I’m staring at Mom’s face, a face I’ve seen at least as often as the sun or the moon, only something’s gone from it now. She lies in a rented hospital bed, pointed toward the window that looks at the little gray bay out back and the bright sky beyond. It’s her favorite sight in all the world, but she’s not enjoying it. Something’s missing. She’s missing. She’s dead.
A hospice nurse gets her ready. For what? I didn’t ask. Probably for the funeral parlor to come get her. Mom’s getting ready, going places. It’s the most excitement she’s had in months. Somber and respectful, the nurse removes the IV, then squeezes out a big wet sponge over a bowl. For a while, the only sound in the world is the trickle of water from the sponge hitting the metal bowl. That, and the drone in my head.
It’s a funny thing, the drone. It’s almost constant now. It started a few hours ago, when Mom could still talk. It started just when she finished what turned out to be her last words. To me, anyway. She may have said something else to Dad. I don’t know. But this buzz has been there ever since, a constant conversation.
Like, I’ll think: “She looks like she’s asleep, peaceful.”
But I’ll also think: “No. She looks dead.”
It’s not quite like that. It’s faster and the words blur over each other.
Couldawouldashouldadonesomething.
Likewhat?NotlikeshewasfallingdownsomestairsandIcouldacaughther.
Dad’s on the phone with the funeral parlor. His voice shakes at the end of every sentence. He looks as white as the walls. And I’m thinking: “The parlor. Why are they called parlors? Makes me think of spiders and flies.”
Why? Because that’s what they’re called, okay? Just accept it.
A month ago, when the doctors were finally sure we’d be losing her, Dad said he was afraid he’d start drinking again.
He’s afraid? Imagine how I feel.
How do I feel? I don’t know. How the hell should I know?
I’m hungry, haven’t eaten in a day. I need some food.
How can I think of food at a time like this?
Dad looks at me from the phone. “Wade, eat something.”
But I want to run and keep running, jump up on a wall, do a crazy mourning dance.
But I want to curl into a ball at the bottom of the sea and never move again.
Maybe I’m passing out. Maybe I should eat something. Okay, I will.
My head feels about a mile away from my body, but I drag both of them toward the kitchen. On the way, I pass the big workroom, drenched in sunlight from mirrors and crystals and a gorgeous day. I stop to take a look, which may have been a mistake, because it hurts so much to see.
This is where she keeps … kept… her unfinished projects. That means all of them: half-carved wooden boxes, sculptures, paintings, plays, scrapbooks, furniture she picked up at tag sales planning to stain but never got around to. It looks like she never finished reading a book, let alone writing one. All her hardcovers have a bookmark, some covered in dust they’ve been unfinished so long. But they’re all neatly stacked, like stones in a graveyard. Other people would never get half as many unfinished things into this space. It’s an ordered chaos.
She never could finish anything, ever, no matter how hard she tried.
Don’t talk about her like that. She did finish. She finished life.
She knew. When she found out she was dying, she said at least she wouldn’t have to worry about what to be when she “grew up” anymore. Therapist, marine biologist, activist, poet. She wanted to be so many things. I worried that raising me held her back, but she said she was like that long before I was born.
Was it a good life? Was she happy?
Of course she was. She loved me and Dad. Always did. She’d do anything, sacrifice anything, even her dreams. That’s what gave her a life.
Of course she wasn’t. She was trapped and stuck like the spider’s fly, almost exploding from longing for all the things she wanted to do but never did.
I make it to the kitchen. A newspaper’s open on the table. There’s a headline about Prometheus, the huge particle collider where Dad works that was just built outside Rivendale. It’s being fired up for the first time today, and some weird group’s afraid it’ll end the world or rip a hole in space/time and open up a new dimension. I used to think that was silly. The world can’t be that fragile. Now, I know it can be. My world, anyway.
I pick an apple from the basket the Callwells, our neighbors, brought yesterday. I bite, roll a piece of Granny Smith in my mouth, chew, swallow. My stomach hurts.
Throw it out. Forget it.
No, keep eating. It’ll give me something to do.
I carry the apple with me as I pad up the carpeted stairs.
Stay downstairs, Dad needs your help!
No, I need a minute. I need to put this scene behind me, just for a second.
Why? This isn’t something I can leave behind. It’ll just come into the room with me.
Christ! Can’t I even get a second, please?
I make it to my room. It’s like the workroom in a way, a mix of clean and sloppy. Dirty laundry mingled with clean. My guitar’s on the floor, buried in a litter of carefully handwritten songs. I never wanted guitar lessons. I didn’t want lessons to mess up the noises I made. But I play for an hour every day.
On the bed, my laptop’s next to a neat pile of school notes written in a sloppy scrawl. A notice from that new computer teacher, Mr. Schapiro, sits on top. He’s looking for someone with soldering skills to help fix some circuit boards. Could be me. I don’t know jack about programming, but Dad taught me to solder when I was ten.
That, at least, is something I can fix. I could make it work.
What, am I nuts? Go back to school? Why? I never want to see that damn cage again. Schapiro’s probably as bad as the rest.
Oh? And do what instead, exactly?
Quit. Take the guitar, go to that new coffee dive with the big rat on the sign.
I wouldn’t last a day. Besides, Dad would kill me, or worse, kill himself.
Screw him! Live!
Screw you! You can’t just do what ever you want!
You? Who are you talking to, exactly?
Me. I’m talking to me. It’s freaky that I have to remind myself. I can’t believe what Mom said before she died, that it was so important to her. I can’t even decide whether to sit on the floor or lie on the bed, and the buzz in my head just gets worse and worse.
Stay in school! There was that girl in class I wanted to talk to. Denby.
Quit. Sing. I can still talk to Denby. Be easier to hook up with her if I’m a rebel guitarist.
No. Hold it together. For myself, for Dad...
The guy who already said he felt like drinking again? What does he care about me? Besides, that particle collider might end the world any day now.
He’s sick. He needs my help. Even a particle collider can be fixed.
Mom was sick, too. I sat by her side for days and what did that do? Still dead, isn’t she?
Mom, what am I supposed to do?