The Twelfth Child Read online

  For Christmas that year, I wanted to get Destiny something really special, so I asked her what she might like to have. As good as she’d been to me, she could have asked for a brand-new Cadillac car and I’d have gotten it, but instead she tells me she’d really like this book published by the Audubon Society of America. “Excuse me?” I said, like I wasn’t hearing her right.

  “The Waterbirds of Florida,” Destiny repeated.

  “That’s it? A book on waterbirds?”

  Destiny nodded. “I saw this TV show about them. The announcer said they’re the most beautiful creatures on earth.”

  “Waterbirds?”

  “Yes indeed. They’re so long-legged and graceful. Why, just watching them makes a person feel like flying.” Destiny jumped up and twirled around the room flapping her arms. “Imagine,” she sang out, “being a pink flamingo!”

  I started chuckling at her antics.

  “Try it,” she said. “Just close your eyes and pretend you’re all decked out in pink feathers. Picture yourself standing on one leg alongside a blue lagoon, your long neck stretched out and your head held high.”

  I had problems standing with both feet planted on the ground, so of course I couldn’t imagine such a thing, but Destiny sure could.

  That Christmas I gave Destiny a cashier’s check for twenty-five thousand dollars and a first-class trip for both of us to go see those waterbirds. She gave me a pink feather boa and a nightgown to match. That day we drank eggnog and laughed ‘till our sides hurt. Then when we run out of laughing, we watched A Christmas Carol on television.

  Elliott can say Destiny was out for all she could get, but when I gave her that check she told me she couldn’t accept such a thing and she said it like a person who was adamant about their intent. I pretty much expected she’d react that way, which is why I bought a cashier’s check. “Destiny, it’s money already paid out,” I told her, “and, not a soul in the world but you can cash that check!” Of course, we went back and forth over it a bit, but when I got teary-eyed and started telling her how I was an old lady who had few pleasures in life other than giving a gift to someone I truly did love, Destiny threw up her hands and started laughing.

  “Okay!” she said. “I’ll keep the money! Just don’t start torturing me with that old and pitiful routine of yours!” She came over and hugged me so hard I thought my ribs would split open.

  We flew off to Florida two days later and when we landed in Palm Beach, Destiny rented a convertible car so we could feel the wind in our hair. We stayed in the Breakers Hotel, one of the finest you could possibly imagine, and on New Year’s Eve we called room service and ordered up a bottle of champagne to celebrate while we watched the carrying on in Times Square on television. If you can believe it, Destiny brought a bottle of hot hot pink nail polish and painted my toenails to match my nightgown. I got so tickled watching her brush that bright pink on my toes, I thought I’d explode. As we sat there watching the ball of lights drop down, I told her, “Destiny, I never dreamed I’d live to see a new millennium.”

  She said, “Maybe this would be the time to take that swimming naked picture!”

  Of course, I wasn’t about to do any such thing. So instead, she set the automatic timer on her camera and took a picture of the two of us with our hot pink toenails and a glass of champagne. After we got back home, she had that picture framed and I kept it sitting on my dresser.

  Looking back, I wish I had gone swimming naked.

  The following February was when I found out about the cancer. It’s not like you wake up one morning and boom, you’ve got a serious case of cancer. It sneaks up on you. Ever since last summer I’d been having backaches and feeling like my stomach was aggravated. A number of times Destiny suggested that I go see Doctor Birnbaum and have it checked out, but I always pooh-poohed the idea. “A person my age is bound to have certain ailments,” I told her. Then one Tuesday I woke up with my stomach feeling real bitter sour; the night before I hadn’t eaten a thing outside of some chicken soup and I knew my stomach couldn’t be soured over that! I called Destiny and told her that maybe she was right about going to the doctor.

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes!” she said and hung up the telephone.

  Before she made it over to my house, I started throwing up the most God-awful stuff anybody could imagine, black and course, like week-old coffee grinds. When Destiny got there she took one look at that pasty-white face of mine and shuffled me off to Doctor Birnbaum, without even an appointment.

  She marched into the doctor’s office with me lolling on her arm and said, “Miss Lannigan needs to see the doctor, right now!” I thought she had a lot of nerve demanding such a thing, especially when there were a half-dozen other people in the waiting room. Cathy, who was Doctor Birnbaum’s nurse, must have realized how sick I was ‘cause right away she took us into the examination room – ahead of everybody else.

  “I hate to be such a bother,” I said, when the doctor started checking me over. He just smiled and told me that I was never a bother, then he patted my knee in the most kindly way. I always thought, if you have to be sick, you ought to do it with someone like Allan Birnbaum. He told Destiny I’d have to go into the hospital for a few tests and asked if she could bring me that very afternoon. She said yes without even a flicker of hesitation.

  I was in the hospital for three days, and Destiny came to visit every day. She’d get there early in the morning, sometimes before the breakfast cart came around, and she’d stay until the bell rang at night. At nine o’clock visitors had to leave and the chimes rang out so pleasant-like, you’d think it was some kind of wonderful grandfather clock, but they were dead-serious about visitors leaving. One night I was feeling especially blue and Destiny stayed after the bells rang, but the nurse came in right away and told her she’d have to leave so I could get my rest.

