Threads of Steel (Bayou Cove) (17 page)

Stepping out of the elevator when someone walked up, she headed to
Doti’s
room. This time Anna Marie didn’t hesitate. She knew she if she did, she’d turn around and leave.

With a quick knock on the door, she pushed it open enough to see in.
Doti
lay on the bed watching TV. She looked her way.

“
Doti
, is it okay to come in?”

“Anna Marie. Yes. Come in. I was going to call you, but I talked with my mother and she said you were coming up.”
Doti
pressed the button on her bed, raised herself into a sitting position, and turned off the TV. “I didn’t think I’d end up here when I told you to come over this morning, but things just have a way of screwing up sometimes. Mom and Dad brought me here last night.”

Doti
was talking much too fast. Anna Marie had a feeling
Doti
was as nervous as she was. Anna Marie stepped nearer to the bed, clasping her hands in front of her. She watched as
Doti
struggled to take a ragged breath through her mouth, even though she had the oxygen tubes in her nostrils. Now that she was here in the room, she didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry”— Anna Marie took a stab at her voice. “I’m sorry you were sick enough to have to be back in here.”

“Yeah.
It’s the pits all right, but I’m feeling much better now. This drip does wonders for me.”

Anna Marie felt as though her brain had stopped functioning. What do you say when someone acknowledges their sickness
?
Even though it was in
Doti’s
couldn’t-care-less manner, Anna Marie could read the unspoken terror underneath the forced smile.

Doti
continued. “The chemo does me in every once in a while. I’ll be
back
home tomorrow, I think.”

Anna Marie tried to think of something else to say.
Nothing.

They stared at each other. Could this shadow of a woman be the same one who walked away with Ronnie without a look back over her shoulder?

Doti
broke the silence. “God, you look good. You haven’t aged a bit.”

Anna Marie exhaled and smiled a little. “They must have you on some pretty potent drugs if you can’t see what the years have done to me.”

“The years have been very good to you.”

“Thanks for the compliment, but, well, I don’t feel that way.”

Doti
didn’t answer, but Anna Marie saw her swallow. The years—or the sickness—had been hard on
Doti
. Even though her remaining thin hair had been cropped close to her head, bald spots showed where big gobs of her bottle-bleached hair had fallen out from the chemo
.

Her skin, dried with a hint of gray beneath the surface, wrinkled at the corners of her eyes and around her lips. Her greenish-blue eyes that once sparkled when she got excited now lacked
life,
and her once full lips that pursed to show two deep dimples in her cheeks now looked shriveled and chapped
.

Anna Marie didn’t want to stare, but she didn’t look this bad yesterday. It was hard to believe that her illness and the treatments had aged her once vibrant friend beyond her years.

Doti
took a deep breath. “And how are you?”

“How am I?” Anna Marie repeated since she thought they’d just gone over that, but she answered anyway. “I’m great. My design business is more than I ever expected it to be.
New contracts.
Possibly more next year.
Great building and location.
I couldn’t ask for more.”

“But how are
you
, Anna Marie?”

Anna Marie stopped talking.

“You know,”
Doti
added before she could answer. “How is it with your life? Are you happy?”

“Happy?”

“Yes, happy. You know.
Thrilled to be living.
Feeling good about
yourself
.
Loving to get up each day.”

Anna Marie stared at her former friend.

“Because I am,”
Doti
continued. “Well, I’m not happy with dying, but I’m happy with living. I’m happy I have a child that Ronnie gave me. I’m not happy that I ruined our friendship, but I’d never give my daughter up.”

Doti
was the one who was dying, but Anna Marie felt like death-warmed-over. She liked her life in New Orleans, but she didn’t love it. She liked living in her little Creole Cottage, but she didn’t love living without a mate even though it was her decision to never let her guard down to take on another husband.

But she
was
happy and she didn’t need
Doti
to make her feel she wasn’t. She wanted to lash out at her, tell her to mind her own business, but Anna Marie only had to look at the woman on the bed to know she would never say anything cruel to her. No matter what
Doti
had done to her, the woman didn’t need Anna Marie to add to her misery.

Doti
sighed. “It took me a long time to find happiness, but it was right under my nose and I didn’t know it.”

When Anna Marie didn’t answer,
Doti
looked down and played with the edge of the blanket. “So, have you thought about what Miss Ellie left us?”

Anna Marie shook away the confusion that
Doti
made her feel,
then
she pulled a chair up closer to the bed
.

“Yes, but Nancy and I are both still shell-shocked.”

“Yeah.
Me too.”

“Miss Ellie was always filled with surprises,” Anna Marie said, “but she really topped the cake this time.”

“Yeah,”
Doti’s
voice was soft. “It topped the cake, but it’s more like the icing on the cake for me. It might be the answer to my prayers.” She looked at Anna Marie.

“How’s that?”

“Well, I don’t have a lot of insurance for my Caitlyn. You know, for when I’m gone.”

“
Doti
,
don’t talk
like that.”

“Anna Marie, I have to face reality. I know what I have, and I know how bad it is. These treatments they’re giving me are only giving me a little more time, but that’s all. I can’t pretend I’ll live forever or even for a few more years. I have a daughter to think about.”

“And this house will help her.” Anna Marie understood exactly.

