“You—? It was you? But why? I thought you loved them. I—”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t why I—I just …” Her eyes pleaded with me. “I think I just … I just wanted to be a good neighbor.”
“What does that mean?”
But she couldn’t answer. She was gone, withdrawn into her own world.
“Mama?”
She turned from me, wringing her hands.
“I … I know I can’t bring them back,” she said, “but I’m gonna make it right. I’m gonna make it right.” She kept saying that. She wouldn’t talk to me except to say that.
I was so hurt and angry, I didn’t know what to do. How could she have done something like that—that hateful? Kill two helpless cats? Cats she loved? And how could she ever think she could make it right? I didn’t want to be around her. I had to get out of there. I grabbed up my coat and my bag, fled down the hall and out the door.
I walked for hours, wondering what I was doing with my life. And I didn’t go home that night. I stayed with a friend, trying to swallow the anger, trying to understand. I so wanted to move out. But I was trapped. I couldn’t afford another apartment, and she couldn’t live on her own. We were stuck in that apartment together, with the stench and the mold and the mice.
I took another step back. Here I was, a grown woman, and all I could think about was running away from home. How crazy was that? All night I thought about it. By morning, I was exhausted, but I had decided.
No matter what, she was my mother and I loved her. As long as she was staying, so was I.
Coming up the hill from the train station, I saw police cars, an ambulance, and a crowd standing outside our building. It was my mother. I just knew it was my mother. She had fallen or had some other mishap, and I hadn’t been there to help her.
I ran the last few yards to the house and pushed my way through. The lobby was packed with neighbors and cops telling them to get back.
“You’ve gotta let me through,” I cried. “I’m her daughter! Her daughter!”
The cop gave me a strange look and asked me what apartment I lived in.
“Twenty-four.”
“That’s not the one.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and that’s when I saw what I would’ve seen to begin with if I hadn’t been so panicked.
Milford’s apartment door stood open. A paramedic came out, stripping off his rubber gloves. He said something to one of the cops. I couldn’t read his lips. I didn’t have to. His expression said it all.
“What happened?” I asked the cop.
“Did you know him?”
“Sort of. I mean, yeah. He’s my neighbor.” I glanced back at the open apartment door. They were carrying Milford out on a stretcher, in a body bag.
I couldn’t believe it. Milford, dead?
“What happened?” I asked again.
“We don’t know yet. But look,” he said, “why don’t you give me your name and apartment number in case we need to talk to the neighbors.”
“Sure,” I said, and gave him the info. “Now, look, I really need to get upstairs. My mom’s up there. She’s old, and frail, and she needs me. I—”
“Okay. Fine. Just make sure you go straight up.”
“I will.”
Later, I’d remember sensing an odd emptiness, a telltale stillness the moment I let myself in. But at the time, all I could think about was sharing the news about Milford.
“Mama?! Hey, Mama!”
No answer. I checked her bedroom, which was right next to the front door, didn’t see her, and ran down the hallway, calling out for her. The bathroom door was open. She wasn’t in there. Not in the kitchen either.
But she was in the living room, sitting in her rocking chair. Her eyes were closed, as though she had fallen asleep, and loosely clasped to her breast, in hands gone slack, was a photograph.
“Mama?”
There was no answer.
“Mama?”
That night, after they had taken her away, I sank down on the sofa. Unable to think. Unable to cry. All I could think about was how she had died alone. Despite all my efforts, all my promises to be there for her, in the end I had left her to die alone. And I kept seeing her, clasping that picture, an image of her in her rocking chair, smiling, holding two plump cats, Dizzy and Gillespie, one under each arm. I had taken pictures of her and pictures of the cats, but none together.
Finally, I dragged myself to bed. I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t fall asleep. After about an hour, I got up and went down the hall to Mama’s room.
The door was closed. I paused, took a deep breath, then gripped the doorknob and went in. I don’t know what I expected—or what I feared—but whatever it was, it didn’t happen. I didn’t break down. I didn’t shed a tear. I was too wound up for it, and maybe too afraid to let go.