The Sunshine Sisters Read online

  “I’m gonna make you love me again,” she sings in Meredith’s ear before she lets her go. “I am. I’m gonna make it happen. You’re going to want to be my best friend by the end of tonight.”

  And despite herself, Meredith laughs.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “Upstairs.” The smile leaves Lizzy’s face. “Nell’s in the kitchen. Come and say hi.”

  “Do you have any idea why we’ve all been called home?”

  “Maybe she’s going to tell us she’s dying or something.” Lizzy is matter-of-fact.

  Meredith turns ashen. “Do you actually think that?” And she realizes she hasn’t given it a second thought, why her mother would call them all to her house when they barely speak.

  “No. I mean, I didn’t think that. Up until now. Or maybe I was thinking it. I just didn’t realize it. Fuck.” Lizzy whistles through her teeth. “Do you think that’s it?”

  “I guess we’ll find out soon. Maybe Nell knows something.”

  They go and find Nell standing at the kitchen counter squeezing lemons, a small pan on the stove starting to bubble. She turns the heat down and wipes her hands on a dishcloth tucked into the waistband of her jeans.

  “Hey, Meri,” she says, turning to greet her.

  Meredith never knows quite how to greet her sister. She worshipped Nell when she was younger, but now finds her cold and reserved. Frankly she’s surprised Nell comes over, more so when Nell gives her an awkward hug.

  Lizzy watches them, feeling an odd pang of nostalgia. Wasn’t there a time when the three of them were close? She feels like when they were teeny tiny, they must have all sheltered from their mother’s rages in Nell’s bedroom, or let their big sister whisk them outside, where they would run down to Longshore and sit under the shade of a huge maple tree, all of them staying together so they could stay away from home. She feels like that must have happened. But the truth is she can’t really quite remember when it did.

  How did they all grow so far apart? thinks Lizzy sadly, a flash of resentment rising as she remembers Nell’s refusal to let her host dinners at the farm. She shrugs it off by telling herself it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter now, she thinks, given that people all over Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey offer up their own farms on a daily basis, all desperate for Lizzy to host one of her supper clubs there. What a pity that the only farm she really wants is the one her sister refuses to give her.

  Not now, she thinks. Don’t think about it now.

  “Where’s Mom?” says Meredith.

  “Upstairs lying down. Lily’s gone to wake her up. I haven’t seen her yet.” Nell turns the heat off under the pan and stirs it with a wooden spoon as Lizzy walks over.

  “I thought I was the one who’s supposed to be the great chef,” Lizzy comments as she peers into the pan. “What are you making? Simple syrup? Lemonade?”

  “Yes. Lily says Mom has a craving. I make it at the farm fresh daily. Usually lemon and blackberry, or mint, but I only found lemons here.” Nell looks at Lizzy. “You look tired. How’s work?”

  Lizzy lets out a bark of laughter. “Thanks, Nell! You always did know how to make me feel good.”

  “Oh, come on, Lizzy. Don’t start already. You’re gorgeous. You’ve always been gorgeous. Saying you look tired doesn’t mean you look terrible. You just look like you’ve been overdoing it. How’s Connor?”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I get oversensitive when I’m tired.” She grins. “Connor is delicious, and work is fantastic and nonstop. I keep thinking I’m just going to get over this hump and then it will be calm for a while, but it’s never calm.” She takes a breath. “Why are we here, Nell? What’s going on?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t seen her in a while. I know she’s still getting those dizzy spells and there’s something wrong with her left side. I don’t know. I’m guessing she’s been diagnosed with something. I can’t imagine why else she’d call us all here.”

  “I thought it was vertigo.”

  “Who knows. You know Mom. It could be total attention-seeking hypochondria, or cancer.”

  “Oh, my God, don’t say that.” Lizzy recoils, alarmed, before dropping her voice. “Do you think it’s cancer?”

  “I don’t know what it is. But the last time I saw her it was clear there’s something not right.”

