“I don’t hate you.” I sound so tired. I sound like a liar. “How about you sit down? I’ll make you a cup of tea. You can watch something on TV?”
She hesitates a second, considering. “Okay. Tea, please.”
I want to be alone. I want to nurse my aches and my anger, and I can’t do that here, not with her around. At least I’ve managed to defuse things. I ease my bag to the ground and turn the dial on the stove, but it clicks impotently. I try again. Off. On. Off. The burner roars to life, flames leaping up to lick my fingers.
As I jerk my hand back, my mom says, “Ellis?”
“Yes?” And I turn around just in time to catch the sneaky, spiteful gleam at the edge of her expression.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
Her slippers shuffle on linoleum, and then she’s through the door, slamming it behind her. I fumble with the stove, leap for the doorknob, dash after her. A pause on the landing, the slam of the back stairs, and I catch her rounding the stairwell, almost hopping every few steps as if one of her legs has got pins and needles.
“Mom!” I shout. “Where are you going?”
She glances at me over her shoulder, eyes sparkling in defiance, before swinging the stairwell door open and rushing into the parking lot. I nearly trip over my own feet trying to sprint down the stairs two at a time after her. I catch the door on the backswing and hurtle into the dust and dazzle of the outside world. For a second, everything is tinted a sickly yellow, a vomitous film spread over the inside of my eyelids, and my senses fill with the scent of disease, of dried-out flesh and decaying roots.
Then all of that is gone, and I hear only my mom’s familiar shout of triumph and a waterfall crash of breaking glass.
13
WHEN I’VE BLINKED THROUGH THE DAYTIME BRIGHTNESS, I see my mom swaying there, a chunk of cement in her hand—where did she get that from?—and a smug look on her face. My car windshield is a kaleidoscope of spiderweb cracks.
“This,” I say. My face is hot. My whole body’s hot. “This is why I hate you. Because I’ll never be good enough for you, and you think that means you don’t ever have to listen to me.” Am I shouting? My mouth is moving on its own. “And you know what? You need me more than I need you! Can’t you get that? You need me! So why can’t you just fucking listen?”
She falters. Is it because I rarely see her outside, in the sunlight, that I haven’t noticed how old she looks? My legs are shaking. I reach for her, but I can’t get the right words out and suddenly I’m afraid of making it worse, of saying something unforgivable. Maybe I already have.
“Ellis?” She’s near tears again. “Are you okay?”
No, Mom, I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay for a long time, maybe ever. I was born with a prison in my heart, but you made a prison of my life. Or maybe I made it, because you built the iron bars, but I was the one who stepped inside and handed you the key.
“Of course I’m okay,” I reassure her. My eyelashes are wet. I’m not supposed to be crying. “Go upstairs. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She does it. Gentle, obedient, leaning heavily on the railing as she hoists herself up, stair by stair. I scrub my eyes with my fists until the tears are erased.
There’s something rotting me from the inside. Maybe that’s all I am, really, the rot, and the rest of me is just my mom’s imagination.
It doesn’t matter. I still have to take care of her, which means I have to stop feeling sorry for myself and start figuring out how I’m going to make it to northern Nevada now that she’s busted my car. I’ll go for a walk, get my head together.
Our neighborhood is a suburban facade starting to show its cracks. Sprawling apartment buildings and beat-up single-family homes with trucks in the driveways. Patchy grass. No neighborhood watch signs. I get two blocks, then perch on the edge of someone’s cinder block planter and call the first mechanic that pops up when I search.
“Sure,” he says. “Six hundred bucks.”
“Okay.” Like I have that kind of money on hand. “Can you have it done by tomorrow?”
His laugh is a hoarse bark. Then he realizes I’m serious. “Sorry, ma’am, but it’ll take a few days to get the replacement windshield in. You’ll have to call around and find some place that already has one.”
I thank him and hang up. The sun’s making my shoulders itch. I call three more places, and they all quote me about the same price and the same timeline.
I can’t wait for a replacement windshield. Brian’s expecting me, and there isn’t enough blood left in the freezer for me to reschedule.
I try rental car places next. But it’s spring break and tourists are coming and going with advance reservations, and no one seems quite sure they’ll have a car for me that’s not a monster truck like Uncle Bill’s and as expensive to rent for a few days as my windshield will be to replace. Like I can cover the expense of both. Like I can even cover the expense of one, really, on top of bills and food and my mom’s medications.
But what other choice do I have? I tell the rental car place I’ll be there in an hour, and I call the mechanic to say I’ll drop the car off as soon as I can.
“Stay safe,” the mechanic says. “If you have AAA, you know, you can get a free tow.”
That gives me an idea. Uncle Bill’s truck. I dial 311. When I wipe my free hand on the edge of my shorts, the skin of my thigh goes white and chalky where I press it.
