“Rachel, your mother was sick for almost two years before you knew how serious it was.”
I remembered those months.
Mom saying she was tired. Mom refusing vacations. Mom telling me the treatment was working when it wasn’t.
By the time she admitted she was dying, we had 11 weeks.
“You knew?”
Helen nodded.
“Before Dad?”
“Before either of you.”
I pushed back from the table. “You were her doctor?”
“No.”
“Then why would she tell you?”
Helen looked at the ruined photograph.
“Because I was her best friend.”
I almost laughed again.
Mom had never mentioned a Helen.
And neither had Dad.
Not once.
“Best friends don’t scratch each other out of photographs.”
“Usually they don’t.”
I pulled the picture off the wall before she could stop me.
The frame was old, but the scratches weren’t. They cut deep across Helen’s face.
One date was written on the backing board.
On the back, in Mom’s handwriting, were five words. “Take her off the list.”
I looked at Helen.
“What list?”
She closed her eyes.
“Of women she thought your father should marry afterward.”
I laughed because the alternative was believing her. “Mom made Dad a dating list?”
“Seven names.”
“And he actually used it?”
