8. Laila
8
LAILA
Everything hurts. My bones, my chest, my eyes. My hip is on fire.
I squint towards the window, and there’s sunlight streaming through the cracks in the blinds. It’s midday, and I’m still wrapped in blankets. Why am I still?—?
It hits me like a physical blow. The memory of the knock on my door is so visceral that I turn towards it now. I can still hear the soft way he delivered news so horrifying I didn’t even care that he was in my room.
I didn’t care about anything.
I still don’t.
I catch movement by the side of my bed, and I whip towards it, igniting a jolt of pain that I feel in my toes. I try to sit up, but I’m exhausted and fall back against the pillows again.
“How long have you been sitting there?” I croak.
Apparently, whoever body-snatched me has also taken over my vocal cords. I sound like a frog person.
“Since this morning. I never left.” His voice is silky-smooth, but I still recoil like he screamed. He reaches for the glass of water on my bedside table and hands it to me. “You need to drink.”
The moment he says it, my lips feel like sandpaper. My tongue darts out to wet it, but I’m so thirsty it’s painful.
“I’m not thirsty.”
He brings the glass to my lips anyway. When he tips it into my mouth, I plan to spit it back in his face, but the cool water feels too good. I lap it up, lose myself in this tiny sliver of comfort.
“Polina brought up some bread earlier?—”
“I’m not hungry.” I pull the sheet up to my chest, trying to stave off the cold. “Where’s Nina?”
“With Polina in the nursery. I can ask her to bring?—”
“No!” I clear my throat. “No. I don’t want her to see me like this.”
Not that I’ve seen myself since Arsen broke the news. But based on how I feel, I’m guessing I don’t look so good.
Arsen leans back in the armchair like he’s waiting for something.
“How long has it been?”
Days? Weeks? Time feels slippery. Some scared, desperate part of me hopes it’s been weeks. Maybe then it won’t hurt so much.
“A few hours.”
“I’m not ready to get up.” I’ll never be ready.
“Then you don’t have to.”
My fingers claw into the sheets. “I do. I have to plan her funeral.”
Funeral. Funerals are for dead people. And my mother—my hero—my best friend in the whole world—is dead.
“Everything’s already planned.”
I swallow, blinking hard to fight back the emotion clawing at my throat. “Wh…what do you mean?”
“The venue, the minister, the floral arrangements—I took care of it.”
Somewhere underneath the sadness and relief, anger starts to churn. “You planned my mother’s funeral without consulting me?”
Arsen scoots to the edge of the armchair. “No. She did.”
“What?”
“Marie knew this was coming,” he says gently. “She left me a letter with detailed instructions about what she wanted for all of it. Right down to the food she wanted served and the passages she wanted read out loud at the service.”
“Oh.” I deflate like a balloon. “So there’s nothing for me to do.”
“She asked that you read her favorite poem at the end of the service. But she also said that, if you’d rather not, you can have someone else read it in your place.”
“That was kind of her.” Even to my ears, it sounds harsh.
She died, and I’m mad at her. It’s not fair, but that’s grief for you.
From the nursery, I hear a shrill cry, but I can’t bring myself to worry. My daughter is in good hands. For once, it’s just myself I need to worry about.
But when I turn my attention inward, it’s not grief I feel first. It’s not sadness or depression.
It’s anger.
“Why didn’t I get the call? The hospital should have— Someone should have called.”
There’s a short pause. “Marie listed me as her emergency contact.”
“You’re not family.”
“I’m her son-in-law.”
“Not for long,” I mutter as I rip the covers off my lap and swing my legs onto the floor. Ignoring the pain in my hip, I force myself to my feet.
But I wobble, and Arsen notices. “You should sit down. Your hip?—”
“—isn’t your concern,” I snap. “I don’t even want you here.”
“Well, I’m here anyway.”
I glare at him, but unfortunately, he doesn’t turn to stone.
“Is there anything you need?” he presses.
“I don’t need anything from you. I need… I want my mom.” The words unleash a loud, ugly sob that I can’t even try to hide. “I want to see her again. I want to speak to her again. I want to be able to hold her, to feel her arms around me one more time.”