  “Cancer would be awful,” says Lizzy. “Can you imagine? I mean, cancer would be awful, period, but Mom with cancer? She’d milk it for everything.”

  “Don’t say that. You’ll feel terrible if it is. Lemonade’s ready.” Nell slides a pitcher over, half-filled with ice cubes. “Give it a few minutes to cool down.”

  “So why do you think we’re here?” Meredith asks. “Do you think it might be nothing?”

  “I don’t think it’s nothing,” says Nell. “She’s been having tests for the pins and needles.”

  “Pins and needles?” Meredith knows nothing about any of this.

  “Yes. And cramping in her legs. Some kind of nerve damage, it would seem, although the last time we talked she said they haven’t been able to find any definite diagnosis.”

  “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Better to have a diagnosis, I think,” says Nell. “So you know how to treat it.”

  “Are you sure there’s something wrong?” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “This sounds like her wanting us to gather around and make a fuss of her.”

  “I guess we’ll find out soon,” says Meredith, as they hear noises.

  “Lily must be bringing her downstairs. Let’s bring the lemonade into the sunporch.”

  “Just remember, be careful in there,” says Lizzy, as the three of them gather their things and walk into the hall. “You never know what mood she’ll be in,” she adds in a mutter.

  When their mother joins them a few minutes later in the sunroom, even Lizzy, who has been so determined to start this visit on an upbeat note, is stilled at the sight of her. She looks tiny, old, and impossibly frail. Lily is helping her, she is using a cane, and it is quite clear to all of them that she is having tremendous problems walking. Ronni sinks into a chair as Lily props pillows behind her back, then places a small pillow on the arm of the chair, lifting her left arm onto the pillow.

  Meredith and Lizzy swap alarmed glances. They know their mother is not the woman the rest of the world sees. They know the makeup is artfully applied for every public appearance, the thick blond hair one of myriad wigs, the Chanel bouclé jackets and tailored skirts selected only for chat shows, opening nights, premieres, and parties. They know what she really looks like, when she comes down first thing in the morning, after Lily has brought her breakfast in bed. She will have shadows under her eyes and skin that sags ever so slightly when she is due for her shots of Botox and Sculptra, her Thermage. Her hair is completely white, as fine as a baby’s, scraped back into the wispiest of ponytails, an inch long, held in place by a tiny blue elastic band that she gets from the orthodontist—nothing bigger will hold her thin hair in place.

  At home she is always nicely but simply dressed. She will opt for comfort, with just a few ounces of style, completely unlike her over-the-top, glamorous, overly made-up, overstyled public persona. She will wear old, soft T-shirts and cashmere sweatpants. Her chunky antique Victorian belcher chain is always around her neck, and she wears one heavy gold ring on her left hand, but no other jewelry. She will wear sneakers and flip-flops. She will never leave the house like this, just in case photographers are lurking, but this is how her daughters know her; this is what they all expected to see.

  But today, they don’t. Instead, their mother seems to have aged twenty years. She has lost weight she cannot afford to lose, her frame almost birdlike as she sits in the chair, beckoning them over with her good hand. She kisses them one by one, a hand on each of their backs as she keeps her lips pressed to each of their cheeks, relucta
nt to let each of them go, in what feels like an expression of the kind of love, affection, gratitude that none of them have ever before seen.

  Because it doesn’t feel like a show, it feels genuine. It feels like she loves them. And none of them know quite what to do in the face of love from a woman who is so rarely able to show it. In the past, whenever she has, they didn’t trust it. But today each of them is surprised to find this expression of love feels genuine.

  None of them know what to say.

  twenty-four

  I don’t understand,” Lizzy says a few minutes later. “So they have a name but nothing else, no idea what’s causing it? This small fiber . . . what is it again?”

  “Small fiber neuropathy,” says Nell, looking at her mother, who nods. “And they don’t know what’s causing it, whether it’s an indicator of something bigger going on.”

