27
VEER’S CAR DOESN’T START. MINE’S SOMEWHERE UP THEroad. Both of our phones are ruined, so there’s no calling a mechanic.
We perch together in the back seat of her Camry and split a pack of wet wipes. The damp squares smell like antiseptic and sting like it too, cutting slashes through the dirt and sweat and fluids we’re both caked in. We stack the used wipes on the center console like offerings on an altar. I manage to wipe away the worst of the gore, but there’s still dried blood tugging at the edge of my scalp, slicking under my nails and all the other hard-to-scrub places.
I don’t want to talk about my mom. Veer seems to know and doesn’t ask.
The memory of her fangs still snaps at the back of my neck. Her clouded eyes, her undimmed viciousness. I was so caught up in my last duty, my promise of absolution. I was so certain I needed to earn her forgiveness. What if, instead, I was the one who needed to forgive her?
What if I still can? What if, too, I can still forgive myself?
We hike back in the growing glow of morning until we find my car. The sun catches on the spiderweb cracks in the windshield. The ghost of the last true thing I said to my mom—This is why I hate youandI’ll never be good enough for youandYou need me more than I need you—pricks my mouth. No, wait. That wasn’t it. I remember the slip of her hair under my fingers, the softness of her silk pillowcase. Her murmur ofThe desert was so beautiful that day.
It was, Mom. It was.
I look up at where the mountains grin with centuries-honed teeth, opening their arms to the dawn. It still is.
Veer drives with the windows rolled down. The wind whips my face so furiously I close my eyes. My wounds knit themselves closed in the passenger seat, my chest creaking each time my lungs expand. The wind shifts to kiss the back of my neck as we turn into the driveway of an off-white bungalow, past a thicket of long-withered rosebushes, and roll to a stop in front of Veer’s garage apartment.
“Come in,” she says. “I’ll order pizza.”
Her place isn’t much, a mattress on milk crates, folding chairs around a plastic table. Someone—lots of someones—have drawn all over the table in black and red. Hearts and stars andso-and-so was here. A squiggle of a gun with a red flag sticking out of the barrel reading,BANG!Mickey Mouse with drooping red eyes and bloodstained teeth. I look at it, at all the signs of adventure and vitality and an attempt at life, at being someone who doesn’t ever hide, and I’m gripped by a sudden feeling of lack.
Veer kicks a cardboard box, and it skids into a corner. “It’s not much. Sorry.”
“It’s nice.” My voice cracks like I haven’t spoken in years.
“When my, uh. I know it’s not the same thing. But it helps to talk sometimes. Even just to say the dark stuff out loud. And I mean, even if you don’t want to, if there’s anything else…”
I think of the maroon paint in the motel, and the relief of saying all the things I was afraid would make me treacherous. Something hums, just for a second, in the dark wetness of my chest cavity. Then it’s gone, and I’m back to pretending that I don’t feel scooped out and replaced, and that I’m not terrified that I’m worse now, somehow.
“Not right now.”
In the shower, I watch the water fade from murky reddish to clear and feel like I’m losing something. When I emerge, Veer has unpacked the car. My mom’s suitcase is lying there next to my bag, and I can’t look at it without wanting to sob. It’s all real. It’s real, and I have to live with it, and worst of all, I have to make sense of it.
When the pizza comes, I find I can’t put it into my mouth without gagging. Instead, I eat saltines from the back of the cupboard. Veer leaves to get a rental car, pick up some groceries and extra towels and new phones, those pay-as-you-go ones that are cheap from the supermarket, and I unzip my duffel bag and find the knife that was meant for my mom and then I’m sobbing again, and that’s what the saltines were for, to replace all the salt I’m crying out, enough for an ocean, enough to drown in.
I keep waiting for Veer to come back and find me like this, stretched out pathetic on her floor, but she doesn’t. Then out of nowhere I’m not crying anymore. Because I don’t have any tears left, maybe, but something else too. Maybe this is what Veer tried to tell me. That if I had a choice, it wouldn’t have happened how it did, but now that it’s done, there’s more space for me as I am. Not the daughter my mom wanted. Not the caretaker I twisted myself into.
My animal presses its nose to my ribs, and its liquid eyes say, You’re right. The future is a highway through the desert, and I can take it anywhere I want to go.
I boot up my laptop. My inbox is choked with bill-pay alerts, marketing newsletters. And a new thread from an email group calledmap-western-us. The name is a little familiar, but I don’t remember subscribing to it. Then I open it, and I do.
Interesting visitor this morning, reads the first one, from sender Brian NV.Bill K’s grown-up niece. If you have anything to say to her, she’s here.
Uncle Bill had an email from this group, one that didn’t load. It was such an innocuous name, and such an old message, that I didn’t even wonder what it was. This must be why Brian wanted my email address.
There are replies too. One from Anita Santa Fe:Welcome, if you’re ever in New Mexico, please reach out. We live on a beautiful ranch with horses. There is a hospice just down the road. Another from Carlos SLC:did bill say it was ok to add her bro thats effed up if not. Over that, from Bill T Boise:You hit reply all again man.
I stare at the phone as the messages blink from “unread” to “read,” one by one. All those veiled hints about living life, about leaving my mom—why didn’t Uncle Bill tell me he was in touch with all these others like us? Sixteen years, two-thirds of them adult ones, and he never once thought to? Never thought I’d want to know? Was he scared we’d find someone else to supply our blood, and leave him?
That doesn’t sound like Uncle Bill, though. That sounds like my mom.
I remember Brian’s cleared throat, the awkwardness after he said he’d found Uncle Bill through the map. That’s what this is, must be.Right. Your mom is Bill’s crazy sister. And I decide that I don’t want to know.
My mom is gone. It doesn’t matter.
When Veer gets back, she fiddles with her phone for a second—it’s so new it’s still missing a case—then thrusts the screen toward me.
