Mothered (65)

“What are you doing?”

Banana peels. Melon rinds. The sticky innards of a cantaloupe.

“So you already took the garbage outside.” Grace strode for the back door, intent on going out to inspect the trash can. But she stopped. There was a grocery bag by the door. By all appearances—and rank smells—it was the bag with the kitty-litter scoopings from the day before yesterday.

“It’s not my job to clean up after you,” Jackie said, watching Grace wrinkle her nose at the trash. “Even if it is stinking up my—our—kitchen.”

Grace tried, tried, tried to remember more of the previous day. She remembered cleaning up the kitchen and taking the garbage outside—Good Girl! And she recollected all the things she’d done with Jackie during the day—rolling out the pasta, seasoning the sauce. It had smelled so savory and delicious while it was in the oven . . . though she couldn’t recall much of the movie.

It bothered her that even with concerted effort she couldn’t remember any of the little things, like taking care of the cat or texting Miguel or performing her bedtime routine. And surely those things had been part of her day. Those were things she did every day. Unless . . .

Her vision went fuzzy and the bones in her legs started to liquify. She grabbed the counter so she wouldn’t collapse.

“Grace!” Jackie hurried to her side, trying to help her stay upright.

“Was it a dream? Was it all a dream?” The headache surged, slamming into the front of her skull. Grace winced. The night had started with weird dreams, about UFOs and finding feet in her shoes. But after that . . . What happened after that? Grace thought she’d awakened and lived out an ordinary, unexpectedly pleasant day. “Was I asleep?”

“Let’s go sit down. Can you walk?”

Jackie gripped her waist, guiding her, as Grace held a hand across her forehead like a visor, pressing her temples. They shuffled into the living room, and Grace dropped onto the couch.

“I don’t understand what’s happening with you,” Jackie said as she sat beside her.

“That makes two of us.” Grace kept her eyes shut.

“Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“Maybe.” She stopped massaging her head and looked at her mother. “It really didn’t happen? None of it? The pancakes? The lasagna? The movie?”

“I’m sorry, Grace.” She sounded wounded, full of remorse. “Is that what put you in such a good mood? The dream?”

Grace nodded. “We cooked together. And apologized about—yesterday. We had a nice time. It felt so real. It was a whole day!”

“Hon, you’re not well. And I’m sorry if I contributed to your stresses, I know there’s a lot going on. And I know you’d be so much happier if you were at the salon every day, and if Miguel was fine, and if you could do all the things you were used to. But you need to take care of yourself.”

Tears spilled down Grace’s cheeks as she nodded. Her voice squeaked as she tried not to sob. “I just want to feel normal again.”

“I know, honey.” Jackie took her hand, urging Grace to her feet. “Come on, let’s see if you can get some real rest. Catch up on some sleep.”

Grace remembered this side-by-side walk up the stairs, only last time she was helping her mother, not the other way around. “I wish we’d had that nice day together. Mom, it was so nice.”

“We will, we’ll have another chance.”





40


Jackie led her to the bed, but sleep was the last thing Grace wanted. More likely what she needed to do was never fall asleep again and see if reality sorted itself out while she kept a watchful eye on it. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that her mother was involved with this somehow, the Widow Sandwoman with her bag of toxic dust.

“I don’t need more sleep.” But Grace sat on her bed, leaned against her headboard. “Maybe just a lot of coffee.”

“Coffee won’t fix anything, but I’ll bring it up. Do you want something to eat? Some fruit?”

Was Grace really sure that her mother wasn’t poisoning her in some subtle, devious way?

“Do we have any oatmeal?”

“I’m not sure—I’ll see.”

While her mother was downstairs, Grace texted Miguel:

How you doing?

She didn’t think he was going to reply, but two minutes later she got a response:

Ok. No-go new. Tires.

Grace assumed this was autocorrect’s attempt at “nothing new” and understood he was tired. Nothing about the butchered words on her screen made her happy. She saw two Miguels in her mind: gregarious and colorful, with a beaming smile and a quick comeback; listless and pale, the cell phone slipping from his hand onto the hospital sheets. He might have already fallen back to sleep, but Grace sent him one of the pics she’d taken of Coco and a string of rainbow-heart emoji.

Jackie returned with Grace’s travel mug of coffee and a plate of toast.

“No oatmeal, sorry. I’ll put it on the shopping list. I made you some peanut butter toast with sliced bananas.”

“Thank you.” The good dream flickered in her mind, Jackie’s capacity for kindness.

Grace pictured herself as a child with a cup of hot cocoa and peanut butter–banana toast—though she was pretty sure she’d prepared them herself. The memory became sharper, and she saw an ugly, rainy weekend when she and Hope were around ten. Grace had made them the yummy snack, which she had to help her sister eat, and they’d watched a science fiction movie on TV.