Warpaint by Stephanie A. Smith

dragged her, step by step, up to the river and the North Shore of Lake Superior, but by then her parents were dead and besides, she’d always known she’d return home, to her people, the land of her birth. That, too, she’d seen.
    But on the day of her betrothal, standing in her studio by the sea in 1950, with the sun streaming on her hands and face, and Paul so ardent beside her, all she said was,
    â€œOf course everyone has had a premonition.”
    He smiled. He had a goofy, lop-sided smile made sillier by his twice-broken healed-flat nose, a boxer’s nose. Ten years her senior, nearly a foot shorter, Paul drank. Everyone knew he drank. But Liz Moore married Paul Gaines, knowing his ways, because she also knew he would take good care of her, and just then she wanted his care.
    One June day, Paul borrowed an old, old Model T from a neighbor, filled it with gas and drove it down to the justice of the peace; they picked up the Davises along the way, to bear witness, and C.C., who was thirteen, to serve as ring-bearer, flower girl and bridesmaid all rolled into one excited teenager. Liz cut down an armful of wild flowers – Queen Anne’s Lace, daisies, cornflowers – for herself and her guests, and after the ceremony, as they drove back from town, she wove a crown of flowers for her bridesmaid. Crammed into the studio, they celebrated; Paul popped the cork and sloppily served everyone; Nancy vanished only to reappear with a white-iced wedding cake, complete with the bride and groom atop a tiny dais.
    That stiff-armed wedding-cake couple still stand, in all their wedded bliss, on C.C.’s desk, battered by years of rattling around from one of Lizzie’s junk drawers to the next, until C.C. had asked after it. Paul Gaines, goofy smile, paint-rough hands, a gentle and foolish man, had left them all a mere decade into the marriage, an alcohol-induced heart attack. He’d been just sixty.

3. silences

    â€œWho let this woman die?”
    Theresa Wong, C.C.’s surgeon, stormed out of the operating room, looking for someone to blame. But there was only Quiola, who wasn’t the person the doctor wanted. She wanted a reprehensible family member who’d been derelict enough to let a mother, sister, wife, daughter, aunt or cousin skip her yearly mammogram, which would have certainly prevented –
    â€œâ€“ the first tumor from getting so large. But I get in there and what do I find? The first one, the size of a baseball, that’s bad enough but there’s a second, smaller one, hiding behind the first. X-rays didn’t catch it. I had to remove a sizable portion of her chest wall muscle to be sure to get it all. She’ll need physical therapy. Why didn’t this woman see her doctor on a regular basis?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Quiola, her voice mild, flat. She gave Theresa Wong a searching look and the surgeon, still in scrubs, pushed the green surgical cap back off her forehead. “A case like this, I’ll give her
maybe
two years at best. The only thing I’m certain about is that I got all the affected tissue. Where is the family? Hasn’t she got any?”
    â€œHer mother has Alzheimer’s. Her father is dead.” And she didn’t know what to say about Ted. She’d urged C.C. to call him, but no. She thought about calling him herself, but hadn’t the nerve. She knew he had sons, but since C.C. had given up on the whole business of family after her mother began to forget everyone, Quiola wasn’t sure what the right thing to do would be. Dithering, she finally called Belinda, Ted’s latest wife: at least Ted would know what was going on. The ball was in his court, now, and it looked as if that’s where it would stay until it had bounced itself to a roll, and rolled away.
    â€œGod,” said the surgeon. “Look, I’m sorry, but your friend will need help. She’s going to be weak, in pain