by Wiess, Laura
I was so shocked by the news that I couldn’t think of anything to ask, and so I just followed them back to the front desk and waited while the receptionist made my mother an appointment two days later at the closest transplant hospital, which was over sixty miles away.
I had no idea how we were going to get there. My mother didn’t have a car, and even if she did, she was in no shape to drive. I didn’t have a car or a license. Candy was on the day shift and needed her car. Marisol was an option, but when I got to work and asked her, she said she was working double shifts and couldn’t do it. Sullivan didn’t have any commuter buses, only the little blue-and-white senior citizen bus that went to the grocery store and the bank. We didn’t have any train stations, either. For that I’d have to get my mother out to Wilkes-Barre or Scranton, which was just as impossible.
I called Carter, my old boyfriend, prepared to beg, but it turned out he was in Colorado and didn’t really want to prolong the conversation. Called two of his friends, but they were unavailable. Called Bowden, a guy from school who I thought might like me, but his parents were on his case about all the days he’d cut out of school already, and so he didn’t dare do it again.
Finally, in complete desperation I took my mother’s cell phone and scrolled through the numbers, asking Bobby Fee, who said a flat-out no because she still owed him for some product she’d stolen years ago, a phone number for Harlow that was disconnected, and a woman my mother used to party with whose kid told me she was in jail.
I looked at my mother, pale, emaciated, slumped and snoring on the couch, and then back down at the phone, scrolling up to the one number I really hadn’t wanted to call.
Buck.
But I did, and he said fine after I told him I’d give him gas money and a little something to cover his time, and so two days later I took off from school again, loaded my surly, hungover mother into the front of Buck’s SUV, and drove sixty-eight miles down to the huge, clean, bustling hospital where we met with the transplant team, a very kind and serious group of doctors, and where my mother, scornful and sarcastic, willfully destroyed any chance she might have had to get on that list.
“Why did you do that?” I cried on the walk out, violating all the rules and taking my mother’s arm in a desperate, bewildered gesture. “What is WRONG with you? That was your only chance, Mom, and you blew it on purpose! Why?”
“Because who the fuck do they think they are, telling me how to live? God? ‘We don’t give livers to addicts, Ms. Huff.’ Where the hell do they get off talking to me like that? Self-righteous bastards.”
“Mom, they told you the chance of the transplant failing is a lot higher for an addict and they don’t have enough donated livers as it is, but if you just got sober again—”
“Shut up and get off me,” she snapped, wrenching her arm away and trudging straight out the hospital door.
I was furious on that ride home, madder than I’d ever been at her, disgusted with myself for scrambling so hard to get her there, for missing school and wasting my hard-earned money on Buck, for beating my head against the wall over and over and over again for a woman who did not give a shit whether I lived or died, or whether she did, either. I was so mad that I didn’t say a word for the rest of the night. The next day I woke up still angry, and it was hard to spend the day smiling and busing tables with that resentment smoldering in my veins, burning deeper and deeper, the hot ash igniting layer after layer of old anger built up inside me.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was heading for a meltdown.
The Explosion
WE MIGHT HAVE MADE IT THROUGH Christmas if my mother hadn’t gone and stolen the wad of tip money I’d hidden under the couch, and spent it all on pills, because when I woke up and found it gone, and saw the big plastic bag of Vicodin set square in the center of the kitchen table, and my mother passed out in her bed, I flipped. I threw on my clothes, grabbed that bag and my coat, and stormed all the way down to Buck’s, who just shrugged like he knew he’d be selling them back to me in a couple of days and gave me my money back.
I stayed down at the library all day, steaming, knowing my mother would wake up in the afternoon and go right for her pills, and when she found them missing would freak and have to find a way to replace them on her own. I knew that if I waited long enough she would pass out again and maybe Candy would, too, so I stayed out till late and when I got back to the cabin, they were both laid out and snoring.
