This morning makes two days since Ma woke up, which, according to my sister, is two too many of my “ass being out of school.” She throws my backpack over her shoulder. “Ma’s fine. You’re going. Period.” And she seems it; Ma’s walking around with the physical therapist to gain more strength in her legs and complaining the two-hour round checks give her “no goddamn time to sleep.” But I’m especially thankful for those checks because the longer she sleeps, the longer I spend worried she won’t wake up.
At school, Mili and Inez are sitting in the hall with their backs against the lockers, and bagels and chocolate milk on their laps. We talked on the phone for a long time yesterday, but seeing them in the flesh hits different. Inez is sliding down the lockers like she’s sinking in sand, and she looks exhausted. It surprises me when she stands to give me a hug with the quickness.
“You’re choking me,” I say.
She pulls back. “Let me look at you.”
“What do you see?”
“You look tired.”
“So do you.”
“Being haunted is draining.” Inez shrugs, but I catch her trembling lip before she pulls me in again. “I’m happy your mom’s okay. So damn happy.”
Miliani gets up, too, and now they’re both crushing me, each inching to get closer until they start play-shoving the other away. When we sit, Mili insists I take her bagel, says they’re done serving breakfast in the caf. Inez always jokes, “Mother Mili,” and I usually laugh, but I’ll never forget that Mili and I became friends when Ma was off on a drug binge.
The week of freshman orientation, I slid on too-tight shoes and clothes I struggled to match. Some girl in our group called me a “flea-market baby” and had everybody but Mili laughing. Mili invited me for dinner and was blunt about her offerings. “Before you say no,” she said, “I don’t think you’re a charity case.” She handed me clothes picked from her closet. “I hope you’d do the same for me if I needed it.” Mili is smaller up top and has wider hips, but because she loves baggy tees and sweatpants, her clothes fit me fine. We even wore the same size in shoes.
But what matters the most is she never again mentioned what she did for me.
She breaks the silence between us now. “I have to say it. We—as in the three of us—actually pulled your mom from a coma.”
I smile, but Inez purses her lips and clasps her hands together. “Are we sure we did this? Are we sure it wasn’t…?”
“God?” I reach to squeeze her knee, wondering if she’s struggling more with religion the deeper we dig into magic. It’s probably easier for me and Mili, who believe in God but don’t follow a religion. “If you believe it was, then maybe God gave us this power because one minute we were talking about pulling the plug, and the next she was breathing on her own, telling me she heard our song.”
Mili gets up on her knees and raises her hands in the air, the way people do on TV when they’ve “caught the Holy Ghost” in church. “We can do anything,” she screams into the corridor.
Kids from school stare as they pass. I tell Mili she’s wild and yank her ass back down.
“I’m really happy,” she says, her voice radiating with emotion.
Inez leans her head against the locker and exhales. After a few seconds, she says, “Wow. We’re badass bitches, huh?” Me and Mili laugh hard. “You listening to this, Jas?” she calls out.
I guess if they’re doing wild, I can do it too. “You see us out here getting stronger?” I yell. The hope seems like a force in front of me. I can almost hear Jas telling me stories, see her as she stands camera-ready, feel her arms around me after she tells me she forgives me. I let the hope envelop me in all of its wildness, and my eyes well up. “We’ll be ready for you.”
The exhilaration buzzes between us. It is a spark, a charge, a flash lighting the negative spaces. “And I knew we helped her deep down,” Mili says. “With the spirits being able to interact more, it’s clear the spell really put a dent in the realms.”
That’s when the flash of light goes out. Mili says it like it’s good, but I can almost feel fingers on my skin again. I touch the back of my neck, swallow, try to tell myself that whatever happens is worth it if Ma’s alive, if it means Jas and I can fix our relationship.
But I don’t want spirits to be able to touch me or mess with my camera.
Inez bites her lip and starts braiding her waist-length hair. “This seems wide enough, no?” Then, “Just … if the spirits can break our things, what’s stopping them from hurting us too?”
I watch Mili’s face fall, but I ask, “Are you sure your aunt thinks we’ll be safe?”
Mili’s eyes dart from me to Inez, panic in them. “Well, she told me there are risks, but she wouldn’t let me do this if the spirits could hurt me or either of you.” She’s quiet as she thinks of what to say next. We all are. “What if I get her to agree to a séance?” she finally says. “We can try to make direct contact, see if the spirits are here to hurt us. Maybe we’ll even be able to talk to Jas.”
“But didn’t Lindy say she’s not a babysitter? You directly quoted her.”
“She did, but she knows how important this is to us,” Mili says, and gives us a fake smile. “She’ll make us feel better. I know it.”
Inez sighs and stands. “If you can convince her, I guess it’s okay. But I gotta pee before the bell rings.”
When she leaves, Mili touches my wrist. “I know things are weird, but we did a good thing with magic, Nat. I’m happy for you.”
She makes the worry subside for a second. I hope magic can make her happy too.
Back at the hospital, the doctor and social worker say that something as severe as an overdose requires sending patients straight to a rehabilitation facility. Ma fights with them, saying it’s the cleanest she’s been in years. She can hold conversations better now and isn’t as anxious. The IV fluids and rest have even put some color in her cheeks. But sometimes, there’s this look on her face when she zones out—a look I’ve learned means she’s wanting a fix.
Leanna uses a motherly tone to convince Ma going to rehab is best for all of us. Ma signs the paperwork after that, and I think it’s partly because she’s so happy Leanna is speaking to her after the overdose she doesn’t want to ruin it. The deal goes like this: a week in a rehab center, and if that goes well, she can go home but must attend three months of meetings at the CODAC Center five days a week. When the doctors leave, so does Leanna.
Ma sits on a shower chair as I wash her hair.
“Why’d you do it?” I say.
“Do what, Natty?”
“Really?”
Her shoulders slump. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“You told me we would, but we haven’t.” I wash the shampoo out of her hair. “What made you do heroin, Ma? You said you’d never.”
“You know what they say: Never say never.”
“This isn’t a joke.” I’m angry now. “You almost died.”
“But I didn’t.” Ma gets up on wobbly legs, takes the shower hose from me. “I’ll finish.”
“No, please talk to me.”
“I don’t know why I did it, okay?” Ma holds the hose to her body. “I wanted to get high. The other stuff wasn’t getting me as high anymore. Is that what you want to hear?”
My eyes burn. “You weren’t thinking of me and Dev? How this would affect us?”
“No,” Ma says, turning to adjust the shower water, her voice quieter. “I wasn’t. But it’s not like I’m proud of it, Natty.”
“Are you happy to be alive?”
She looks back at me like I smacked her. “Excuse me?”
“Do you want to be alive?”
“Of course I do. What kind of a question is that?”
I take the hose from her, and she breathes in deep before she sits back on the chair. We’re quiet while I finish, and I find myself wondering if magic saved her temporarily. If she’ll get out and next time will be the last time because it’ll end in her death.
But then she says, “I’ll never do it again. I promise.”
And with her back turned to me and the water running, I let the tears come.