Mirage(46)

The arid desert yields to the mountain pass that rises steeply from the dry desert floor. A green vitality from yesterday’s rain wafts in through the open windows. Soon we’re rocking in that gravity-versus-weightless way you do when going around deep curves and switchbacks on a mountain road.

My brow creases with worry when I look at Gran. Her skin used to resemble a gleaming, oiled river rock. Now it’s the flat color of a river rock left in the sun to dry. I instantly understand why she wanted to come up here when she’s not feeling well. The mountains are alive, teeming with rich, dank life all around us. She wants to absorb it.

“I want to be there already and stick my fat black toes in the mud,” Gran says.

“If we could go as the crow flies, we’d be there already,” my mother answers, curving around another hairpin turn.

“I think it’s funny how many animal sayings we have like that: as the crow flies . . .”

My mother tosses me an approving smile. She looks happy to finally have a light conversation. The meds must be kicking in: I feel blithe, carefree. “To have a bee in your bonnet.”

“Bull in a china shop,” I blurt.

“Monkey’s uncle!” shouts Gran.

“It’s raining cats and dogs!”

“It’s raining men!” We all laugh together.

“Oooh, oooh, I’ve got one . . . I don’t give a rat’s ass,” I add, earning a sideways look from my mother, but her smile is still bright, especially as she hears Gran give a mandatory disapproving cluck while stifling a giggle. “Remember that mangy cat, Sir Charles, that used to come around and leave gross presents at the door like he was bestowing us the greatest of offerings?” I’m laughing with the memory of stepping out too many times in bare feet onto something repulsive, like the tail of a mouse.

No one laughs with me, and even though Gran is blind, they exchange a look.

The skin over my mother’s knuckles stretches a hair thinner as she clutches the wheel. “I . . . I don’t remember that, honey.”

Well, she has to be mistaken, because the memory surfaced clear and vivid, making my toes curl in reflexive disgust. I’m flung out of the joviality of the moment and into the black void of being the girl with the crazy thoughts. I don’t understand. I remember the cat. I remember.

“Baby”?—?my mom pats my leg?—?“we’re gonna come up on the lake after this turn. Describe it to your grandmother. You know she loves that.”

The car swooshes around another bend and the mountain opens up, revealing a shimmering blue jewel in the valley of its hands. “The lake is below us, Gran, at the base of the cliffs we’re driving on. With all the trees it’s”?—?I search for the right description, wanting to paint it in her mind as beautifully as I’m seeing it?—?“it’s like a sapphire hidden in grass.”

Gran sighs and nods contentedly. She sees it now.

“Families are on the shore. Someone’s throwing a stick in the water for a dog to fetch. People are diving off bubbles of gray rocks. Clouds are lazing about, and you can see them reflected in the lake.” The truth is, it reminds me of her cloudy blind eyes, but I’m not sure if I should say that.

The moment I have that thought, the entire lake transforms below us, morphing and darkening into an enormous watchful eye in the mountain, with a deep black hole of a pupil in its center. Shivers prick my neck.

Echoing in my head are these words, a repetitive incantation, louder and louder . . .

This is the hole she crawls out of. This is the hole she crawls out of.

I scream, reach over, and jerk the steering wheel away from the enormous eye.

My mother startles and yanks the steering wheel back, swerving the car into the oncoming traffic. A horn blares loudly right in front of us as we swerve again, but too far, and we fishtail across the lanes back toward the jagged cliff and the enormous eye below. I scream and turn away from the window, not wanting to fall into that black hole where she waits for me.

Metallic screeches ring out as the side of the car swipes the guardrail. Another jerk to the right and we veer off the road on the opposite side, spinning, falling, and bouncing until we’re stopped with a hard and thunderous bang.

All is silent.





Twenty-Five


THE FIRST SOUND that filters in is the chirping of disturbed birds and a hissing sound that might be the radiator. My eyes blink heavily, but my chin feels connected to my chest, where a singular line of blood snakes its way from somewhere down my neck and onto my shirt. It’s hard to lift my head. All my weight is forward, my body strains against the seat belt, and I realize we’re facing downhill; mercifully, a large tree has stopped us from falling farther down the ravine.

Down to the eye.

Next to me, my mother groans. Her head rests on the steering wheel. Much more blood than I see on myself flows from her head, down her face like tears, and over her full lips. Her right forearm and wrist are bent at an odd angle. “Mom?” I’m afraid to touch her.

“Mom,” she repeats. Thank God, she can hear me.

Then I realize . . . she’s heard my voice, she’s found her own, so she’s naturally reaching up the chain, grasping to know if her own mother is okay. I strain to turn around, pulling myself over the top of the seat back. Gran is folded in half, slumped against the door; the window has a spider’s web of cracks in it. I call her name, struggle to reach and touch her, but she is still.