Mothered (83)

The longer she sat there the faster the snakes went, filling her, until the force of them propelled her to her feet. She jogged upstairs to put on some clothes.

Her mother was awake, apparently lying in wait. “Did ja figure it out yet Grace? Did ja figure it out?”

Jackie, pinned against her headboard, looked like a mannequin that had come to life but couldn’t move. Grace ignored her. Went to her room and threw on a comfy T-shirt and a pair of shorts. She had to get out of the house, and though she didn’t plan to go far—the backyard—she wanted to look more presentable than she and her mother had looked that morning. In case anyone was watching. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were all cooped up in their own homes with their own batshit relatives.

She darted into the bathroom to give her hair a quick brush. Coco was in the bathtub, trying to stay cool. Grace turned the water on enough for a constant dribble and watched as the cat held her paw under the drip and then licked it.

“That’s very ladylike of you.”

“Who are you talking to?” Jackie screeched. “You’re not supposed to have people over while we’re sick—you might be contagious!”

“Just the cat.”

“Cat. Fat cat. Cat with a rat. Hickory dickory fuck, the mouse ran out of luck. The clock struck two, the mouse got the flu, hickory dickory fuck.”

“I don’t think those are the words, Mom.” Grace detoured into Jackie’s room and tried to put her hand on her mother’s forehead to see if she had a fever; Jackie batted it away. “Can I get you anything?”

“There’s nothing to get, is there?”

“Not really.”

“Then no. It’s so easy to make offers when there’s nothing to give.”

“Okay . . .” Her mother wasn’t well, but she also didn’t seem to want Grace’s help.

Feeling light and surprisingly graceful, Grace bounded to her bedroom to grab a notebook. She couldn’t waste the last of her phone’s battery, so she’d have to jot things down the old-fashioned way. And when the electricity came back, she’d be prepared. In the meanwhile, she would draft confessions to every one of her damsels.

Her mother continued experimenting with her nursery rhyme. “Hickory dickory fuck, the mouse ran out of luck. The clock struck four, the mouse tried to roar . . .”

Grace galloped down the steps and out the front door. She strode around the house to the backyard, which felt safer, more private, than the front porch. Notebook in hand, she wrote as she paced. It was possible—probable even—that she looked like a manic person who was off her meds, but she didn’t care. For once, she knew exactly what she needed to do.





53


The hard part was figuring out the general template. She wanted to sincerely confess, but she also hoped to convey to each damsel that she genuinely cared about them. It wasn’t hard, in the anonymity of her backyard, to write “I’m sorry” in her notebook. They would be angry, hurt, confused . . . but could they accept her apology? Could they see that Grace had been well meaning? Or perhaps it didn’t count as an apology if it became more about Grace’s motivations than her damsels’ sense of betrayal.

Don’t overexplain. LuckyJamison or River would give that sort of advice. Wow. It struck her for the first time how fucked up it was that her inner voices had names. Grace flipped to a new page and tried a shorter version of the template.

It felt good to write it out. It felt good to write it over and over again. The repetition made it real. These women trusted you. You’re just another internet troll. A more-than-teensy part of her hoped some of them would still want to be friends.

A jubilant shout broke her concentration. Then she heard more whooping and clapping.

An air conditioner in her neighbor’s window roared to life. The power was back! Grace threw her arms up in celebration and raced inside. She plugged her phone in to recharge. It was almost three o’clock. She plugged her laptop in. She turned on everything that had automatically shut off—including the fan in her mother’s room. The router took a few minutes to reboot, and Grace impatiently knelt beside it, watching it cycle through a series of blinks. Finally the dots were all aglow and ready to communicate with the world.

She plopped on the sofa with her phone and typed out a master copy of her confession. That, she decided, was the best way: send them all the same “I’m not who you thought I was” admission. The truth wouldn’t go down any better with individualized adornments—“What I said about your drawing skills was a hundred percent true,” or “I really do want you and your children to be safe and happy.” For now, in their shock, they were only going to hear that Preston, Malcolm, SunSoakedSergei didn’t exist. She had to anticipate that they would reply, perhaps hatefully. And she wouldn’t ghost them. She would accept their anger—and then express something more personal, something positive, even if they didn’t believe her.

Thanks to copy and paste, she was able to send the message to all her damsels in a matter of minutes.



Grace marched back and forth across the living room, triumphant, high on her virtue. She’d come clean. She wasn’t a catfisher anymore. No more dirty little secrets. Someday she’d admit the entire thing to Miguel so she truly wouldn’t have anything to hide. This was the new Grace. She pictured the fetus in its gift-wrapped box opening its mouth and inhaling its first breath. Her new self was alive.