I avoided them for the next couple of days, so angry and disgusted I couldn’t even stand to look at them, but on Wednesday night, a week before Christmas, when Candy was out helping one of the woodcutters deliver cords of firewood to people who could afford to buy them, and it was just me and my mother alone in the cabin, it all came to a head.
It was my night off work, and I was sitting at the table trying to finish my homework before winter break. My mother was lying on the couch under a blanket, muttering, twitching, and giving me the evil eye.
“Where the fuck do you get off taking back my pills?” she croaked suddenly. “Those were mine, and you had no right to touch them. I’m in a lot of pain here. You think this is gonna do it?” She picked up the ten or so pills left in the little plastic bag next to her on the end table and shook it. “This won’t even get me through tonight.”
I shrugged and kept writing.
“Wrong answer, genius. Now get your ass out there and get my goddamn pills back.”
I caught my breath, went still for one shocked heartbeat, and then shook my head and tried to keep writing but my hand was trembling and the answers weren’t making sense anymore.
“Goddamnit.” She pushed off the blanket and eased her awful, stick-figure legs down onto the floor. “You’re really pissing me off, Sayre. I don’t need this shit tonight. Now go back there and get my pills!”
“No,” I said quietly as the simmering anger flickered, then burst into flame. “It’s done, Mom. I’m not getting you any more pills. The doctor said you shouldn’t—”
“Fuck the doctor. He’s as useless as you are. The two of you can go straight to—”
“NO!” I pushed away from the table and stood up, shoved my chair back so hard it fell over and the crash was huge, damaging, and irreversible and I did . . . not . . . care. I crossed into the living room in one stride, fury unleashed, and stood over her, fierce and unstoppable. “Stop it! Just stop it! What is WRONG with you? If I had a daughter I would never, ever treat her like this! I would love her and protect her and take care of her every single day, Mom, the way you’re supposed to, so no, you’re not going to talk to me like that anymore, do you hear me? I’m your daughter and you’re not going to treat me like some piece of—”
“Wrong again,” my mother said in a cold, flat drawl, and staring up at me with mocking, bloodshot eyes. “I’ll treat you any way I want, and if you don’t like it you can get the fuck out of here right now.” She cocked an eyebrow, her lip curled in derision. “What do you think of that, genius?”
It was the genius that did it.
“You are so stupid !” I shouted and when she drew back, shocked, it only infuriated me even more. “You make fun of me for being smart but look at you! Look! You’re disgusting. You smell. You live in a dump. You can’t hold a job, you don’t have any money, it’s just you and Candy getting high every day, every night, like it’s the only thing in the world! You never go anywhere or do anything. God, you’re so screwed up that you can’t even go to the bathroom anymore, and you’re making fun of me?”
“You better shut your mouth, little girl,” my mother growled, leaning forward again. “Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to me like that?”
“Are you kidding?” I cried wildly, the words surging in an unstoppable torrent. “You talk to me like that every day! You don’t care if you hurt me, you never have. All you ever do is blame your shit life on me, like I ruined it just by being bo
rn, but I never did anything against you, ever, and I could have, you know. I could have done a lot, but I didn’t because you’re my mother and I kept thinking that meant something but I guess it didn’t. Not to you.” I stood there and watched as she grabbed onto the arm of the couch and struggled to rise. “I didn’t ruin your life, Mom. You did it to yourself and you didn’t even care that it wasn’t just you, it was me, too. You wrecked it for me, too. God, we had everything, do you understand that? We had everything up on that mountain—”
“That’s it!” my mother yelled, abandoning her attempt to rise. “Goddamnit, you shut your mouth now or I swear to Christ I’ll shut it for you.” She pushed her hair out of her eyes and glared at me with venom and fury and just a hint of panic. “You know what I said about that.”
“About what?” I said, staring right back at her. “Oh, you mean about when you were sober and fell in love and we moved up into the farmhouse—”
“Sayre,” my mother warned, breathing faster.
“—with Aunt Loretta and Beale—”
“Shut up,” she ground out.