  I won’t go on about how they did every kind of test imaginable and x-rayed me from head to toe, but I will say, I was mighty glad Destiny was with me when Doctor Birnbaum came in that Friday. He had the most somber look on his face when he sat down on my bed and took hold of my hand, right then, I knew something was wrong.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have good news,” he said and shook his head like he was real sorrowful. “Those coffee grounds you threw-up, were from your liver.”

  Most people think you only hear words, but Destiny was watching the doctor’s mouth like she could see the size and shape of every letter.

  “It’s symptomatic of pancreatic cancer.”

  “What’s the cure?” Destiny asked. She had that kind of pick-yourself-up-and-move-on attitude because she was used to dealing with problems. Me, I’d lived long enough to know, there’s no remedy for some things.

  “Well,” Doctor Birnbaum said, hesitantly, like he might have preferred to choke down the words instead of spitting them out. “Pancreatic cancer is a tough customer. In some instances, we might try chemotherapy or radiation but those treatments are difficult to tolerate and not often successful in treating this type of cancer. Given Abigail’s age, I wouldn’t recommend either one.”

  “What then?” Destiny asked.

  “I’m afraid there’s not much we can do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Destiny’s voice got real thin and high-pitched, nothing like the way she usually spoke.

  Doctor Birnbaum coughed three or four times, then finally let go of the words. “Pancreatic cancer is almost always terminal,” he said. “There’s little we can do except make sure the patient is comfortable and pain-free.”

  “Little? Or nothing?” Destiny was beginning to get the message and her green eyes filled up with so much water they looked like the deep end of the ocean.

  I always thought if I got such a piece of bad news I’d break down and cry, or holler about life being unfair, maybe even claim there had been a mistake because such a thing couldn’t be true, but that wasn’t what happened. I just leaned back into my pillow and let the reality of it cover me
over like a heavy winter blanket. As the weight of it pressed down on me, I realized that Doctor Birnbaum was trying to tell me in the most kindly way, I was dying. Not maybe dying, but definitely dying. “How long?” I asked, trying to focus on what I needed to know.

  “I can’t say definitely. Three months, six months, maybe longer.”

  Doctor Birnbaum said he’d arrange for the Hospice nurses to come and take care of me but Destiny told him she’d be the one to see to my needs, whatever they might be. By the time the doctor left the room, the poor child was sobbing like her little heart was gonna break. “Hush up that crying,” I told her. “I’m an old woman, Destiny. I’ve lived a long life and a person can’t ask for more than that. Sure as a person’s born, a person’s gonna die!” I tried my best to console her, but she just kept sobbing. Finally, I said I didn’t want to hear another word about dying and such. “Whatever time I’ve got, I want to enjoy!” I told her. I wasn’t ready to think about the being dead part, I was busy focusing on how much more living time I had left; which I suppose was why I never got around to putting things in order the way I should have.

  To be perfectly honest, my stomach was feeling a lot better by the time I left the hospital, so the two of us went out and had a plate of fried oysters for lunch. I’d already laid down the law about any talk of dying, so Destiny made a genuine effort to be her old self. She ordered us up martinis and told the waiter to bring us another round as soon as we’d finished those. She tried to pretend things were the same as always, but that happy-go-lucky laugh of hers sounded like a sorrowful echo.

  That night Destiny went out to get chicken and biscuits from Popeye’s – the doctor said eat whatever I felt like and that’s exactly what I was doing – when she came back she brought her little valise and moved in. I had planned to tell her about the bonds after supper but we started watching Some Like it Hot, the movie where Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis join a girl’s band, and got to laughing so hard we about rolled off the sofa. I didn’t know how many more days of laughing I had left in me, so I wasn’t about to spoil this one by getting onto something serious. The thing about dying is, that even when you know it’s gonna happen, you still insist on telling yourself, there’s more time. Of course, I was figuring on the outside edge of what Doctor Birnbaum said, six months, maybe more. As it turned out, it was a lot less.

  The very next day, Destiny called up the restaurant where she’d been waitressing and told them she needed to take a leave of absence. Six months to a year, she said. The old guy that owned the place complained and said she should have given him some notice, but in the end he told her it would be okay. I figure he went along with what she wanted because Destiny was a top notch worker and he didn’t want to lose her.

  That first week after she moved in, we had ourselves a pretty good time. Mostly we did silly things – like opening three different bottles of wine so we could decide which went better with Frito Lays, or driving down to Macy’s to try on the most outrageous hats we could find. One day we went clear across town to the Le’ Grand Salon to get ourselves a manicure and pedicure. I was planning to have my nails painted Natural Blush, but when we walked out of there, Destiny and I both had fire engine red nails. I felt sorry I’d never gone swimming naked, but I didn’t have the least bit of regret about those scarlet colored fingernails.

  The following week, I got real sick and that was the end of our running around.

  A half-dozen times I started to tell Destiny about the bonds and what she was to do with them, but there never seemed to be a right time. It’s a sorrowful thing to talk about what to do with your stuff when you’re dead and gone – I didn’t feel much like discussing it and I suppose Destiny didn’t either. I could tell she was hurting; it was in her eyes, even though she didn’t say a word.

