CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

COUGHING

That night, when she thinks nobody hears her, Mama coughs into her pillow, trying to muffle the noise.

I lie in bed beside her, my eyes closed, pretending to sleep.

She coughs so long, it seems like she’s going to cough out one of her lungs.

Very early in the morning, I wake up and creep out of the bedroom so I don’t wake her.

I go to the bathroom and turn on the light. The tub is full of pink water and smells like bleach. A white pillowcase floats inside the water. I look at it closely. The bloodstains are almost gone, bleached out. Mama is trying to hide it but she can’t: they’re still there, faint marks. A testimony to her night-long coughing vigil.

Once again, I’m keeping secrets: I don’t tell Gogo about the bloody pillowcase in the bathtub.