Burn It Up(41)

“What’s this going to entail, exactly?” Vince asked.

Casey pulled out the instructions and read them aloud. “Remove swab from sleeve. Rinse mouth with warm water before collecting sample. Swab the inside of one cheek with firm, up-and-down motions. Close swab inside provided cup immediately. One sample per cup only,” he read aggressively, the final step set in all caps.

“Easy enough,” Vince said, and the two of them swished their mouths out at the sink. The whole thing was done inside a minute.

“Cool. Now just sign this paper,” Casey said, finding the form with Vince’s name at the top.

He considered asking Vince to walk their mom through the paperwork and the swab, but he knew deep down that was cowardly, so he gathered the form and the cup and a glass of water and headed for the den.

Sure as the sun rising, she was awake, glued to an infomercial. Or to the glow of the screen, anyhow—only God knew if she was actually retaining any of what was flashing by.

“Morning, Mom. You sleep okay?”

Her gaze moved slowly to his face. Here was where things turned either heartwarming or heartbreaking—fifty-fifty chance, lately.

“Good morning,” she said slowly, and finally added, “Casey.”

A wave of relief rolled through him at that. More and more, she recognized him. It was progress you couldn’t discount, not when the first time she’d seen him after he’d come back to town, she’d shot him in the leg, thinking he was a burglar.

“Can you do me a favor, Mom? It’ll only take a minute.”

“Oh,” she said spacily, slowly, attention drifting back to the screen, “I suppose I could.”

“Great. Just take a drink from this,” he said, handing her the glass. He let her drain it in a half dozen lethargic swallows. “Great. Now I just need you to open your mouth real wide so I can rub this Q-tip on your cheek, okay?”

“Q-tip?”

“It’s for the dentist,” he lied. What was he supposed to say? You probably don’t realize it, but you’ve gone completely batshit and now I need to figure out if I’m doomed to follow in your footsteps. Open wide. “Won’t take a second.”

“If you say so.”

She opened her mouth and he held her cheek, her skin cool and papery, a little eerie. Man, she’d been beautiful when she’d still been lucid. Prettiest woman in town, everybody had agreed. Now she was just a ghost, floating through the days with her brain half-gone, the rest of it lost to whatever was on the TV or outside the window, her once-red hair faded almost completely to white. Casey checked his own head for grays at least once a week, thinking they were as good an indicator of his chances at insanity as any. So far, none.

“Perfect,” he said, sealing the swab. “And now I just need you to sign this paper, down here. To tell the dentist that he can check your Q-tip, okay?”

“The dentist?” She looked perplexed but took the pen willingly enough and signed her name, the signature a faint, loose shadow of its old self. How many times Casey had practiced and faked that signature, he cared not to guess. Probably as many times as he’d been sent home with detention slips.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Come and watch the news,” she said in that unnerving ethereal voice, and patted the cushion beside hers. “There’s so much happening in the world.”

He eyed the screen, the logo of the shopping channel in the bottom corner. “Wish I could, but I have to get to the post office, then back to work. But Nita will be here soon. She likes the news.” Or barring that, great deals on faux-sapphire jewelry.

“Yes. Nita.”

He bent down and kissed her cheek, the sensation leaving him cautiously proud these days—not as unsettled as it had at first, when he’d come home. He was growing used to how her skin felt now, how she smelled. His mother was gone and she was never coming back, but he could do his duty, pay his respects to the living, walking effigy she’d become. “Bye.”

In the kitchen, he sealed the cups and papers up in the padded plastic envelope that had come with the kit, preprinted with express postage. Last step, drop them off in a mailbox. Last step until the time came to hear the results. He swallowed, stomach souring. Blamed it on two cups of black coffee and no food.

“So when do you hear?” Vince asked.

“Soon. They’ll schedule a call after this makes it down to f*cking Palo Alto.” Casey tossed the instructions and the scraps of plastic wrap and the box in the trash, then made for the door. “Later, motherf*cker. Say hi to Nita and Kim for me.”

“Will do.”

He pulled up at the post office, said a little prayer to a god he had zero right to be asking any favors of, and dropped the box into the slot. And with that, there was nothing more to be done on that front except wait.

As he hit the road once more and aimed himself east, he couldn’t say if he’d expected to feel lighter or heavier with that package turned over to fate. What he did feel for sure, though, was surprise. Surprise that he’d just pulled the trigger like that, when he was pretty certain that even a week ago he’d have found a hundred reasons to procrastinate on the task and let that package collect dust on some shelf. Things had changed, in recent days. He’d changed, though in exactly what ways, he couldn’t yet say.