Make a Wish

Her long hair, mostly gray now, is pulled up into a ponytail that swings back and forth as she runs. Rose has no particular destination and the whole of this mild March afternoon to get there. Her daughters, both grown and convinced they now know better than her, would sigh and tell her she’s too old to simply go for a run. But sixty-eight isn’t that old, Rose tells herself. And it’s far from her biggest problem at the moment. Plus, running is what she’s always turned to, whenever the stress of life got to be too much. The fresh air, the disconnection from everyone and everything, has always calmed her nerves and cleared her head.

When she returns to her condo, she fills a glass with water from the sink and sinks down onto a kitchen chair. Sipping the water, she picks up her phone and calls her younger daughter.

“Mom, I don't understand why you can't just come here,” Tara whines, and her mother smiles.

“Because it's my birthday, dear.”

It takes another twenty minutes, but finally Tara agrees to come home in mid-April. Taking a deep breath, Rose places the next call to her older daughter.

Lydia hesitates only a minute before agreeing. “But you never want to celebrate your birthday, what's going on?”

That day, Lydia is the first to arrive. Rose breaks the news that Tara will be joining them for the weekend. Lydia’s nostrils flare as she stares at her mother, but she doesn’t say a word. Now they are on their way to the airport to pick up Tara, and Rose can feel the rage rolling off Lydia like steam.

“You could have at least warned me,” Lydia grumbles. “But don't worry, I'll be on my best behavior. I can't speak for her though.”

When they pull up to the curb and Tara sees Lydia in the passenger seat, she crosses her arms tightly over her chest and scowls.

“What is she doing here?” Tara asks as her mother embraces her.

“Oh, stop pouting - is it so much to ask to have both my girls with me on my birthday?”

“I didn’t know either,” Lydia says once Tara slides into the backseat and slams the door. Rose chats as she drives, trying to ease the tension that fills the air in the small space, but her daughters stubbornly refuse to engage. They have retreated to their old selves, wielding weapons of avoidance and the silent treatment that have marked their relationship since the incident almost a decade ago.

Raising two daughters on her own wasn’t easy, and Rose had done her best. Lydia and Tara fought when they were young, ignored each other as teenagers, and finally became friends in their early 20s. Then, the incident. Lydia’s engagement party, Tara in her childhood bedroom in their mother’s house, locked in a kiss with Lydia’s fiancé. A misunderstanding, Tara claims - the fiancé had surprised her by following her into her room and kissing her. A betrayal, Lydia insists - it was exactly what it looked like, and Tara had stolen the love of her life. Neither sister has changed her story, or apologized, or been able to let go of the past even though they have both moved on with their lives. Lydia called off the engagement a few months later when she found out that he had been cheating on her with various women, but she still wouldn’t speak to her sister. Tara, hurt that her sister didn’t believe her, eventually stopped trying to make amends.

“Make a wish!” Lydia smiles at her mother as she places a small chocolate cake on the table in front of her. Tara is smiling too, and she has put her phone in her bag for the moment - a true miracle. Rose closes her eyes briefly, then opens them and blows out the single candle. Lydia cuts them all a slice of cake.

“Girls, I know you were confused about why I wanted you to come here. It’s because I have something to tell you. The cancer is back. And this time, I don’t want the treatment. I can’t go through all that chemo again.”

The girls sit blinking at their mother, forks suspended in midair. The corners of Tara’s mouth lift, as if she is waiting for the punch line. Lydia bursts into tears.

“Are you sure?” Tara asks, her head swiveling from Lydia to her mother. And then again. “Are you sure?”

Rose nods. “I’ve been to a specialist.”

Lydia looks up through her tears. “But have you -”

“Yes, I’ve gotten a second opinion too.”

“But how can this be possible?” Lydia whispers. Tara is still blinking at her mother, in shock. Rose had breast cancer when she was in her late thirties, just about the age her girls are now, and she had beaten it.

“How long have you known?” Lydia asks now.

Rose clears her throat again. “Three months.”

“Three months??” Tara has finally broken out of her stupor. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“Let’s go into the living room.”

It takes another hour for Rose to tell the entire story, starting with the symptoms, the visit to her primary doctor, then a specialist, then the biopsy and ultrasound, the diagnosis, and then repeating the process with another doctor just to be sure. By the end, both her daughters look deflated and exhausted. They are also sitting together on the couch, side by side, for the first time in a very long time.

“Anyway, that’s not the only reason I wanted you to come,” she says brightly, hoping to force some cheer back into the conversation. “They say I have a year to eighteen months, and though I intend to live longer than that, I figure I’d better get my affairs in order just in case.”

