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“Why would you think that?”
“Because you were glaring at me Saturday night.”
“Not deliberately.” Not at first, anyway. When I saw them exchanging numbers, I might’ve got a little territorial, but I’ll never admit that since I’m not supposed to feel that way about someone I’m just friends with.
“So, you look at everyone like you want to inflict bodily harm?”
“It’s a habit I’m trying to break.”
“You need a lot of work, then.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m—” The jarring vibration of the phone against my thigh has me pursing my lips in a tight smile as I pull it from my pocket to check the screen. Dammit. “I uh… This is gonna go on until I answer it, so I need to…” I huff out a frustrated breath. “I’m not pissed or whatever, it’s just a…sorry.”
I spin away from a clearly confused Dani and stalk down the hall several steps before I punch accept. “What?”
“I’ve been calling for hours.” My mother’s lethargic voice slithers into my ear like a tentacle, spreading its gloom throughout my limbs until my body is so heavy with dread it’s hard to move. “Why didn’t you pick up?”
“You’ve been calling for one hour, and I didn’t pick up because I was in class.”
“Why would you be in class today?”
“I’m in class every day. It’s sort of how school works.” I push my way outside and collapse on the nearest bench before a mixture of rage and despair robs me of my ability to bear my weight.
“Well, I need you to come get me and drive me to the cemetery.” She reveals the reason for her call, and it isn’t me. I knew that before I answered, but the confirmation still momentarily steals my breath.
“You can’t drive yourself?”
There’s an exaggerated pause before she virtually slurs, “I don’t feel well.”
“That happens when you have a diet of wine and pills, but at least you had the good sense not to drive yourself. Just call an Uber.”
She sucks in an offended breath. “I will not have some stranger take me to pay my respects to your sister. Or did you forget what today is?”
As if I could ever forget. “Of course, I didn’t.”
“Then I assume you’re planning to visit yourself. Take me with you.”
I close my eyes and count to five before answering. “I’m ten hours away. At school.”
“What are you talking about? School is less than fifteen minutes from our house. Just come home to pick me up.”
“High school is fifteen minutes away. College is ten hours.”
“Why are you talking about college? You’re just a junior.”
“I was a junior when Liz died. That was two years ago.”
“Do you think I don’t know when your sister died?” She shouts, a sob echoing through the line before she continues. “It’s permanently etched in my mind. It’s the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up, and the last thing before going to bed. It’s all I ever see.”
I don’t think my mom has strung that many words together since Liz passed, and for a second, I want to linger in this moment. To savor her voice and grieve with her and know that I’m not alone. Then she delivers another blow. “How dare you accuse me of forgetting that.”
How dare I?
Liz’s death may have rattled my parents to their core, something I naively thought they’d snap out of after enough time had passed, but I’m tired of trying to convince myself this is just a phase. Something they’ll recover from. They’re so caught up in their coping mechanisms, dad with his work and mom with her pills, that they’re moving through life like ghosts. Avoiding anything that might make them feel, which apparently includes their only remaining child.
They may as well be dead too. At least to me.
I’m so tempted to let loose. To rant about every shitty thing she’s done and make my mother feel even a tiny fraction of what I’ve felt over the past few years. But I know my pain won’t even make a dent in the whole scheme of things. And even though most days I want to hate her for it, part of me knows she’s not in control. She isn’t really my mother. Not anymore. And I can’t bring myself to strike that final blow.
