I wake to the sensation of fingers smoothing hair from my face—my mother’s touch, skin I know the feeling of even in the dark. “Time to get up,” she says in her soft voice, the one that only wants to love and protect me.
I open my eyes, but the room is dark, the blackout shades still drawn, until Shea pushes them open, morning light streaming into the room as if the sun were hanging just outside our window. “Good morning, starshine!” Shea sings. It’s a line from a song in the musical Hair, a part of the soundtrack of Shea’s childhood. Shea stands at the foot of my bed, hands on hips, a superhero pose, only missing the shiny red cape flowing behind her.
I try to reply, but my lips are dried shut. They feel as though they’re made of baked earth, clay fired in a kiln. I finally manage a smile and sit up, rub pieces of sleep from my eyes, and place my bare feet on the scratchy carpet.
As my eyes adjust, I look at the alarm clock on the bedside table, the old-fashioned kind with silver bells on top. I see black numbers and black hands and a white face under glass, but time isn’t a concept I can grasp right now. How long ago were we on the beach, my hands running through his hair, his skin wet and warm?
Clarisse’s side of the bed is empty. The only evidence of her is the wrinkled sheets, one strand of her hair on the bright white pillowcase, and her green retainer case on the nightstand next to the landline phone, a beige relic that now lives in museums and outdated hotel rooms.
Shea and my mother are packing up the room, overnight bags waiting by the door. Music is playing from the small speaker on the windowsill, the one that goes everywhere with them. Grunge rock guitar tones float high across the room, and drums and bass fill in the lower spaces.
My mother and Shea dance around as they work, Shea twirling my mother like they’re in an old movie musical in black-and-white. Shea attempts a dip, lowering my mother until her hair grazes the floor, becoming a shimmery waterfall in the light. They break into laughter at that point, and Shea pulls my mother in for a kiss.
My mother is wearing makeup—black-lined eyes and pink glossy lips—and she looks so pretty I could cry. I hear the shower running in the bathroom and think of Clarisse standing in the tub, water washing over her and down the drain. I haven’t seen her since last night when I returned to the room just before midnight and found her sitting in the hallway outside our door, waiting for me. When she saw me, she stood up and knocked and then Shea let us in. Clarisse went straight to the bathroom, and I slipped into bed, falling asleep in what felt like an instant.
Clarisse emerges from the bathroom now in cutoff shorts and a purple T-shirt, her wet hair wrapped in a bleached white towel, a cloud of steam following her over to the little table and two chairs.
Shea loads her arms and shoulders with our bags, and my mother opens the door for her. “I’m going to take this stuff down and get the car cooled off,” Shea says. “This train will be leaving in fifteen minutes.” She makes a motion with her arm that imitates a train conductor pulling the whistle. This is Shea’s role in our family—she keeps the trains running on time; she plans and prepares so that my mother doesn’t have to sweat the details of daily living. Shea gives my mother another kiss and walks across the threshold of the room, the door closing with a click.
“Hey,” I say to Clarisse as she grabs her retainer case and starts packing her bag.
“Hey,” she says back. She looks down at her phone, scrolling through a feed of photos, scenes of what other people are doing with their Sunday mornings. She won’t even turn her head toward me, acting as though she will spontaneously ignite if she looks at me. Some people believe that’s a real thing—spontaneous human combustion—people bursting into flame from the inside out without warning. It may have happened to a woman in St. Pete in the 1950s. Her name was Mary, and when they found her, all that was left of her was her left foot wearing a black slipper. The rest of her had turned to ash, even though the house showed no fire or smoke damage.
My mother sits down on the bed next to me. I feel her shoulder pressed against mine. I see the sun catching a hint of sparkle in her lip gloss. “I’m glad we came,” she says. “This was really good for both of us.” She smiles, and I smile back.
We sweep the hotel room one more time, making sure we’ve left nothing behind. We float down the elevator shaft and into the lobby. We walk through the sliding glass doors and back into the warm sunlight. We take our places inside the car, and the backseat AC blows cold air on my ankles as we drive away from the Thunderbird.
I can sense a change in movement, a different leaning of the axis, each revolution around the sun slowed down, every moment exploded into small pieces, the pieces breathing and alive, every particle of existence exaggerated. Was it just yesterday that my mother and Shea sat in deck chairs in the same backyard my father played in, his bare child’s feet running across the green grass? Was it just yesterday that I unwrapped the delicate butter dish and felt the cool porcelain on my cheek? Did we really see the sunset on the beach last night, pink and red and orange streaking the sky above us? Or was it all a play, a dream, a trick of the imagination and time?
My mother drives down the island’s main drag slowly, stopping at every intersection to allow beachgoers to cross the street. They wear brightly colored shirts and shorts, sundresses, and wide-brimmed hats. They carry plastic shovel-and-pail sets for sandcastles and pastel-colored foam noodles for floating.
Shea tunes the radio to the nineties station, Lisa Loeb’s voice sweetly reminding I missed you. My mother and Shea reach for each other at the same time, their hands meeting on the center console between them as they clasp fingers and palms. Clarisse is plugged into her headphones, staring out her window so that I can only see the back of her head, the sun catching natural highlights in her hair.
We’ve traveled a few blocks when I begin to notice them—flashes of red and blue, difficult to make out in the bright white of the sunshine streaming overhead. An ambulance, two state police cars, and a local television news van, all parked in the public parking lot near the causeway.
Shea wonders out loud if it has something to do with spring breakers. A very drunk girl fell off a hotel balcony last year and nearly died, remember? But my mother thinks it’s too late for spring break, isn’t it? It’s the middle of May, vacation season already in full bloom. Maybe it’s a tourist, a medical emergency of some sort.
“I hope everyone’s okay,” my mother says. She puts her hand to her chest and exhales a small breath, a gesture of remembrance she makes when she sees a car accident or a dead animal. “Sleep well, sweet baby,” she’ll say when faced with the motionless body of a raccoon on the side of the road, its dark front paws almost clasped together as if in prayer, the fur on its fuzzy tail moving slightly in the wind.
The light turns green, and we drive on.