Lydia and Tara exchange a raised eyebrow look, so reminiscent of who they used to be that Rose feels almost breathless with longing for the past.

 “I’m talking about my bucket list. There’s still one more thing I’ve always wanted to do. I know you both think I’m too old, but I’m still in good shape. I want to do this, and I want you to do it with me. Come on, let’s run a marathon!”

Her girls are now sitting so close together their shoulders are touching. “Mom,” Lydia says slowly. “I don’t think your doctor would let you…”

“Oh, what do doctors know?” Rose smiles to show she is at least half joking, her daughters still look alarmed. “Listen,” Rose says. “I have come to accept the fact that this cancer is back and probably for the last time. If I only have a year left to live, then it seems like I should be the one who decides how I spend that time. And I’ve decided that I want to spend it with you. Running.”

Lydia puts her head in her hands. “This is crazy.”

“What race are you thinking?” Tara asks cautiously.

“We live in Cincinnati,” Rose says, spreading her arms and smiling broadly. “The Flying Pig, of course!”

“What? That’s in three weeks!”

“Not this year.” Rose laughs. “I’m going to need every one of the next 365 days to train. I was thinking next year. It falls right in between my 70th birthday and Mother’s Day, so you can consider this a combined gift for both.”

On the day of the Flying Pig marathon three weeks later, Rose has convinced her girls to go downtown to cheer on the participants, hoping it will inspire them. “We can run from one spot to another, to see different parts of the course. We’ll get in our first training run too!”

The whole day proves to be a disaster. Whatever closeness the girls had during their mother’s cancer confession has seemed to dissipate, and they bicker constantly as they sweat and swear at each other. Finally Rose runs ahead of them, and they are finally too breathless to fight with each other as they try to catch up. “Look at this view!” Rose exclaims as they reach the overlook at Eden Park. The girls chug from their water bottles and check their phones. Rose rolls her eyes and takes off again.

It goes on this way through the summer. Tara moves in with Rose in June, when the girls decide Rose needs someone with her all the time. Lydia establishes a routine of coming to Cincinnati each Thursday, and staying until Sunday night. They do a short run together on Thursday evening, and a long one on Sunday morning. Rose makes the routes and stashes bottles of water in the bushes along the way. Her daughters complain that she has chosen a path that is too hilly, or there aren’t enough water stops. Rose throws her hands in the air and tells them they are welcome to make the routes if they think they can do a better job. She comes home one Friday afternoon to find her daughters sitting together at the kitchen table, huddled over Lydia’s laptop as they map out a route for the Sunday run.

On Thanksgiving, Lydia’s husband Gus and her kids come to Rose’s house and her daughters help her cook a turkey. Gus helps Rose wash the dishes after dinner, while Lydia and Tara play with the kids in the backyard.

“Thank you for asking her to do this,” Gus murmurs as he dries a plate. Rose turns to him, her head tilted, questioning. “She just seems much…happier lately.”

“I’m sorry she’s been spending so much time here instead of at home,” Rose says, suddenly feeling selfish for taking up so much of her busy daughter’s time.

“It’s you, too,” he says softly, as if he hadn’t heard. “You and Tara. I think it’s been wonderful for her to spend so much time with you.” He turns to look at Rose directly. “I had been telling her to visit you more often. And to reconnect with Tara. Life is so short, and refusing to forgive her - it was only hurting Lydia.”

Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday that year, and Rose convinces her daughters that they should complete the 16-mile run as planned. They set off early, leaving Gus and the kids at Rose’s house, and almost immediately the snow begins to fall. They are fat flakes that drift down lazily, taking all morning to become anything substantial. By the time they return to the house, there is a soft white blanket covering the ground. After they have all taken long, hot showers they settle in the living room with steaming mugs of coffee and hot chocolate. They spend the day in the house baking cookies and watching the intermittent snow fall from the foggy windows. For the first time in a long time, Rose has everyone she loves under one roof.

The next morning, Christmas day, Rose knows something is wrong before she even opens her eyes. She is dizzy and nauseous, but she doesn’t want to ruin the festive mood. She smiles as she watches her grandchildren’s’ eyes light up when they see the pile of presents waiting for them under the tree, and she pretends to eat the breakfast her daughters make together. She gets through the day, just barely, hoping that the next one will be better. It’s worse.

Rose can’t get out of bed for nearly a week. In the darkest moments, when Tara has returned to the guest room to get a few hours of sleep. Rose worries that she has run out of time. But when she wakes up on the morning of the New Years Eve, she feels like a new person. Tara admits that she was scared, but Lydia is furious.

