Chapter 28
They had prepared for this moment half their lives, the sisters, but Sam followed Elena to their mother’s bedroom in disbelief. The light was on in there. The brightness was obscene. Elena moved without any hesitation but Sam had to squint against it. She was afraid to look and see—their mother. Their mother. Their mother had been alive only a few hours earlier; Sam had brought her to the bathroom, held her hands, given her water, tucked the sheets around her in bed and told her she’d see her when she woke up.
Now here their mother was. In that same bed, but transformed. Her cheeks weren’t held tight anymore. Her mouth hung open.
Elena was at her bedside. Her back was to Sam. “I just came in to check and found her.”
Sam nodded.
In the room was only the sound of their breath. The sisters. The television wasn’t on and neither was their mother’s oxygen. Sam couldn’t tell what exact time it was. Her phone was in the other room, next to the bed. Should she get it?
Sam asked, “Did you?” Elena was silent. That didn’t make sense, Sam realized, what she’d said. She tried again. “We should call 911?”
Elena said, “She’s cold.”
Sam needed to put the blanket on her. She stepped forward.
Then she understood what Elena meant: their mother’s body. They were past resuscitation. It was done.
Sam sat down on the floor. Her knees simply released. She fell cross-legged and her ankles hit hard on the ground. The pain was sudden, a shot, then faded. She and Elena used to sit like this, crisscross applesauce, in classrooms, at their teachers’ direction. They were kids. Their mother was so young then. Glamorous. She hadn’t gotten sick yet. When it was their birthdays, she surprised them at school with grocery-store mini cupcakes. Twelve to a pack. Sam remembered the icing on those: perfect. Machine-made spirals of chocolate and vanilla with purple circular sprinkles on top that tasted like chalk. Their mother stood by the whiteboard and beamed while everyone sang “Happy Birthday.” She must’ve had to take off work for those afternoons. She never minded.
When had their mother stopped doing that? In what grade? Sam couldn’t remember. She should ask Elena. Later.
Sitting, Sam was at the level of the bed. She was face-to-face with her mother, who was pale, Sam could see now, bleached-looking, like the logs that washed up on the shore. Sam could smell the sheets. Dried sweat. Should be laundered. Her mother’s ear was very fine, the whorl of it, a seashell. Her jaw was soft. Slack. Her lips were dry. Those lovely top teeth, white and shining, were exposed. They’d been put in her gums when she was a teen, and they’d outlasted her, outlasted her heart and lungs and living soul.
Elena was crying. Her hip, next to Sam, shook. Her whole body was shaking. Voice warped by tears, she said, “Didn’t you hear anything?”
“Hear what?”
“From Mom? Before?”
“I didn’t,” Sam said. It wasn’t clear to her what she was supposed to say. What Elena wanted. “I was asleep.”
Elena was gasping. She should be crying, too, Sam thought of herself—well, she’d cry soon. When someone died, people cried. That’s what happened. Their mother had cried for years about their grandmother. Her nose got pink on the end like a bunny’s. How adorable she was. No wonder men had been drawn to her. Their mother loved them all so much. Their mother.
What were they going to do without their mother? Her stories? Her care? Every day would be empty.
The room was too quiet. Sam wouldn’t have to go to the pharmacy as much, she thought. Or the doctor’s office anymore. They ought to call him, Dr. Boyce, and tell him. What time was it? They should leave a message. Or was it too early, too late?
Elena swallowed. Some great wet lump was in her throat. Sam was dry-faced, like their mother, who lay there in front of them, relieved of the need to fight. Sam wanted to touch her. She did touch her. Sam’s hand, she was surprised to observe, trembled. She put her fingers on her mother’s shoulder, like Elena had touched Sam’s shoulder, only minutes before, in the other bedroom, to wake her. When Sam was sleeping and didn’t yet know. Sam said, “Mom?”
Elena was right. Their mother’s warmth had vanished. She was room temperature: cool and dry and gone.
Elena kept sobbing. The sound of it—saturated. She said, “We should’ve been with her. She was alone. She shouldn’t have been alone.”