“I know enough.”
“Forty people. Caterer. Tent near the barn. Music.”
I actually pulled the phone away from my ear.
“Forty?”
“Maybe forty-two.”
“Absolutely not.”
Silence.
Then:
“Excuse me?”
“Sophie cannot be around forty people right after transplant.”
“They’ll be downstairs.”
“That isn’t how houses work.”
“Oh, Claire.”
There it was.
That tone.
The one she had used my entire life whenever I complicated something she wanted.
“You’ve become unbelievably anxious about everything.”
“My daughter’s transplant team is anxious about infection too.”
“Well, they don’t need to live.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Neither do forty anniversary guests.”
“This is our fortieth.”
“And Sophie is twelve.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Everything.
But I didn’t say that.
I simply repeated:
“You cannot host the party at my house.”
She sighed.
“We’ve already sent invitations.”
I froze.
“What?”
“The save-the-dates went out weeks ago.”
“You never asked me.”
“I didn’t think I had to.”
That sentence stayed with me.
“You didn’t think you had to ask before inviting forty people to my home?”
“It’s family property.”
“No, Mom.”
“Your father has worked on that farm for years.”
Dad had helped repair fences.
I had paid him.
He had helped repaint the barn.
I had bought the materials.
That did not make the farm his.
“I said no.”
Mom went quiet.
Then colder.
“We have people flying in.”
“Change the venue.”
“Do you know what that would cost?”
“Probably less than another hospital admission.”
She hated that answer.
“You are being dramatic.”
“Sophie just had a bone-marrow transplant.”
“I know what she had.”
“Then act like it.”
She hung up.
I hoped that ended it.
It didn’t.
Four days later, Sophie came home.
The hospital wheelchair stopped beside our porch.
She looked at the house and started crying.
Not because she was scared.
Because she could see her bedroom window.
“I thought I’d never sleep there again.”
I bent down and kissed the top of her head.
“You’re sleeping there tonight.”
For the first few days, she barely left her room except to sit on the porch when the weather was mild.
She watched our chickens through the window.
Made lists of foods she wanted “when the doctors stop ruining everything.”
At the top:
Gas station nachos.
I told her even healthy people should fear those.
She laughed.
That laugh was the best sound I’d heard in months.
Then Thursday morning, two days before my parents’ anniversary, a white catering van pulled into my driveway.
A man stepped out carrying a clipboard.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m here to confirm access for Saturday.”
My stomach dropped.
“What access?”
“Carter anniversary.”
My parents were Diane and Robert Carter.