“Come on mom, you need to stop this now.” Lydia’s voice is sharp enough to cut glass. “You need to call your doctor and schedule chemo. No more messing around.”

“We’ve been through this, honey,” Rose explains as calmly as she can, as if she is speaking to her five-year old grandchild.

That night, Rose and Tara watch the ball drop from the couch. Tara is drinking champagne, and Rose is sipping a glass of sparkling cider. “Here’s to us,” Rose says, tapping her glass against Tara’s. “And running a marathon this year. Together.”

In late February, they attempt their first 20-mile run. The snow and freezing temperatures make it difficult, and they end up walking most of it.

On a chilly, sunny Sunday in early April, the time has come for what Rose calls “the dress rehearsal.” They will run 22 miles, their farthest training distance, on the actual Flying Pig course. It also happens to be Rose’s 70th birthday. Gus leaves the kids with his brother and drives down with Lydia so he can cheer them on and hand them water as they run. Rose drives them downtown and they start running, envisioning the road lined with spectators cheering them on. They cross the imaginary finish line, holding hands and laughing, tired and sore and happy it’s over.

The next day, Rose is in the cereal aisle of Kroger when she collapses without warning. The doctor explains that Rose’s cancer has spread even more, and that she should be resting as much as possible.

“Our marathon is in three weeks,” Rose says to the doctor, as if she is explaining a simple concept to a child.

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to sit this one out.”

Rose sighs heavily and waves the doctor away. When he is gone, she turns to her girls. “Normally I wouldn’t listen to doctors, as you know,” she says, and Tara laughs. Lydia shoots her a look and crosses her arms over her chest. She opens her mouth, but her mother puts up a hand to stop her. “However, this time I believe he might be correct. As much as I am tempted to die in dramatic fashion in the middle of a marathon, I don’t think that’s the way I’m meant to go. I may just have to follow the doctor's orders, for once.”

On race day, Lydia comes to Rose’s house to pick up Tara, and they hug their mother goodbye. Rose flips on the TV and watches the race, though she knows the coverage will only show the winners and her daughters will be near the back of the pack. But it comforts her to know that they are out there, together. Her phone buzzes, and she sees a picture of Lydia and Tara at the starting line, the sun beginning to rise behind them, nervous smiles on their faces. More than an hour later, she gets another picture of them flashing thumbs up at the Eden Park Overlook, around mile 7. It’s a couple more hours before she gets a video from Gus of her girls running down Madisonville, looking tired, the sound of a cowbell and Lydia’s children cheering in the background. This is about mile 16, and Rose knows they are about to hit The Wall.

She has been texting them throughout the race, sending messages of encouragement, but now she decides she needs to hear their voices. She waits until she thinks they are probably around mile 20, and calls Tara’s phone.

“Mom? Is everything okay?”

Yes, honey, everything’s fine. I just wanted to call and tell you -” Rose has to stop and hold the phone away from her ear for a moment. She finds that she is unexpectedly emotional.

“Mom? Are you still there?”

“I’m here.” Rose sniffles and pulls herself together. “Can you put me on speakerphone?”

“Sure, no problem. I’m not doing much else, just running a marathon here,” Tara grumbles, and Rose chuckles. “Okay, we can both hear you now.”

“Hi mom.” Lydia’s tired voice floats through the phone.

“I just wanted to tell you both that I’m so proud of you for doing this. These next six miles will not be easy, but it will be worth it once you cross that finish line. Together.”

It’s silent for a moment, and then Tara says, in a voice just barely more than a whisper, “we’re not giving up. We’re doing this for you.”

“We love you, mom,” Lydia adds, and Rose waits until they hang up to break down.

Gus reports to Rose that they are looking strong at mile 24. And when they cross the finish line, Gus snaps one picture of them holding hands with tears streaming down their faces, and then another of them collapsing into each other’s arms. Rose touches the screen of her phone, as close as she can get to her daughters for the moment, and knows that whatever grudge they were holding against each other no longer matters.

Later, they come to her house and complain about sore legs, blisters, chafing in places they hadn’t thought possible. Rose smiles and hands them celebratory beers and glasses of water. Gus and the kids arrive, and they order dinner. Rose watches as her daughters slip back into the easy familiarity they used to have, finishing each other’s sentences and sitting close together on the couch, their bodies angling towards each other. They talk about the race all through dinner, still on the high of accomplishing something they never thought possible.

“I wish you could have been there, mom,” Tara says, scooping up the last of her pasta. Rose smiles and grabs a breadstick that she pretends to eat. She doesn’t have much of an appetite anymore.

“So do I,” she says, but what she is thinking is that the race was never the point. She looks around the room and sees everything she ever wanted.