  That week we played cards a few times and watched a show or two on television, but mostly I slept and she sat on the chair right beside my bed. If I so much as breathed heavy, she’d jump up and ask if I wanted a pain pill. “How about a drink of water?” she’d ask, “Or, maybe a foot rub?”

  Less than three weeks after I came home from the hospital, I died. It wasn’t real dramatic; I just went to sleep and never again woke up.

  People think dying is a painful thing, but it isn’t. Sometime during the middle of the night, I simply stepped out of my old used-up body and became light as a feather. I didn’t have an ache or a pain anywhere and even though I couldn’t see myself, I knew I looked just like I did when I was twenty years old.

  Poor Destiny was the one who found it painful. She shed enough tears to fill an ocean. I felt real appreciative that I’d been blessed with a friend such as Destiny, but hated to see her torn apart that way. I was wishing I could put my arm around her and say, “Don’t cry, honey, I’m still here.” But of course, such a thing is not possible.

  I wasn’t dead more than a few hours, when I remembered about those bonds and knew I should have taken care of business while I still had the chance.

  It seems to me that God ought to give a person the chance to see ahead to the terrible happenings that are gonna occur after they’re dead; that way people would take greater care in settling their life properly. I certainly would have. Once you’re gone, all you can do is look back and think, Oh dear, if only I’d written that down on paper. Of course, it’s too late then.

  After I died, Destiny was the one who took care of things. Thank Heaven I’d switched my bank accounts over to her name, otherwise I don’t know how she would have paid for the funeral. Destiny had the little bit she’d saved from her waitressing job at the restaurant and part of what I’d given her last Christmas, but the way money slid through her fingers, even that had dwindled down considerably. There are a million good things anyone could say about a person like Destiny, but being frugal sure isn’t one of them. Why, she could hold onto a greased pig longer than she could a dollar. When she was making arrangements for my funeral Destiny told long-faced Mister Panderelli that she wanted the very best of everything. She turned away from a perfectly sensible oak casket and ordered a steel coffin that Mister Panderelli claimed was vacuum sealed and guaranteed secure. Secure from what? Who in the world would want to pilfer an old woman’s dead bones? From my vantage point, I could tell Panderelli was capitalizing on the poor girl’s grief. Destiny spent twenty-three-thousand dollars on that coffin and then she ordered so many sprays of bright red roses you’d have thought they were laying out Tallulah Bankhead’s first cousin.

  She could have taken that money and crammed it into her own pocket, but instead she spent it on me, without any inkling whatsoever that I was still watching over her. Now, that’s pure love, the kind most folks find hard to believe. If the Good Lord Himself had ordered me up a savior, he couldn’t have found a better one than Destiny.

  That last year I was alive, I’d gotten pretty forgetful. I’d misplace my checkbook; forget to pay the electric bill, things like that. One time I went to the Bountiful Basket and got to the checkout with a cartload of groceries and not a nickel in my pocketbook. That very day I said, “Destiny, I need you to help take care of my finances and I’m willing to pay for your time.”

  She laughed that big round laugh of hers – I often wondered how such a sizable laugh could come out of such a little person – “Pay me?” she said. “Why, I’d be glad to help, but you don’t need to pay me!”

  “I insist!” Every time I went to give Destiny any cash money, we’d go ‘round and ‘round. “I’m no charity case!” I said, as if I was real insulted.

  “I never claimed you were. But, I’m still not gonna take money for helping out.”

  “Then I’ll do without your help.” I could afford to talk sassy ‘cause I knew full well that once I’d asked her to do something, neither hell nor high water would keep her from it.

  We dickered back and forth a bit, I offered to pay five-hundred dollars a month; she said she’d take fifty. Finally we settled on one-hundred and that’s when Destiny started writi
ng my checks and taking care of whatever needed taking care of. A number of times when Elliott stopped by to tell me how down on his luck he was, I had Destiny write him out a check for five hundred dollars. “Just make it payable to cash,” he’d usually say and she’d do exactly as he asked.

  I was pleased with such an arrangement because having a trustworthy person like Destiny to oversee things was worth a lot more than a few paltry dollars. It surely made my life easier and I’m certain having that extra money was a Godsend for her. Right off she bought herself a brand new Westinghouse microwave and a red fox coat that she planned to pay off in installments. I told her, “Destiny, you oughtn’t run up a bunch of finance charges, I’ll buy you that coat outright.” She just shrugged it off and said something about how paying on time didn’t bother her one little bit; then next thing I knew, she’d gone and bought herself a twenty-one inch television set on the installment plan. I was happy to see her get the nice things she deserved. All my life, I’d pinched and saved, always worrying about the future, then before I knew it, I was an old woman with not much future left to worry about and pitifully little to show for all the scrimping. If I had it to do over again, I’d live my life just the way Destiny does. She’s one person who won’t end up with a bunch of regrets about things she didn’t do.

  As far as the money was concerned, I had more than I could live long enough to spend. There was still well over one-hundred thousand dollars in the Middleboro Savings Bank, and that wasn’t counting the bonds.