Mothered (81)

Lost in her strange but contented reverie, she was startled when her mother opened the screen door and stepped outside. Jackie, too, was in her nightdress, barefoot.

“Feeling better?” Grace asked hopefully, moving Take Mom to a hotel to the top of her to-do list.

“Mm-hmm.”

Jackie’s face was expressionless, her eyes unblinking. She made her way down the short flight of steps to the grass and then headed across the yard in a way that appeared both purposeful and aimless. Was she sleepwalking?

“Where are you going?”

Her mother didn’t answer. She traipsed diagonally to the far corner of the yard, where the neighbor’s hydrangea bush sprawled over the low rickety fence that marked the boundary between their properties. Grace watched her, uncertain of Jackie’s intentions. The bush was heavy with blue-petaled flowers—why hadn’t Grace noticed before how pretty they were? Now she thought her mother might have a good idea: the blossoms were so voluminous that they’d only have to cut three to make a beautiful bouquet.

Grace stood, debating if she should get a pair of scissors to cut the stems—or did Jackie plan on simply breaking them off?

“Mom?” The zombielike quality of her mother’s locomotion didn’t seem normal. Should Grace make more of an effort to “wake” her?

The hydrangea bush looked more immense with Jackie beside it for scale. In her perpetually addled state, Grace envisioned her mother walking into the bush, being engulfed by it—swallowed—and disappearing. What happened next was almost worse.

Jackie stepped into the plant’s embrace and started eating the flowers. She ate as a horse would eat, or a giraffe, her mouth eager to graze.

Grace leaped off the steps and ran across the grass. “Mom!”

Without Miguel, Grace might’ve been unaware of the danger, but she assumed that if hydrangeas were poisonous to cats, they were also toxic to people.

“You can’t eat that! Stop it!” She grabbed her mother, yanking her away from the plant.

Jackie pushed back with surprising strength, nearly sending Grace toppling backward.

—she fell softly, gliding on her back toward her huddled tormentors—

For an instant she saw nothing but sky, as if she were lying on the ground.

She gripped her mother’s arm and forcibly pulled her. “You’re gonna get sick!”

It was almost funny—wasn’t her mother already sick? She wrangled Jackie toward the house.

“Get off me you dumb bitch! I’m hungry!” Soggy petals and saliva flew from her mouth.

“I’ll get you something to eat.” Grace didn’t have time to talk sense into her—were the neighbors watching the freak show? She hauled her fuming, snarling, delirious mother up the stairs.

Through the door, into the kitchen, over to the sink. Grace turned on the water and tried to force her mother’s head under it.

“Spit it out!” She sloshed handfuls of water in the general direction of her mother’s mouth, until finally Jackie spit out the toxic mash.

A tad more alert, Jackie swished the water around, like she’d just finished brushing her teeth. The crisis over, Grace shut off the faucet, breathing hard, glaring at her mother. Jackie glared right back, her face a wet mess.

“You’re a piece of shit. Can’t even keep the fucking lights on! Too lazy to pay your own bills!”

“Fuck you, Mom, it’s a power outage.” Grace didn’t bother getting angry; clearly Jackie was all kinds of unwell. So much for taking her to a hotel today. “Do you want to go back to bed? I’ll bring you a snack and something to drink?”

Jackie’s face was a storm of discontent, but she hobbled along when Grace led her—more gently now—back to her room. The house’s supply of cool air was dwindling, and it was even stuffier upstairs, so Grace opened a window. Her mother sat with her back against the headboard, legs extended on the bed, arms crossed.

“I’m not gonna lie down,” said Jackie. “So you can’t smother me.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Grace accepted her mother’s deteriorating condition as only a person who subsisted on nightmares could. Back in the kitchen, she filled her mother’s usual shake container with water and deliberated on what to take her to eat. She stared at the fridge, which held most of her mother’s precious fruit. Nope. Grace wasn’t willing to risk all the new groceries; they’d probably be okay in there for another twelve hours or so. The bananas weren’t fully ripe, but they were accessible; she grabbed two from the counter.

Jackie was just as she’d left her, arms crossed, scowling, sitting up in bed. Grace handed her a banana and set the other one on the nightstand, with the water. It was almost comical how pissed off her mother looked, like an elderly toddler determined to win a fight. She yanked down the greenish skin and stuffed the banana in her mouth—still shooting daggers at Grace.

“Guess I’ll leave you to your tantrum. Call if you need anything.” She was at the head of the stairs before her mother hissed at her.

“How can you be so glib? You act so innocent, like nothing happened.” She spoke with such vitriol, such condemnation. Grace was more accustomed to the accusations by now, but the tone of her mother’s voice sent her nerves aquiver with a prickling of contempt.