Just Like Home(4)

“It’s nice,” Vera said automatically. “It seems nice, I mean.” She couldn’t tell if this was a real conversation or if her mother was just making noise to drive her out of the room.

“That young man brought it in and put it all together for me. I bought a new mattress for your bed, too. I gave him the old one. It seemed like the right thing to do. No sense wasting it, and I’m sure he’ll find it inspiring.”

Vera knew she was expected to be thankful for the new mattress. The old one probably had moths in it anyway. But she couldn’t make herself form words, not over the horror of knowing that that young man had been breathing in the smell of her sleep-sweat and skin.

Then again, who could be certain that he was the first? For all Vera knew, Daphne charged all her tenants a little extra for a chance to sleep in her husband’s daughter’s old bed.

Inspiring, indeed.

“Do you want me to put the table closer?” Vera asked, sidestepping the question of gratitude entirely. Her mother nodded, so Vera tugged on the little table until the wheeled base disappeared under the bed and the flat top slid across the quilt that covered her mother to the waist. The whole thing fit flush around the contour of the mattress and the bedframe.

“They’re a set,” Vera’s mother said. “Just a rental. After I’m done with them, you can just call the number on the fridge and someone from the company will come get the furniture back. Not your new mattress, of course, but these things.”

A rental.

This was how she’d always been. Practical, direct, unwilling to bow to the discomfort of others. Vera’s mother did what needed to be done, always, and she had no patience for squeamishness.

“How did you get my phone number?” Vera asked.

Her mother’s mouth twitched like she was biting through thread. “Looked you up,” she said. “It wasn’t hard. You never changed your name.”

“It’s his name,” Vera muttered.

Daphne’s eyes flashed again, an old dangerous flash that put heat behind Vera’s ears. “What did you say?”

“I’ll go put my things away,” Vera quickly replied. She hesitated beside the bed, not wanting to walk away yet, searching for another sentence. For something a different daughter and a different mother might have said to each other by now, something that would stitch up the open wound that was the last twelve years.

Daphne regarded her beadily. “If you want to take a nap you should go for it. I probably will. I sleep a lot these days.”

“Sure,” Vera said. “Do you need, um. Do you need help getting up and down? Like … to the bathroom? I can come check on you every hour or so…?”

Daphne’s chin jerked back into her neck, her revulsion palpable. She loaded a thousand different meanings into her one-word answer. “No.”

Vera felt a flush of uncertain guilt. She should have done more research, she thought, should have asked more questions ahead of time about what her mother might need from her. “Are you sure? I don’t mind, and you shouldn’t have to—”

“I have a system,” Daphne responded evenly. “I’m taken care of during the day. The details are not your business. You just focus on the house.”

Vera knew she should ask more questions, but being here in this room with her mother was making her blood vibrate. The urge to escape subsumed any thoughts of responsible caretaking. “Great. I’ll check on you before dinner.”

“It’s at six,” Daphne replied. “We all eat together. I’m sure James will have questions for you. You’ll be polite,” she added sharply.

This was more familiar territory. Vera didn’t know how to navigate Daphne’s vulnerability, but her anger was another matter entirely. “Fine. Yes. Six.” Vera walked back across the room to where her bags were waiting, and that’s when she made her first mistake.

“Love you, Mom.”

Her throat burned in the wake of those words. She picked up her duffel bag, the rustle of it almost covering a soft sound from behind her.

Vera turned around to see her mother looking at her expectantly with heavy-lidded, glassy eyes. She had said something that Vera hadn’t heard, and it was important to hear what her mother had said because that ‘love you, Mom’ had slipped out of Vera unbidden and instinctive—and maybe, just possibly, it would turn out that in her long absence those words had become welcome.

“What did you say?” Vera said, her free hand lifting to her throat unbidden to feel the chain that sat there, the weight of the old key that hung around her neck. “I didn’t hear you. Sorry.”

Daphne cleared her throat, took a sip of water with a trembling hand. She set the water down carefully before answering. “I said, you don’t have to call me that.”

Vera couldn’t seem to shape her brain around the conversation. Something about being here in the house again, with the dark dining room floor pressing against the soles of her feet—she couldn’t think.

“Mom.” The woman in the bed briefly pursed her lips as if she’d just taken an accidental sip of brine. “You don’t need to call me ‘Mom’ while you’re here. Just call me Daphne.” She didn’t look Vera in the eye. “Things aren’t that different just because I’m dying. Let’s not pretend.”