  “What kind of bigger?” asks Meredith, fearfully.

  “Could be thyroid, diabetes, celiac disease . . .” Lizzy is reading from her phone, having Googled it as soon as Nell repeated more clearly the words her mother had spoken. “Could be idiopathic, which I think means they don’t know. Oh, God.” She looks up at her mother. “It could be something really awful like HIV.”

  “It’s not HIV,” says Nell with disdain. “I’m sure the chances of that are infinitesimal. Even if it were, the cocktail of drugs now means it’s entirely manageable.” She turns back to their mother. “So what tests are they doing now?”

  “I don’t remember,” says Ronni. “But I’m going for a series of them, and I want you all to stay here until we know what’s going on. I haven’t seen any of you properly for years, and you haven’t seen each other. Until we know more about my health, I want you to stay here.”

  “I’m twenty minutes away,” says Nell. “You don’t mean actually stay in this house, because I have a farm to run, so . . .”

  “Yeah. I already canceled a day of filming today, which cost me a fortune, and I can’t just stay here indefinitely,” Lizzy adds in a rush. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but, Mom, I have a really busy life and a lot of commitments.”

  Meredith is trying to suppress her tears, sitting next to her mother and clutching her good hand. “I’m staying,” she says. “I’ll stay as long as it takes.”

  “Right. Any excuse to get away from Derek,” Lizzy says.

  “And I’m sure you’re rushing to get home to jobless James,” Meredith bites back.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Lizzy, who has forgotten what it is like to be spoken to like this, rises like a snake. “You have no idea what my life is like. How dare you call my husband that.”

  Meredith backs down immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I really am sorry. I know he’s the mom figure while you work.”

  Lizzy glares at her.

  “Please,” says Ronni quietly. “Girls. Please don’t. Not today.”

  The two of them actually look abashed. Lizzy settles down, albeit with a final glare at Meredith.

  “I do want you to stay here until these test results come back.” Ronni looks at each of them, seeing that Lizzy sees no reason to stay. “There is a small chance it might be something serious.”

  “Serious like what?”

  Ronni thinks about whether to throw ALS in the ring, prepare them for the news she isn’t yet ready to impart, but it’s too early. “They don’t know yet. And there is another reason why I want you here. There is a filmmaker who is planning a documentary about my life, and he’ll be around to get some footage. I want him to be able to speak to each of you.”

  Nell stares at her mother, anger rising. What if this is all just a ruse to get them back to take part in some film? What if she’s not sick at all? She looks at her mother, her limp hand, her dropping foot, and swallows. Her mother is sick. There’s no doubt about that. “Speak to him about what ?” she asks.

  “Your childhood, probably. Memories.”

  Nell laughs. “I don’t have any memories. I barely remember anything about my childhood.”

  “Me either,” says Meredith. “I’d be hopeless. Also, there’s no way I want to be on camera.”

  “Why?” says Lizzy, and Meredith glares at her. She knows Lizzy knows why. Because the camera adds . . . she can never remember if it’s ten pounds or ten percent of your body weight. Either way, she has spent her entire life avoiding being on camera.

  “You’re really photogenic,” Lizzy says, surprising her. “I have wonderful pictures of you. You shouldn’t worry about being on camera. You always look gorgeous in pictures.”

  Meredith is so shocked, she can’t think of anything to say.

  “Meanwhile, I don’t mind speaking on camera,” Lizzy adds, turning to Ronni. “But I really don’t know how long I can stay. Do you have a time frame in mind?”

  “They should have some results back in a week,” Ronni lies. “And the rest in two. I understand that two may be too much to ask, but I would like to ask the three of you to stay for a week.”

  “Here?” says Lizzy, and Ronni smiles. She realizes the very fact that she is asking where tells her mother she will stay.

  “I would love that, but in the area is fine. I know you girls like your space.”

  “You could stay at the farm as well,” says Nell, clearly reluctantly. “River’s coming next week with his girlfriend, and the girlfriend’s mother, but I can find more space this week. If I have to.”

