I GIVE MY MOM A FEW MINUTES TO SOAK IN PEACE, then rinse her hair out and leave the showerhead dangling impotently over the side of the tub. There’s nothing remarkable about the way the soapy water ebbs around her sagging frame, or the shaky way she climbs out. How could I hate someone so feeble? How could I blame her for everything she’s done?
Then I remember the scent of Joanne’s blood, like congealed oatmeal and plastic flowers and fingers stained green from latching and unlatching the door chain.
My mom shuffles to her bedroom and begins pulling on her pajamas.
“I started packing for you,” I explain, gesturing at the suitcase splayed open on the floor like a pinned butterfly. Her favorite sandals nestle against rolled-up sweaters, wispy blouses, the entire contents of her underwear drawer. “What else do you want to bring?”
She turns her back on it all. Tugs at the pink-and-cream florals of her sheets.
“I’m tired,” she murmurs as she crawls into bed.
“No, Mom, we have to go.”
Her hair splays across the pillowcase. “You’re so dramatic.”
“No, I’m not, can we please—” I swallow the rest of what I want to say. There’s no time for bargaining, even less for an argument. “You can nap while I finish packing and get the car. I’ll wake you up as soon as I’m done, and then we’re leaving. Okay?”
She sinks into the floral embrace of her silky pillows and ignores me. Is this what it’s going to be like, for the rest of time?
As I turn to go, my mom stirs. “Ellis, baby.”
“Yeah?”
Her voice sounds like melted Jolly Ranchers, strange-sweet and syrupy. “Remember that time when you left your math homework behind at that gas station? Where was that?”
“Grand Junction,” I mutter. “And it was a rest stop.”
Her laugh flutters like wind chimes, and she pushes a damp chunk of hair back from her forehead. “Yeah. And we drove three extra hours back through the mountains to get it, remember?”
I remember, Mom. And I remember every goddamn time you’ve reminded me of it.
I already know what comes next. Except it doesn’t. Instead, she sighs, “The desert was so beautiful that day.”
My stomach clenches. I forgot that part. The sky so blue and cloudless it was like a child’s drawing, the orange-red mesas slipping by, crowned with towering rocks like winking monuments that whispered,Everything changes, if you just wait long enough. Scrubby trees the color of burnt coffee and tumbleweeds like hungry bundles of razor wire and the endlessness that took my breath away, that made me feel blissfully inconsequential, like I could do anything and the world would let me.
That was the first time I fell in love with the desert. In the tug-of-war my mom’s disease set us on, I’d forgotten all about the wonder of it.
“It was, Mom,” I say, my throat thick. “It really was.”
Her eyes flutter closed, and her breathing slips into a soft, even rhythm.
When I was a kid, the nights I couldn’t sleep I’d shuffle my way to my mom’s bed, a glass of orange juice or a slice of buttered toast in hand as an offering, and she’d mumble awake and let me curl up on top of the duvet like a cat. I’d wake there in the morning with a discarded plate or a dusting of crumbs next to my head and study my mom as she slept: the careful way her cuticles were pushed back to make way for her nail polish, the silk daintiness of her pillows and the way sleep made her breath ragged and rhythmic. In those moments, perfection felt just out of reach. Another minute, and I’d know who I was supposed to be. Always, just before I found out, her alarm would blare or she’d roll over and snort awake. Maybe next time, I’d tell myself. I just have to keep trying.
If I nestled on top of the covers with her now, would it feel the same? Would I finally catch that thing that will remake me the way my mom wants?
A vibration in my pocket. I pull out my phone, and Veer’s name sears my vision.
For a second, I consider declining her call. Let it go back to me and my mom, like old times. Except if I lie down, I might fall asleep, and I have to be the adult here. I have to get us ready to run.
When I press the phone to my ear, I find my throat’s dried up and I can’t bring myself to speak. There’s a long, heavy pause before Veer says, “Ellis?”
“Yeah.” The word scratches my throat on the way out.
“I thought I should call. Um, how are you holding up?”
The fuzziness of the connection can’t hide the exhaustion in her voice.
“My mom’s asleep.”
