigan hung loosely around her shoulders.

I reached for her hands.

They were cold.

“What happened to you?”

Lucy looked toward Brianna before answering.

That bothered me almost as much as anything else.

“I’ve been sick.”

“Since when?”

She swallowed.

Brianna set down her drink.

“Nathan, don’t come in here acting crazy. You don’t know what’s been going on.”

I didn’t answer her.

I kept looking at Lucy.

“Since when?”

“Last fall.”

I stared at her.

It was June.

“Last fall?”

She nodded.

The back door opened.

My mother stepped outside carrying her purse and car keys.

“What’s all over the—”

She saw me.

Her face changed instantly.

“Nathan!”

She smiled and hurried toward me with both arms open.

I stood.

And that’s when I saw the necklace.

A small silver hummingbird rested against the front of my mother’s blouse.

I knew that necklace.

I had bought it for Lucy on our second anniversary because her grandmother used to call her Hummingbird when she was little. It wasn’t expensive. Maybe $180.

But Lucy loved it.

She wore it in almost every picture she sent me during my first year away.

I looked at Mom’s neck, then at Lucy.

Lucy lowered her eyes.

Mom stopped walking.

“What?”

I pointed.

“Where did you get that?”

Her fingers went automatically to the hummingbird.

“This?”

“Yes.”

She glanced at Lucy.

“She wasn’t wearing it.”

That wasn’t an answer.

“Why do you have my wife’s necklace?”

Mom’s smile disappeared.

“Nathan, you’ve been home for thirty seconds. Can we at least go inside before you start interrogating everybody?”

I picked up my duffel bag with one hand and helped Lucy stand with the other.

She leaned into me harder than I expected.

Brianna looked annoyed.

Not worried.

Annoyed.

Inside, I started noticing things.

New hardwood floors.

A large sectional.

An eighty-inch television mounted above the fireplace.

Quartz countertops where the old laminate used to be.

The refrigerator had been replaced.

Through the front window, I could see the white SUV.

A sign on the kitchen counter had Brianna’s nail salon logo printed on it.

I had seen pictures of some of these things during video calls, but Mom always said she’d gotten a good deal or financed them.

I sat Lucy at the kitchen table.

“When did you eat?”

She looked embarrassed.

“Yesterday morning.”

I opened the refrigerator.

It was full.

Steaks.

Fruit.

Yogurt.

Deli meat.

Takeout containers.

There was enough food in that refrigerator to feed six people for a week.

I put bread, turkey and cheese on the counter.

Mom dropped her purse onto the island.

“Nathan, stop.”

I turned around.

“Stop what?”

“You’re walking in after four years and making assumptions.”

“I’m making my wife a sandwich.”

“Lucy has dietary issues now.”

I looked at Lucy.

“Can you eat this?”

“Yes.”

I made the sandwich.

Mom stood across the island watching me.

“You don’t understand how difficult she’s been.”

I put the plate in front of Lucy.

“Then explain it.”

Mom folded her arms.

“After she got sick, her personality changed. She started accusing us of things. Asking for money constantly. Going through drawers. Taking things.”

Lucy stopped chewing.

I waited.

“Taking what?”

Mom hesitated.

“Jewelry, for one thing.”

My eyes moved to the hummingbird around her neck.

Mom touched it again.

Lucy put down her sandwich.

“It was mine.”

Mom’s jaw tightened.

“You were going to pawn it.”

“I was going to sell it.”

“Same difference.”

I looked at Lucy.

“Why?”

She didn’t answer immediately.

Then she said it quietly.

“I needed money for an appointment.”

The kitchen went still.

I pulled out the chair beside her.

“What appointment?”

Lucy stared at the half sandwich.

“Oncology.”

I didn’t understand the word for about two seconds.

Then I did.

Eleven Months

Lucy had cancer.

She had known for eleven months.

My mother had known.

My sister had known.

I hadn’t.

I sat there while the refrigerator hummed behind me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lucy rubbed her thumb along the edge of the plate.

“I tried.”

Mom immediately stepped forward.

“That’s not fair.”

I held up my hand.

She stopped.

I looked at Lucy.

“Tell me.”

Lucy said she’d first gotten sick the previous summer. She was tired all the time, losing weight, getting dizzy. Mom took her to a clinic twice.

After tests and a specialist appointment, they got the diagnosis.

Lucy wanted to tell me immediately.

Mom convinced her to wait.

“She said you’d quit your job and come home.”

I looked at Mom.

“I would have.”

“Exactly,” Mom said. “And then what? You lose your income? Your insurance? Everything you’ve worked for?”

“My wife was sick.”

“We were handling it.”

I looked at Lucy’s shaved head.

Then at the sandwich she was eating as if she had to remind herself to chew slowly.

“This is handling it?”

Mom pressed her lips together.

Brianna finally came inside.

“You weren’t here, Nathan.”

I turned toward her.

“You’re right.”

That seemed to surprise her.

I took my phone from my pocket and opened my banking app.

I already knew the number, but I wanted it in front of me.

Transfers.

Month after month.

$2,400.

$2,750.

$2,200.