“—and you got pregnant—”
“I swear to God if you don’t stop, I’m going to kill you,” she said, voice rising.
“—and Beale gave you Aunt Loretta’s amethyst promise ring because he wanted to marry you—”
My mother grabbed her bag of pills and threw it at me.
I sidestepped and heard it hit the wall. “—and then Ellie was born—”
“Motherfucker,” she swore, pushing herself off the couch and pitching toward me, arms flailing and lips pulled back in a snarl.
I didn’t move, didn’t duck or run or cringe, no, not this time and not anymore. Her first slap caught me across the face, rocking my head back and making my eyes tear, and then she grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me sideways, panting and swearing from the effort and I was so enraged that I almost hit her back, but I didn’t, only grabbed her wrists and dragged her hand out of my hair, her fingers raking strands out with them, twisted away and got behind her, locked my arms around her like a vise and hung on while she writhed and cursed, kicked at my shins with her bare feet and bashed her head back against my collarbone, stomped and pinched and tried to bite me, until finally, exhausted, she just went limp.
“Let me go,” she grunted, panting.
“Not yet.” I stood there breathless, heart pounding, holding her, hating her, and in a low, ragged rush, said, “We had everything up there at the farm, Mom, everything in the whole world. I had a real home and a family who loved me and I was happy, and so were you, I saw it, and I just don’t understand why you had to go and start drinking again.” I tightened my arms around her, hard. “You knew you weren’t supposed to but you went and did it anyway, and I knew you were, I smelled it on you and I should have told someone but I never did because I was afraid it would ruin everything, and then when Ellie . . . after Ellie . . .” My voice shook. “Why did you leave him like that, Mom? Why did you have to steal from him? Why did you want to hurt him so bad when he was already in agony? Because he made you happy and you just couldn’t stand it? Well, what about me?” I let go of her then, shoved her away from me, wiped the feel of her from my arms, and watched as she lurched over and fell onto the couch. “He was the closest thing to a father I ever had. Do you know what that did to me? Did you ever think that maybe I loved him, and would have liked to see him every once in a while, instead of making sure he would never even want to see me again? God, I used to pray every night that he would come and knock on this door looking for me.” Head splitting, I shoved my damp, tangled hair from my eyes. “I would have given anything for that, and it killed me when he never did. Did you ever think about that, Mom? Did you ever think about anything at all besides yourself?”
My mother made a strange, strangled sound, then pushed herself upright on the couch, looked at me, and started to laugh.
“What?” I said, unnerved because it was an ugly humor, harsh, hissing, and weirdly triumphant, and the glee in her eyes was far too sudden and bright. “What’s so funny?”
“You are,” she said, pulling the rumpled blanket out from under her and spreading it across her lap. “You sound just like my mother.” She laughed again and shook her head, as if the similarity was just too much, and when she stopped laughing the viciousness in her gaze nailed me to the wall. “I think maybe it’s time for me to let you in on a few things, genius.” She leaned forward, her glittering gaze riveted to my face. “He did come looking for you, four, maybe even five, times. How do you like that? Stood right out there on the porch while you were at school, looking all hurt and depressed, wanting to know how you were doing and if you needed anything.”
My jaw dropped and I stared at her, unable to breathe.
“You know what I told him?” She settled back on the couch, her smile sly with malice. “I told him to get his ass off this property, that it was over, and you didn’t want shit from him anymore, but he didn’t want to hear it. He kept coming out and bringing you stuff, and the last time he came he was gonna wait till you got home and see you for himself but I told him straight out that you weren’t his business anymore and there was something really fucked up about a grown man chasing after a pretty little girl—”
“No,” I whispered as my knees gave out and I slid down the wall in a heap.
“—and that if he ever came sniffing around you again, whether it was here or anywhere else, I’d call the sheriff and report him for—”
“No,” I moaned, doubling over. “Oh my God . . .”
“—fucking with you.”
