Mothered (53)

“Were you hit?” Mommy asked.

“Mommy—I can’t see,” Grace said. “What’s wrong with me?”

“No, I just kept score,” said Hope.

Couldn’t Mommy tell that Hope was fine—and she was not? Grace tentatively felt for the ramp with her toe and took halting steps to make her way onto the porch.

The door opened. Hope drove her power chair inside.

“Mommy?” Grace cried.

The screen door slammed shut as they both went in without her.



Grace threw her arm over her eyes and groaned. Why did her dreams feel more intense than real life? Why could she feel everything like it was really happening? She kept her arm protectively across her face, stupidly wondering if the girl had lost her eye. Not real, a dream. Right. Right, their games had never been quite that brutal. Well, maybe they were—but no one had ever gotten so seriously injured.

She sighed, remembering she wouldn’t be able to talk about this one with Miguel, at least not anytime soon. Was he sleeping well? Feeling any better? Were they giving him the fancy cocktail of drugs?

She sensed darkness around her, beyond her closed eyes and the sweaty crook of her elbow. Morning was a long way off. She got out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom for a pee. Her feet knew the way, but it seemed darker than usual. No ambient light drifted through the windows; none of the usual digital devices emitted their red or green LED signals, miniature beacons in the blackness.

When she reached the bathroom and flipped on the overhead light, it didn’t come on. Then she grasped the problem: the electricity was out. That explained it.

Except the electricity wasn’t out—a fan was whirring behind her mother’s closed door . . . and Grace’s air conditioner was still running. So why couldn’t she see?

Sounds drifted up from downstairs. A thumping. A swooshing. A body being dragged across the floor? No, not that heavy.

“Mom?” she called down.

More sounds. Fast running. Her mother couldn’t run that fast. Another thump. What was going on?

Why can’t I see?

“Gray?”

She shrieked and jumped at the voice, not expecting it to be so close. Her mother was nearby; her bedroom fan was louder now that the door was open.

“What’s that cat doing down there?” Jackie asked.

Grace almost laughed at herself. She’d forgotten they had a furry houseguest. It was probably Crazy Cat Hour—the time in the middle of the night when cats freak out and run around. “Mom, I can’t see.”

If Jackie reacted, it wasn’t audible.

“Mom?”

“What do you mean? The bathroom light’s on.”

“I mean I can’t see . . . I’m blind.”

“Can you see me?” Maybe Jackie waved a hand in front of her face.

“No—I can’t see anything.” She recalled the dream. Her pulse sped up, a frenzied drumroll. Her brain would burst like the crash of a cymbal. A body couldn’t go on in such a state, but Grace was accelerating toward hysteria. “Mom, it’s come true! I had a dream I was blind and it’s come true!”

“Oh Grace, don’t be ridiculous.” Jackie sounded bored.

“I’m not . . . !” She blinked in fast succession, verifying the opening and closing of her lids. “There’s nothing . . . I can’t see a thing.”

Jackie yawned. “That’s because you refuse. I thought you’d buried it—I had some sympathy for that. But now I know you’re just a liar. A liar living a lie.”

Her mother’s bedroom door closed, muffling the hum of the fan.

“Mom . . . ?” Why was her mother being so mean? So indifferent? Just like the dream.

An animal wailed at Grace’s feet. She yelped, startled. It’s just the cat. But the hysteria erupted. Her screams flew out in colors—red, purple, billowing ribbons of madness. With her eyes clamped tight she saw the cosmos, exploding stars, and still her howls painted the hallway. Her lunacy dripped off the ceiling, staining her hair.





33


Grace sat at the edge of her mattress, feet on the floor, head in her hands. She massaged her scalp. Pressed the sore spots around her eye sockets. The dreams had gone on forever. Hours. One nightmare tumbling into another. Every time she thought she’d finally awakened, she found herself in a new round of nocturnal quicksand. In all of them she was either blind or her mother was reminding her that she was a liar. She was only sure she was awake now because nothing was happening. She’d been sitting there for fifteen minutes. At least the nausea was finally gone.

She had to go downstairs and feed the cat, but she dreaded crossing paths with her mother. It didn’t matter that Jackie had only been awful to her in her sleep; Grace was pissed at her anyway. Jackie had no right to treat her like an abomination, like she was defective, just because of the catfishing. Sure, it wasn’t the most noble of avocations, even though Grace sincerely tried to create personas who were better than she was. And there were worse crimes. Probably everyone hid a secret or two; it was Grace’s misfortune that her nebshit mother had overheard her. She imagined her mother with her ear pressed to Grace’s bedroom door—and then tiptoeing away.

More and more she had the sense that Jackie was sneaky: incapacitated when it suited her, nimble and sly when no one was looking.