When Snow Falls

“Have they shown Thomas?”

He was Anita’s favorite. She’d loved that bit about the ecstasy-induced weekend with Brooke and whether or not he’d slept with his stepmother. “Not today.” That she’d noticed, anyway.

“What’s happening with Ridge?”

“He was kissing his ex-wife before the last commercial.” Presley had seen that much, but even if she hadn’t, Ridge cheating with his ex was a safe bet. The writers had kept that love triangle going for several seasons.

“If he doesn’t choose between Brooke and Taylor soon, I’ll miss it.” Her eyes drifted shut. Presley assumed she’d fallen back asleep, but she spoke a few seconds later. “You’d better quit smoking, or you’ll wind up like me.”

Presley wanted to quit. She remembered how yellow her mother’s teeth had been before she lost them to poor hygiene. But now was not the time to fight that battle. She needed all the help she could get just to survive each day. “I will. Later.”

“Right.” Her mother coughed as she tried to laugh.

“Mom?”

Anita took a deep breath. It was getting harder and harder for her to speak. Sometimes she didn’t have the energy for it at all. “What?”

Presley used the remote to turn down the television. “Chey’s not home.”

“I didn’t ask if she was.”

“I wanted you to know she wasn’t.”

Her mother’s eyes showed a heightened alertness. She’d noticed the change in Presley’s tone. Sometimes they told each other more than they ever admitted to Chey. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to ask you again about Eugene Crouch.”

“Don’t.” Her mother smoothed her thin gray hair. “It’s better if you…leave that alone.”

“Why? He had a picture.”

A grimace added more wrinkles to Anita’s heavily lined face. “So?”

“So?” Presley repeated. “Aren’t you curious where he got it? Who was in it?”

She coughed again. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to…hear anything about it.”

“Because you already know.”

With a grimace, Anita motioned to the TV. “Turn that back up.”

Presley didn’t comply. She bent over Anita to convince her that she wanted the truth. “What happened, Mom? Who was the blonde woman in the picture? Is she the one Chey keeps asking about?”

Her mother waved her off. “Stop. Just trust me.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

Her face flushed with the first color Presley had seen in several days. Maybe she realized she hadn’t earned much trust, even from the daughter who loved her. “I’m trying to…do you a favor,” she said, finally meeting Presley’s gaze. “Don’t ruin it. It’s…the last gift I have to give you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does! Why make you…carry the secret after I’m gone? It will…only tear you up inside.” She lowered her voice. “Or cost you…the one person you’ve always been able to count on.”

The sickening feeling that’d crept over Presley when she’d seen that photo of Cheyenne as a little girl, all dolled up, returned. “She doesn’t really belong to us, does she,” she said, clutching her hands in the bedding.

Anita’s breath rattled as she dragged it in and out of her lungs. “You knew that. You might…deny it, but in your heart…you knew all along.”

“No.” Presley shook her head. “We don’t look alike because we come from different fathers. That’s what you said!”

“That’s what you wanted to believe!”

She was right. As much as Presley would rather have denied it, she’d had her doubts. She’d just been unwilling to face them. She’d heard Cheyenne ask about the blonde woman, had listened to her sister describe with longing the many toys she’d once had, the pretty clothes and the full belly, and she’d purposely pretended she remembered no time when they weren’t a family. She’d even told Chey, on a number of occasions, that those images had to be from a dream.

“Oh, God,” she muttered, and sank down into her chair.

It required considerable effort, but Anita managed to sit up on her own. “Presley, you wanted a sister so bad. I couldn’t have another child, but you needed someone, someone besides me. I couldn’t be there all the time. I had to make sure we had food to eat and somewhere to sleep. I— It was just the two of us, and every day you begged me for a playmate.”

Anita’s actions hadn’t been entirely altruistic. She’d used her children as much as anything else. But Presley didn’t make an issue of it. She was too preoccupied, too frightened by what she was learning. Covering her mouth, she spoke through her fingers. “So what did you do?”

“I got what you needed, that’s what.”

The drugs Presley had taken made her feel as if her mother’s voice was growing loud and then dim. Was this really happening?

Yes. She was pretty sure it was. She’d suspected for a long time. But now that she was confronted with the reality, she didn’t know how to react. Was she supposed to be grateful to her mother?

She would’ve been miserable growing up alone. Cheyenne had provided the companionship that’d made life bearable. Together they’d weathered so much, stood against the world, especially when Anita took up with a man and her daughters became less important to her. Or when Anita went on a drunken binge. Cheyenne had been there to provide love and comfort.

“But…what about her?” Presley wasn’t sure how she managed to speak. It felt as if someone had put a clamp on her tongue.

“What about her?” Anita’s eyes snapped with the instant anger that was so typical of her. “She’s fine. I took care of her just like I took care of you, didn’t I? Why does she deserve party dresses and birthday presents? Why does she deserve to have life any better than you or me?”

Because Anita had stolen her from the family she would’ve had, and who could say what they would’ve been able to give her. Didn’t she see the injustice in that? “You told her you have no idea who the blonde woman is or why she keeps remembering all those things,” she whispered. “She’s asked at least a hundred times.”

“Well, now that you know, we’ll see if you tell her anything different,” she responded, and with a bitter laugh that said she didn’t think Presley would, she fell back on the pillows.

* * *

Presley was gone when Cheyenne returned home from work, which surprised her. With Anita in such bad shape, Presley usually waited for Chey to arrive so that someone would be with Anita at all times.

Cheyenne would’ve asked her mother why her sister had left early, but Anita seemed to be in a drugged stupor. As Chey stood at her bedroom door, looking in, she realized that what she’d told Eve wasn’t true. No way could Anita make it until after the cruise. The cancer had progressed too far. She’d already been reduced to a bag of bones beneath waxy skin. She’d grown so small and feeble compared to the woman Cheyenne used to fear, it was a wonder she was still breathing.

Maybe that was why Presley had gone. Watching Anita die a little more each day wasn’t easy.

Grateful that her mother was sleeping so she could have dinner and unwind, she headed into the kitchen, where she’d left her purse when she came in. She could smell the pine of the Christmas tree and the cinnamon candles she liked to burn, but those scents hardly cloaked the stale, antiseptic stench of her mother’s sickness.