“Yes, I’ve already told Mr. Lowery that I want my share to go to her.”

“Of course.
If we sell it outright, it’ll be divided three ways. If one of us keeps it, then that one can buy the other two out. That’s the way Mr. Lowery explained it to me when I talked with him again this morning.”

“Yes,” she said in a quiet voice, then stared out the window for a little while before continuing. “That money will give Caitlyn something concrete for her future
.
Do you think you and Nancy will sell it?”

“I haven’t had time to talk in depth with Nancy. I’m going over there before I leave Bayou Cove. I’m not sure what she and Harry will do.”

“What about you?”

“I guess I’ll sell.” The words came out fast and with no thought. “What would I do with a house like that? I don’t have a family.
”

Doti
looked down at her fingers twisting the blanket edge. They stopped their fidgeting
.

“If things were different,”
Doti
said in a low voice. “I’d keep it. You and
me
and Nancy never had a place like that when we were growing up. It was always like we visited another world when we went to see Miss Ellie. I’d like to be part of that world now—if I had more years.”

Anna Marie stared at her friend. Had
Doti
put into words the feelings that were trying to surface in her as well? This wasn’t like
Doti
at all, not the adult
Doti
that Anna Marie had visualized in her mind. She’d always been so shallow and so carefree. Nothing ever seemed to bother her. But
Doti
wasn’t that young friend any more. She was a grown woman with problems and regrets who now faced death.

Doti
pulled her out of her philosophical moment.

“But I don’t have those years. That house will be my Caitlyn’s chance at a better life. I made her promise me she’d go to college. I never did. It’s something I’ll always regret.
”

Then she looked up at Anna and what she said floored her.

“I was always so proud of you when you got your degrees. I knew you’d be the one to succeed.”

“
Doti
, succeeding takes more than just having a degree. Anyone can get a degree if you fill out enough loan papers and can work through the endurance test of years of studying.”

“But Nancy and I didn’t.”

“But you and Nancy have something I don’t have. I think having children to carry on after you is success in itself. I’m jealous of you and Nancy, if you have to know the truth.” She wanted to add that she and Ronnie would’ve had children had their marriage not been broken up so soon after they were married, but she didn’t put her thoughts into words. In fact, she
shoved
that thought from her consciousness.

“There’s nothing to be jealous of.” Then she smiled. “Caitlyn certainly is my pride and joy, and I guess in a way, my only success in life.”

Anna Marie smiled as well. “Well, then Miss Ellie’s gift to us is really special if it’ll help Caitlyn.”

“So you don’t think Nancy will want the house for her family?”

“I don’t know. She was still speechless when I left her yesterday. She was going to talk with Harry. It’s possible, but not probable. She told me they couldn’t even afford to pay the taxes on it.”

She nodded, seemed to relax a little,
then
tensed again. “And you wouldn’t want it?”

Again, Anna Marie answered her repeated question much too quickly
.

“No. I left this town a long time ago. I never really felt part of it then and I certainly don’t feel part of it now.”

“But Miss Ellie always made us feel part of it, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she did. You still visited with her, didn’t you?”

Doti
squirmed a little before answering. “Like I told y’all yesterday, I went over to her house a lot— not when I was married to Ronnie, but afterwards. I needed to talk to someone.” She laughed a strained laugh. “I tried to talk with my mother, but she blamed me for your divorce and then for mine.”

“I’m sorry,
Doti
. Knowing all that Ronnie was doing during your marriage, I know your divorce wasn’t your fault.”

Doti
said nothing for a few minutes. “But it was my fault that your marriage broke up.”

Her first reaction was to say, “Oh no. It was all Ronnie’s fault.” But that wasn’t what she thought at all. Now it was Anna Marie’s time to squirm. She tempered her words when she answered. “It wasn’t
all your
fault. Ronnie was involved too.”

“Can you ever forgive me?”

“I did
that years
ago.” But even as the words came out, Anna Marie wondered if they were true. Had she truly forgiven her friend?

She looked at
Doti
in her hospital bed and prayed that she really had forgiven her. How do you hold a grudge against someone who is dying?

Anna Marie inhaled deeply before continuing. “It doesn’t mean that I still don’t hurt. I try to forget what happened, but I don’t think that’ll ever happen.”

“I would still hate me if I were you.”

“I did at first, but the hate was eating me alive. You can’t go around hating and not make yourself miserable. I guess now I just try not to think about it.”

“You do know I’m sorry. If I could do anything over in my life it would be that.”

Anna Marie looked at the woman who once shared a bond that three friends thought would withstand anything. At least that’s what they believed when they were young and naive.

No one calculated betrayal into the picture.

Doti
looked away again and stared at the closed blinds. Anna Marie knew she should rush up to the bed and hug her former friend and end the years of hurt. But it wouldn’t happen. Not today, and she hated herself for not being able to do it.

“Where’s Caitlyn? How’s she handling all this?” Anna Marie changed the subject rather than admitting that maybe deep down
she
still hadn’t completely forgiven
Doti
and Ronnie.

“Caitlyn is great. She stays with my parents some, but their health isn’t that good. Sometimes she stays with a friend in the neighborhood. For an eleven-year-old, she seems so much more mature than we were at that age. Maybe it’s because she’s seen so much in her short lifetime.”