“No! You know he wasn’t like that!” I scrambled to my feet, saw her watching me and smiling, and I just couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe what she’d said and done, couldn’t believe he’d actually searched for me, come for me, and she’d turned it into something so unthinkable and disgusting. Couldn’t believe I was still standing here, in this room with her. “You’re sick, Mom, you really are, and I can’t even stand to look at you anymore. You deserve what you get, so go ahead, hate me some more, do whatever you want, because I don’t care. Merry Christmas. You’re finally getting your wish. I’m out of here for good.”
“Good,” she said, shrugging and turning her face away from me. “Go.”
“I will,” I said, and I did.
Those were our last words to each other.
Chapter 26
“WE HAD EVERYTHING, MOM,” I MUMBLE, drifting in a thick haze, caught in the shadow land between asleep and awake.
Something brushes across my arm once, twice, three times in a light sweep, then settles down over my hand, trembles against my skin, fingers curved and clinging to me, the grip weak, not tight but with a feeling of final, mustered determination and somehow I understand that it can’t stay long.
I don’t want it to leave, though; deep inside I have waited forever for this moment and it’s finally come, finally found me, like a battered, faded, end-of-summer butterfly, flitting, lighting, leaving, and returning again to sit quietly as its strength is slowly sapped and its wings forever stilled.
But for now, right now, its quivering warmth is mine.
I hear the faintest whisper— “Saa . . . Saa . . . Saayyre . . .” —and still drowsing I mumble, “I’m here,” because I know what it wants, it wants sanctuary, and I pull the soft, ruby velvet blazer closer so the intricate, Queen Anne’s lace embroidery touches both our hands.
Our hands.
I open my eyes, groggy, and stare at the ceiling.
The light is different.
It’s morning.
I talked all night.
I lay there a moment, puzzled, trying to gauge how I feel because . . .
I feel calm. Peaceful.
I feel all right.
And someone is holding my hand.
I lift my head, only my head, and
stare down at my hand resting on my stomach, and at my mother’s hand, covering mine.
It takes a moment to sink in.
She’d reached for me.
I look over at her, see her eyelids fluttering, her lips moving. Lean closer, and hear a faint, hitched, “Say . . . Sayre . . . Sayre . . .” I murmur, “What, Mom?” and her lids flutter faster, her brow wrinkles like she’s in pain, and her trembling fingers twitch then tighten around mine. On a quavering exhale, she whispers, “Sor . . . ry.”
And then she deflates, as if saying it cost all that she had left, and as she sinks back into her world I stroke her forehead and kiss her cheek, stay close beside her because she is my mother and I am her daughter, and this is our bond, whittled down to its purest form, its only form, and so with my lips still pressed against her skin I whisper, “Love you, ’bye,” and slipping my hand out from beneath the diminished weight of hers, I get off the bed and, taking my bags and the ruby velvet jacket with me, go down the hall to the waiting room.
Candy is still there, red-eyed and grief stricken.
“Go ahead in,” I tell her.
She rises slowly from her chair as if terrified and says, “Is she . . . ?”
“Not yet,” I say, “but soon. Go ahead.”
Candy chokes on a sob and rushes past me.
I turn and stare out the window into the cold, gray morning. The air is still, the sky opaque with snow clouds, heavy and on the brink. It’s New Year’s Eve and I will end the year as an orphan. A ward of the state. A person with no parents, no car, no money, no one to call, and nowhere to go. A person with no idea what to do next.
A snowflake drifts past the window, then another and another.
I watch them fall, dozens and then hundreds, thousands, all fat, white, and fluffy, lacy like the embroidery on the ruby velvet blazer, my blazer now, and so I put it on, pull the soft velvet close around me and I can see by my reflection in the window that it fits, it suits me. I nod at the Sayre gazing back, and we exchange small, crooked smiles. Take a deep breath, turn, and gather up my stuff because there’s a beverage station across the waiting room and I’m hoping the coffee is free so I can—
