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She never responds to my forwards. Last week I sent her the most adorable little one. Three kittens giving the finger to the camera! How cute is that? And nothing. Not even a :) in the subject line. People say Claire is so nice, such a sweetheart. But they say that about anyone who gets cancer.

In 1989, our sons were on the little league team together. Claire’s son was pitching when my son should have been. Her boy lost the game for us, 8-7 was the score. When I told her she should have told him how much the game mattered and asked if she fed him wheaties or corn pops (when my kid stayed at her house he came home on a sugar high) she didn’t even answer the question. She just mumbled some crapola about team spirit.

So it’s okay that I’m just dropping my flowers off at the receptionist desk of the hospital. Even though these nurses are glaring at me, telling me “Visiting hours are happening right now. Are you sure you don’t want to go in?” Well yes I’m sure. Am I sure that I send the best forwards of anyone I know and that I know from my AOL mail monitor that she opens them, enjoys them, and doesn’t bother to send a reply? That’s the question they should be asking.

The girls say uterine cancer is serious. I say she had breast cancer in ’95 and she didn’t even quit smoking! Imagine! Sometimes she smokes when we all go out to dinner, without the hubbies in tow. Right in the middle of the patio of the Olive Garden, no shame, as if anyone really believes that hog wash about living each day as if it’s your last. Because that’s what she claims she’s doing. She claims that when they cut off your boobies you have this grand awakening and don’t care about things like lung cancer.

Lookie what we have here. It’s Donna Fretteli. “Hi Donna Fretteli.” I’m always proud when I remember someone’s surname. I appreciate it when they remember mine as well. “What’s up chica?”

She looks at my like I have a piece of spinach stuck between my two front teeth. “I’m visiting Clara.”

“You brought flowers. They’re lovely.” Donna Fretteli bends over and sniffs my flowers. “Did you bring a vase?”

“No I didn’t bring a vase. This is a hospital. They’ve got to have beakers or IVs floating around.” I like to have a chuckle. Especially in a hospital. But Donna doesn’t laugh. She’s on Atkins though, poor thing.

“I was just gonna drop em off at the nurse’s station. No reason to bother the sick one. Let her rest, right? Lord knows if I got cancer I’d love to put my feet up and kick back for a few months. I can’t even remember the last time I got to watch ‘The View’.”

Now she nods a lot. A little waddling nodding Donna Fretteli. I don’t like the nodding, the way she’s looking anywhere but me. “What’s with you?”

“Oh nothing. Nothing at all.” She checks her watch. Britney Spears. Must be a gift from one of her daughters. She’s got two of them, the lucky thing. Me, I have boys. All they do is track mud on your floors and then twenty years down the road throw you out the window for some harlot replacement they call a fiancé. Well that’s what my brothers did to my mother anyway. It’s what I expect. But you can’t get mad. They’re men. Can they help it? Donna finally looks at me. “I think you’re right to drop off the flowers and let her rest.”

Now I lay my flowers on the counter. “Really? are they doing something grotesque? Is it like ER in there?”

“Well, Donna now you have me all worked up. Is she okay?”
Then she takes my arm as if I’m one of the little old ladies at church who uses the handicap ramp even though she doesn’t have a walker. I politely take my arm away form grabby Donna. I am no old lady. I go to Curves! “ Actually I think I will go up after all. I can handle blood. I can handle it.”

And then I turn away and grab my flowers and wave goodbye to that Donna Fretteli. She can go stick it. Last year we did the breast cancer walk and she only made it through five miles, said she had to get the girls. Then that night I stopped by the mall to hit the Macy’s clearance rack and don’t you know it, there she was with her eldest. Kelli. As if those Fretteli’s are so special that they’re above the laws of tradition, that they can just look at the letter ‘Y’ and say ‘no thanks!’ Anyway she and Kelly with an ‘I’ had been lined up all day for some teen model contest. As if Kelli’s so cute she needs to be in circulars. “Bye ya Donna!” I say without turning back. And then I get into the elevator.

The nurses tell me that Claire’s room is at the end of the hall. “Is it very gross in there?”

So on the way down the hall I peep into the other rooms. It’s mainly old people. People who probably ate too many free breadsticks all their lives and said ‘Oh I’ll go the gym next week’. They say Claire’s going to die from this cancer. The thought of that makes me excited to see her. This may very well be the last time I see her, aside from the funeral, at which point she’ll look like a wax model from Madame Toussaud’s. It’s an exciting thing, when you know you’re about to do something so simple that’s going to be a special memory. Death. It will be major. I wonder which of the girls will be the one to start the charity scholarship bake sale or what have you in Claire’s honor?

I know twice. “Toot a loo.” And then I open the door. I think once you’ve knocked you’re okay. That’s the way I raised my boys. When I knock, shape up because I’m coming in!

The door’s a heavy thing and it takes me a good few seconds to shove it open and lodge it. I want it held open should she start to bleed or wail. I don’t want to have to go all Shirley Maclaine and run into the hallways asking for a nurse. Even though I do admire that woman’s acting. And then once the door is lodged I turn around. There are two things I notice immediately. The first is that every flower arrangement is bigger than mine. Most people did in fact bring their own vases. And the second thing I see is my husband, lying their beside Claire on the bed, his arm locked behind her neck and his little man hand on her shoulder. She’s out cold. But not dead. He tries to move but he can’t because he’d wake her. Her hand rests on his upper thigh. An upper thigh I think of as mine.

Caroline Kepnes likes watching "The View" on ABC. She wrote this story one day after Elizabeth, the noxiously sweet Survivor chick, was all "You HAVE to respond to forwards". Anyway, Caroline's stories have also appeared in The Barcelona Review, Eyeshot, Elixir, Eclectica, Duck & Herring's Pocket Field Guide, Hobart,Thieves Jargon, Yankee Pot Roast and Word Riot. More to come soon in TBR, The Blue Moon Review, Carve and Spoiled Ink. She lives in L.A. and works for E! Online's gossip column The Awful Truth. She has weird taste.