Mothered (38)

In a flash of paranoia, she took an inventory of her symptoms . . . But on second thought, her ailment couldn’t have come from Miguel because she’d seen him just hours before the headache and lethargy started. The incubation period was longer than that.

She trudged downstairs, cursed as too much milk sloshed into her bowl of cereal, and went outside to sit on the porch step and mope. While she ate, she brought up the grocery store app on her phone and started piling things into her virtual cart. The first delivery time she could get was early the next afternoon.

The street felt oddly deserted. She surveyed the motley group of shoulder-to-shoulder houses, contemplating what they revealed about the people within. The overstuffed flower box drooping from a window. The pastel Easter pendant, as resilient as a fake Christmas tree. Black-and-gold banners for one, or all, of the local sports teams. Political yard signs. A tiny overturned pink-and-purple bicycle in the middle of a lawn. Farther up the street, someone had half-assed a wheelchair ramp out of mismatched pieces of old plywood. It immediately reminded her of Hope.

There were more parked cars than cars on the road. Other people were staying home, too, she supposed. Some had probably lost their jobs. Grace hadn’t experienced the neighborhood prior to the country shutting down. Had it been a happier place then? It was some comfort to recognize that everyone was in the same boat. Even as she saw the boat taking on water. It wasn’t like the movies, where the world ended quickly in a maelstrom of explosions and special effects. This apocalypse was going to linger, tease them along with its slow-motion crises. Already she’d let boredom make her less vigilant. Did she have it in her to self-isolate better this time?

Grace snorted, laughing at herself, imagining her house filling up with a menagerie of deliveries as she and her mom made impulsive purchases, forever in search of the thing that would make them feel less empty.





24


“Did you get all of them? From upstairs too?” Mommy asked, as snappish as she’d been all evening.

“Yes.” The laundry basket was heavy, full of towels that smelled like piss and puke. Grace headed for the basement.

“Are you blind as a bat?” Grace turned toward her mother’s bitter voice. Watched her snatch a handful of dish towels off the kitchen counter and jam them into the laundry basket. “Hot water. Heavy duty.”

“I know,” Grace said, trying not to sound petulant.

“You know but you don’t pay attention.”

Grace descended the basement stairs, the gloom and spiders a reprieve from her mother’s bad mood. She considered how much better it would be if she were a bat, able to fly and see the world through the pings and vibrations bouncing off her ears. She’d learned about sonar in school—SOund NAvigation and Ranging—and how it was first invented to detect icebergs. She and Hope had once watched a really good movie about a submarine that was trying to hide, while above it a ship lobbed bullets of sound through the deep water. The movie was so tense that she’d watched it while clutching her knees to her chest, her elbows to her ribs, amazed that a simple sound could pose such a threat. When it was over, her muscles ached and she understood for a moment what it was like to be her sister.

Before she’d even stuffed all the stinky towels into the washer, she heard her mother impatiently calling for her. Grace wasn’t sure what to do: she couldn’t abandon the load before starting the washer, but if she didn’t reply, that would make Mommy mad too.

Mommy called again just as Grace let the lid fall shut. She leaped across a puddle on the basement’s concrete floor and dashed up the steps two by two.

“Gray!” It was the third summons. Three strikes, you’re out. The curtain to Hope’s bedroom was tied back for easy access, and Grace skidded to a halt at the entryway, breathing hard. Mommy gave her a look. A look like a bad word that she couldn’t be bothered to utter. She handed Grace a plastic cup with a straw in one hand, a wet washcloth in the other. “Cold water.”

Hope had a fever. She’d choked while eating her supper and thrown up everywhere. Before heading to the kitchen Grace made a funny face at Hope, who grinned a reply. Grace knew she was lucky that she never got sick. In TV shows the TV mommies sat by their sick children and spoke sweet words or sang little songs while stroking their hair. When Hope was sick Mommy turned into a wolf and Grace felt like Little Red Riding Hood, about to be gobbled up; Hope probably didn’t like it much either.



With the volume barely audible, Grace watched a sitcom as she folded socks, underpants, short-sleeve shirts. She hadn’t finished her homework, but Mommy wasn’t going to tell her to do it, and Grace had better things to do. The mommy-cat chair gave her a hug, and the truth was she liked folding laundry. It was warm and always smiled nice.

Mommy shuffled into the room and collapsed on the couch, eyes on the television. “Put those away when you’re done?” Grace nodded. “And finish the towels?” Grace nodded again.

The show was ending and Mommy flipped to a different channel and raised the volume a bit. “Your sister’s resting now. I think she’ll be okay.”

Grace had been through this enough times to decipher Mommy’s code. I think she’ll be okay was short for I probably won’t have to take Hope to the doctor. Taking Hope to the doctor was expensive. And usually they just ran a bunch of pointless, overpriced tests. Going to the doctor was for emergencies, not a routine fever, flu, or cold. Grace had only been to a doctor when her school required it. She’d get a shot and a sticker and sit very still while someone listened to her heart.