If I had been stronger back then, when I was young, things might have been different. I might have stood up to my father the day she died. I could have lashed into him, blamed him for, at the very least, ignoring my mother’s disease. Letting her die. Yet, even then, from the moment I saw her pale, lifeless face, I decided it was far worse than that. I decided he had killed her.
I wasn’t strong, though. Instead, I returned to my home like a ghost. I haunted the drama unfolding in the house, the frantic work of the paramedics, my father’s sudden outpouring of caring words. I drifted among the living, feeling closer to her than to them. Eventually, I slipped away, past the rattle of the heavy stretcher as it rolled out the front door, up to my bedroom. I stepped in and closed the door. But I didn’t move. I simply stood alone in the dark.
The hive of activity that had descended upon my father’s return home never seemed to end. The ambulance left and the neighbors arrived. My father spoke gravely to people over the phone, accepting their condolences with the words of a heavy heart. My brother played the strong son, always at his side, lowering his head as people spoke fondly about a woman they could not have known.
I emerged only out of necessity. My hood drawn around my burning cheeks, I walked the hall like it was another dimension. I could see and hear this world, but it passed me as if I was nothing more than air. I didn’t eat. I don’t think I drank. Instead, I sat on the edge of my bed listening to the cadence of heavy conversations through the thin walls of my room.
Sometime past midnight, the house quieted. I waited, for how long I am not certain. Eventually, I rose and slipped downstairs. Cold, fresh air blew against my face as I stepped into the foyer. In the front room, the curtains billowed out.
Even today, as things seem to barrel toward a full circle, I relive this exact moment. I stood, my bare feet on the frigid tile. My eyes closed, I tilted my head back. I took that cold air in through wide nostrils. Up until that moment, I had wanted my old mother back. That sweet, beautiful woman who held a gypsy moth on the end of her finger. Yet, as I smelled the sterile emptiness that would swallow my life, I found myself aching for my mother’s sour scent instead.
THE NEXT NIGHT, a man in a black suit visited. He and my father sat at the kitchen discussing the funeral arrangements.
“She would like that,” my father said, and my blood boiled.
I took a step back, away from the corner from which I had been eavesdropping. A hand landed on my shoulder and I jumped.
“Where have you been?”
I spun around to find Drew. He was dressed in real clothes, not his typical lacrosse shorts and sweatshirt. I felt oddly little, even though I could almost look him in the eye by then.
“What?”
“Dad’s been looking for you.”
“Me?”
The look of disgust on my brother’s face as he pushed past me might have crushed me if I hadn’t felt so off-balance. I remember trying to make sense of what he said, asking myself if my father had been looking for me. Could that be possible?
I stood there, frozen, as my brother entered the kitchen. My father introduced him. The man in the suit, like everyone else, offered his condolences. I took a step toward them, feeling the need to join this, to be a part of my family. But I couldn’t. No one wanted me in there. No one cared whether I lived or died.
So, instead, I slipped back up to my bed and waited. For what, I had no idea. Not yet.