These are the kinds of thoughts I should keep buried inside, but whatever energy I had to filter has been redirected towards breathing and standing and not collapsing into a puddle of grief that will never resolidify.
“Okay,” Arsen gets to his feet, his face somber but calm. “Let me see what I can do.”
He leaves me standing there like a moron. Let me see what I can do? What kind of response is that? Unless I’ve severely underestimated his persuasive powers and he’s managed to talk whatever higher being is out there to reverse their decision and bring Mom back, there’s nothing he can do.
But when Arsen walks back into my room, he’s not accompanied by the reincarnation of my mother. Nor is he holding black candles and chalk to draw a summoning circle.
All he has is a small red thumb drive in his hand.
“What is that?”
He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he walks over to the TV and inserts the USB.
“If you think I want to watch a movie?—”
The screen comes to life, and I stumble back against the bed. My knees hit the edge as I stare at the TV. Sitting just inside the screen, in blazing color, is Mom.
My body freezes. My blood runs cold. I blink again and again, but her face doesn’t dissolve. On screen, she’s perched by the window of her hospital room, wearing the rainbow-striped wool sweater I bought her for Christmas several years ago.
Arsen turns to me, a finger poised over the remote control.
“What is this, Arsen?” I whisper.
“You said you wanted to see your mother again. You said you wanted to hear her voice. Well, here she is. Why don’t you sit down? She has a lot she wants to say to you.”
I’m not ready, but I need this. I drop down onto the edge of the bed as Arsen clicks play.
Mom turns to the camera with a smile, and I clap a hand over my mouth. She looks so real—so alive. If I concentrate, I know I could smell her perfume.
“ Hello, sweetheart. ” She waves to me from the screen. “ If you’re watching this, it means that you’re probably really sad right now. Pretty angry, too, if I know you like I think I do. ”
“Yes,” I hear myself say, as though she can hear me, too.
“ It’s okay, honey. You are well within your rights to be angry with me. You get to be furious, in fact. But I hope you know that, even though I’m tired of fighting, I wouldn’t have gone if I had the choice. ”
Tears blur my vision. I blink them away, because if I miss a single word, a single gesture, I might go insane. I’m vaguely aware of Arsen sitting next to me, just close enough for some of his warmth to leach into me.
“ Arsen convinced me this was a good idea ,” she says. “ And now that I’m doing it, I think he’s right. I’m glad I get to speak to you. It’s nice to know that, just because a person dies, it doesn’t mean they’re gone. Because I love you, my darling daughter. I always have and always will. Mourn and cry now, and then move on. Life’s too short to spend it being sad. I’m ready for my next adventure. I want you to be open to yours as well. ”
The video cuts off, and I only realize now that Arsen’s arms are wrapped around me. He’s squeezing me tightly like he might be able to keep my tears at bay. But they’re already flowing, already drowning me in a grief I can’t see my way out of.
“It was your idea?” I finally rasp. He nods and I ask, “Why?”
“Because I wanted you to have a piece of her. I wanted to be able to salvage something for you. And for Nina. So that you both have something to look back on.”
Suddenly, my throat feels desert-dry again. I bite into my lip so hard I feel it split. Then I push his arm off me and rise to my feet.
“You wanted to salvage something?” I repeat. “You’re the one who took it in the first place! You robbed me of three whole months with my mother!”
He flinches, his eyes darkening. “ Roza ?—”
“I wouldn’t need a video of my dead mother if you had given us those three months. She could have said all that to my face! I could have held her hand while she said it. I c-c-could have… She c-could have…”
I don’t know what to do with all the emotion raging around inside of me. It feels like a beast I can’t control.
No. No, it feels like a beast I don’t want to control.
On a whim, I grab the vase sitting next to the sofa and send it crashing to the floor in front of my feet.
The way it shatters—the control it gives me—feels so damn good that I keep going. I grab anything within my reach and hurl it at the floor. Within minutes, broken glass and porcelain litters the tile around me, but I embrace this mad fury unfurling in the center of my chest.
And I reach for something else.
More.
More.
More.
I want to keep going until the world looks the way I feel.
Arsen doesn’t once try to stop me.