  Lizzy laughs. “Nell, you always have space. You live by yourself in an old farmhouse with, what, five bedrooms? Six? River could have brought his whole fraternity and there would still be room.”

  “First of all, he’s in grad school now, and River was never in a fraternity.”

  “Of course he wasn’t in a fraternity,” Lizzy says. “This is River we’re talking about. Did his old school even have fraternities? That’s not my point. My point is that you rattle around in a big old farmhouse by yourself, so don’t pretend you don’t have room.”

  “Don’t start,” says Ronni with a sigh, before looking at all of her children, one by one. I created them, she thinks. I grew them inside my stomach, and yet they are all so different, so unlike me. She recognizes that Lizzy perhaps is the most similar; she is her baby, her sparky, driven, gorgeous girl who needs to be seen in just the way Ronni herself always has. But when she looks at all three women here all together, she almost wonders where they came from.

  Nell is so strong and self-sufficient, so terrified of appearing vulnerable, of letting down her guard. Who is so alone because of those fears.

  And sweet Meredith. Who would be so pretty if only she lost some weight. Who is getting married to a handsome but awful man because she doesn’t think she can do any better.

  None of them know that she is dying. None of them will until the last possible minute because Ronni needs them to focus on getting to know each other again. For the first time in her life, there is something that’s more important to her than her own drama, her own needs. Dying has brought everything into focus. It’s no longer all about her anymore, because in a very short time, there will no longer be a her. Perhaps more than anything, she has come to know a new emotion these past few months, which is fear. And in allowing herself to accept, and feel, that fear, she has also come to recognize how lonely she is. The only people she wants around her are her children, the very people she was never interested in when they were young. It’s not too late, she thinks. Surely it’s not too late.

  A smile plays on her lips as she realizes how new this kind of thinking is for her. This may be the first truly selfless act she has ever performed.

  She knows how this particular production will end, but she needs unity among her daughters to get there. Ronni is determined to go out her way: surrounded by her girls, who will assist her.

  Probably with pills. She can’t unscrew the caps on her pain pills anymo
re. Lily has been doing it, but Ronni has only pretended to take them, palming them in her hand as she swigs water and makes a show of swallowing them. Good God. She’s a Tony Award–winning actress; this is the easiest thing in the world. She is collecting them in a tin at the back of the drawer of her nightstand, claiming great pain and renewing her prescription of oxycodone every month. The spasms and twitching, the terrible cramps are getting worse, but she would rather save the pills for the final hurrah, for when she will really need them. In the meantime, she goes through the topical lidocaine, tube after tube after tube.

  There are people who can help her, and she hasn’t yet decided whether or not to ask. She would rather just have her family around. And the filmmaker. But she has found a right-to-die advocate who travels the country helping people “cross to the other side.” She has been e-mailing him for some weeks, and although he is keen to meet her, to help her figure it out, she isn’t sure she needs him. She has her growing stash of pills. But it was a relief to be able to share her feelings with someone who understands, and the right-to-die advocate did seem to understand. She wrote to him last night:

  I don’t want to disappear. I want to be remembered exactly as I am right now, sitting here today, so this has to be sooner rather than later. I have three daughters, and I plan to tell them imminently, just as soon as I can be certain they will lean on each other, find a family in each other, a support and the unconditional love that, much to my shame, I wasn’t able to give them. I have no idea what they will think about my decision to end my life on my own terms. We are not close, which I have always accepted, but now that my life is unequivocally and presently finite, I find that I wish it were different. I have been scared, but mostly numb, although as I write this to you I’m aware that I feel stronger. I am hopeful that I will gently and quietly expire, having put my affairs in order and said my good-byes.

  He wrote back, as he always did, expressing understanding and support. Now she looks again at her daughters and wonders if she will find the same when she decides to tell them. Meredith will understand, she thinks. But not Lizzy. And she isn’t sure about Nell.