The Break(43)

“I don’t think it works like that,” the nurse says. “But you’d have to ask her doctor.”

We walk the rest of the way in silence, and in the doorway of my mother’s room, the nurse says, “Good luck,” and I can tell by her eyes that she’s smiling behind her mask. She swings open the door for me. “Mrs. Gray,” she says softly to my mother, “you have visitors.” And then she leaves us alone.

“Mom,” I whisper, but she doesn’t turn. She’s sitting very still on the edge of her bed, looking out the window to one of the semidecent views the facility offers for slightly more money: a small pond is visible just beyond the parking lot. Her profile is backlit by the winter sun, and I can make out the sharp features I’ve loved my entire life: the strong forehead sloping down to a tiny nose, high cheekbones, skin stretched but still remarkably unwrinkled by age. Her tiny lips always look pursed these days, like she’s unsure of what exactly she should do about this predicament we’ve found ourselves in. “Mama,” I say, something I haven’t called her since I was a child, but it comes out just like that, like I’m a little girl again and I need her more than anything. I whip off the muslin blanket from Lila and my fist tightens around it until it’s sweaty in my grip. Lila’s perfect head peeks out of her carrier beneath my jacket, and the way I love her—somehow even more in this moment, and in each new moment—is nearly too much to take.

Finally my mom turns. There’s always this instant, a small breath of air before I know whether she’ll be lucid enough to know who I am. I bite back the urge to say, It’s me. Or even: It’s us. Because sometimes that makes it worse.

But then my mom smiles and I see she knows exactly who we are, and the relief that floods me could fill a sea. “Rowan,” she says, the word as magical as birthday candles. Her skinny, veined hands go to the sides of her face. Her knuckles seem more knotted and pronounced each time I come, but none of that matters now, because she says, “Lila,” and the sound of it makes me gasp. I’ve never loved my daughter’s name as much as I do hearing it from my mother’s lips.

“Lila,” I say to both of them, like it’s a melody I’ve waited to play.

My mother just stares, and then I’m zipping off my coat and tossing it onto a chair and going closer, closer and my mother is taking in my baby like she cannot believe any of it is real. The moment feels suspended in time, held in place by golden seams that promise not to bust until we’re ready to leave this place.

But then it’s over. Everything I thought was happening was only my own magical thinking, because my mother looks into the doorway behind me like she’s searching for someone, and she opens her mouth and I can see her about to ask whether or not I’ve brought my father. “Mom,” I say, but I’m too late.

“Where is he?” she asks. Bingo. Every time.

Please don’t leave us now; please don’t ask about Dad.

New tears burn my eyes. “Mom?” I say carefully. I want to take Lila out of her carrier. I want my mother to hold her, to coo over her, to tell me that she’s perfect and that she’s beautiful and so meant to be. I want my moment back.

“Gabe isn’t coming,” I say, trying a different tactic. “Neither is Elena.”

“Gabe?” my mom asks. She only looks a little confused, not totally gone, but sometimes this happens right before a big episode. It’s almost like a gentle slip, and she either snaps back into shape or we lose her entirely.

“You remember it’s just Lila and me today, no Gabe or his mom,” I say, keeping my voice light, trying to breeze over this, trying to come back from it. “I was hoping it could be just us.”

My mother’s blue eyes are on fire. They bore into mine.

“Rowan,” my mother says carefully. She looks like she’s trying to understand something. But then she asks, “Are you all right?” and I think of all the nights after my father died when we buried ourselves under the covers and she held me tightly and asked me the same thing. I think of the books she read to me. I think about how I learned the arc of story from those books, the delicate beginnings, the murky middles, and the dramatic and cathartic endings. Even children’s books follow the rules, and when I write, so do I.

“I’m fine, Mom,” I say, giving it everything I have even though I’ve never been this tired, this scared, or this hopeful. I carefully unfasten the baby carrier and ask my mother, “Do you want to hold your granddaughter?”

The air in the room goes still while I wait for her to answer.





TWENTY


June. Three months ago. August 2nd.


I can barely focus on scripts for the rest of the day, so instead I organize Louisa’s filing cabinets and listen to her taking phone calls in the background. At least a dozen times I think I’m going to tell Louisa about Harrison asking me to go to the reading, but each time I chicken out. At six twenty she gets off a call with an actor who’s upset about his billing on a new TV show, and she says to me, “June, you’re a lifesaver. I’m going to feel so much more organized.”

“But are you sure we shouldn’t scan all of this?” I ask her. “What if this place burns down and you lose all your stuff?”

She waves a hand. “You must think I’m so old-fashioned.”