Chapter 51
“I need you to leave,” I say, the next time my mother shows up in my studio.
I’m about to start on the section where I’m sure to find the subject’s eyes, and I want complete silence. No further distractions. I can’t focus with her here. More than that, I don’t want to have to justify this apparition of my long-departed mother anymore.
“Mathilde, I’m only trying to help,” she replies, in my mother’s voice.
It’s so exact today, it’s heartbreaking.
I glance toward her, noting she’s turned.
Or at least her head has. I see her face, her slight frown.
But I also see her back, her palms facing me.
It’s discombobulating and makes me feel ill.
Still, I force myself to keep my eyes on her face.
“I don’t know who you are, or why you’re here—maybe I am sick, who knows.” I mumble the last part, mostly to myself. Shake my head. “But you can’t be here. I don’t want you here. Leave, please.”
She smiles, and it’s my mother’s smile. A sharp pain fills my chest.
“I shouldn’t leave, Mathilde. We’re too close,” she says.
“Close to what?” I ask, impatient as I set my cotton-tipped swab down on my thigh. My heart rate beats steadily, but I know it’s increasing the longer I look at her. Sure enough, my watch buzzes and I quickly glance down to hit the OK button, promising to do breath work.
“Close to what?” I ask again, looking up at her.
But she’s not there. The corner of the studio is empty.
“Mom?” I call out quietly. Turning around on the stool, looking for her, I even check under the workbench, in case she’s lying underneath it—where I found her yesterday, face down and body up.
My studio is silent, eerily so. “Mom, are you here?”
Again, no response. But I notice something else. The room feels…lighter. As though a refreshing early-spring breeze has come through the windows, clearing out the stale indoor air. I take a deep breath, then let it out.
She’s gone.
—
A week later there’s still no sign of my mother. I can’t see her, I can’t hear her, I can’t feel her. I’m both thankful and heartsick.
I’ve also uncovered the subject’s eyes, which are closed as though she’s asleep.
There are delicate purplish veins on the eyelids.
Long, beautiful lashes that surprisingly contain feathery moth antennae.
I announce this discovery out loud. “Mom, you won’t believe what I found in the…
” My voice trailing off when I remember I’m alone in the studio.
On the next garbage day I toss the journal tracking her visits.
I’m steadier now, and the compulsion to count down the days of the pregnancy has left me.
I try to destroy the pages first, wishing to tear them into illegible pieces, before recalling the paper is rip-proof.
That’s a weird glitch, I think, because water- and rip-proof paper is a long-ago innovation.
An odd oversight on my part. Baby brain, I surmise.
“You’re nesting,” Shelby tells me, when I make tea with my mom’s kettle, becoming emotional for reasons I choose not to share with my mother-in-law.
“I went through the same thing, Tilly, around the same point in my pregnancies. I also made chicken and dumplings every day—it’s all I ate for weeks! Insatiable craving for it.”
She smiles then, dipping her tea bag in and out by the string. “I believe the past nurtures us when we’re getting ready to welcome the future.” It’s a lovely sentiment, and I’m comforted by it.
After finishing my tea, I check in with Clementine.
“How was your sleep, honey?” I ask, as we’re packing her bag for school.
“Good,” she replies, tucking her hydration pack into the backpack. “Last night I had a dream I was a mermaid. In the ocean. It was fun to be able to breathe underwater, and my tail was so sparkly.”
She hasn’t mentioned my mother in weeks. I wonder if she remembers the nightmares. I don’t bring them up for fear I’ll spark a regression.
Everything seems fine, and soon enough I begin to trust it is.