Mothered (56)

Upon further thought, Grace ruled out the last drawer as a viable spot for the key on the grounds that if she couldn’t easily reach underneath it, then her mother couldn’t either.

Where to look next . . .

The cat snapped her head forward, alert.

A second later, the front door opened. Grace acted on instinct: she snatched the little wooden box and her bucket of cleaning products and slipped across the hall to her room. Her mother, as it happened, wasn’t on her way upstairs, so Grace crept out to spray more Febreze—toward the bathroom, toward the stairs—so the scent of it in Jackie’s room wouldn’t seem odd. Softly, she pulled her mother’s door closed and retreated to her own room.



Grace sat on the porch step, a plate of salad on her lap.

“It’s a lovely evening to eat outside,” Jackie said from the camp chair, eating from a bowl.

“Mm-hmm.” Grace had too much on her mind to engage in conversation, though her mother wasn’t wrong.

Miguel had texted, confirming he was on the infectious floor, not intensive care, but otherwise was too exhausted to chat. He sent her the phone number for the nurse’s station so she could find out what was going on. When Grace called the nurse had gushed about how nice Miguel was, “such a friendly soul,” but was less effusive with actual facts. All Grace knew was that he was stable and on oxygen—not intubated, which was her greatest fear, but via a face mask. When Grace had asked about a prognosis, the nurse said the doctor would try to call her tomorrow and maybe he would know more.

Most of Grace’s questions had been answered with a faux-cheery “He’s stable.” The nurse hadn’t said any of the things Grace really wanted to hear, reassurances like “He’s young and healthy—he’ll have no problem beating this” or “His pulse ox is going up every hour.”

Grace didn’t like uncertainty, and somehow it had become the ruling force in her life. She picked the vegetables out of her salad until there was nothing left but lettuce. Stable was better than declining. But Grace didn’t think it a good sign that Miguel was thirty-four and on oxygen.

After they were done eating, Jackie said it was getting too dark for her to see. Grace helped her inside and then washed their dirty dishes. She didn’t think it was her imagination that her mother was preoccupied too. While their mostly silent supper hadn’t been uncomfortable, Grace sensed a heaviness. She didn’t really put a lot of effort into wondering what was on her mother’s mind, consumed as she was by her own issues. But she was startled out of her rumination when Jackie yelled from the living room.

“Stop it! Get away from there!”

Grace ran in to see what was going on. Coco slunk past her, retreating in fear.

“Were you yelling at the cat?”

“She was scratching the sofa,” said Jackie, eating a dessert of popcorn as she watched TV.

“I don’t care about the sofa—please don’t yell at the cat.”

“If you say so. But she’ll rip it to shreds.”

“But yelling at her won’t help. All you’ll do is scare her. Cats don’t connect words with actions.”

“Cats are dumb.”

“Cats don’t speak English.”

“Okay. It’s your sofa. Just trying to help.”

Grace doubted that her mother was trying to help. Jackie and Coco seemed mutually disapproving of each other, and Jackie’s mercurial moods left Grace with infinitely more sympathy for the cat. It wasn’t rational, but she felt superstitious about taking care of Coco, as if it were a test: If Coco did well in her care, Miguel would fully recover. If she did less than well, then Miguel might die. Coco was already flustered enough without Jackie adding to her stress.

As had become her strategy for defusing things with her mother, Grace headed for her room.

“Still working on that résumé?”

The snide question made Grace stop on the third step. It sounded almost (exactly) like Jackie was doubting her—doubting Grace’s excuse for spending much of the day upstairs. In fact, Grace was returning to her room to try picking the lock on the little box (bobby pins might work), but her mother couldn’t possibly know that.

“Looking for a job, yes.”

“Good luck with that.”

Was she really that surprised that her mother was such a master of casual scorn and sarcasm? Instead of asking Jackie why she was being such a bitch, Grace left, taking the remaining stairs two at a time. Fuck her.

God, how she hoped something truly scandalous was in that box. A stash of heroin. Some sort of priceless gem—stolen!—that Jackie could never have afforded. An outrageous receipt, an incriminating clue, a naked photo. Grace would stop feeling remorse for burglarizing her mother’s room if she had something to thrust in Jackie’s face. Knock her mother off her high horse. Force her to acknowledge that they weren’t so different after all.





35


Grace lounged on her bed, listening to Spotify as she fiddled with the bobby pins. The evening was lusciously cool and she didn’t need the air conditioner. Her other window was open, letting in the verdant aroma of things in bloom. It all felt so decadent and luxurious, lolling around in her perfumed room, accompanied by the sad, dulcet tones of Billie Eilish, girl genius, as she tried to pick open her mother’s treasure box.