The next morning, Mother falls over while she’s wiping up crumbs from breakfast. Father is sleeping on the floor by the front door, reeking of wine. When Caitlin runs over to help her, Mother mumbles, “There, there, dear,” and her nose starts bleeding.
Mother is too big for her to carry. Caitlin pushes, pulls, and coaxes her into the bedroom, where Mother falls onto the bed and starts coughing. Mother never goes to bed dressed, so Caitlin pulls the dress over her head and leaves her naked and shaking. The warmest blanket is in Caitlin’s room; she runs for it and throws it over Mother’s trembling body, but Mother casts it off her. “It’s cold,” Caitlin tells her. “You’re naked.” Caitlin has curled up before to Mother’s body in the night many times, but never seen her without clothes in the daylight. There are silvery stripes crawling up her belly, and her breasts are sagging and soft like barely cooked eggs. She’s missing a patch of hair between her legs, the skin covered by a smooth pink scar. Mother has bruises too, in places people can’t see. Caitlin tries to pull the blanket over her again.
“It’s hot,” says Mother. “I need water.”
The cistern in the kitchen is empty, so Caitlin runs and scoops some from the rain barrel. Mother tries to drink it, but most of it spills down her chest. “Ah,” she says, as if refreshed, and then falls asleep. Caitlin remembers hearing somewhere that you shouldn’t let a sick person sleep, so she shakes and pokes her. Mother only frowns and continues sleeping, her eyeballs rolling back and forth under purple eyelids. Her nosebleed has stopped, the blood smeared on her upper lip like dried mud. Her body is covered in a thin sheen of sweat that seems to glow.
Caitlin considers going down to wake Father, but immediately abandons the idea. Waking Father when he’s sleeping on the floor never ends well. She puts the blanket over Mother again and then brings over a cold cloth to lay on her forehead. Mother bats it away, and Caitlin starts to cry. Mother always knows what to do when Caitlin is sick, but now Caitlin can’t remember any of it. Her head hurts.
Crawling into bed, Caitlin puts an arm over Mother’s chest and falls asleep there. When she wakes a few hours later, her bones are twisting and cracking and it’s become a snowy winter. She crawls down beneath the blanket by Mother’s feet, curling herself into a ball. When she opens her eyes, the dust on Mother’s soles dances and sparks. Caitlin flexes her fingers and then crunches them into fists, trying to relieve the pain. Needles of frost prick her skin. Gasping, she chokes on a sea of warm slime ascending her throat. She falls asleep coughing.
On waking, there is cold water trickling into her mouth. It’s hard to swallow around all the coughing, but the water feels wonderful. She sees a wavering face above her and tilts her head from side to side to figure out who it is. The face swims into focus as Father. Caitlin chokes on the water and starts coughing harder. Using her elbows, she drags herself under the covers, coughing and spitting and coughing more. Her feet feel naked in the cold air, and she wonders if Father will cut them off. Her face is next to burning branches, and she gropes them curiously until realizing they are Mother’s legs. As she wriggles upward to see her, the world gets blurry and she falls asleep again. She wakes up on top of the blankets, shaking and coughing again, an old song. Inhaling is a battle, like someone is holding a pillow over her face, and she wonders if Father is trying to kill her. Perhaps this is her punishment for running away. “Mother!” she screams, but it comes out as a hoarse growl. She can’t get the breath to call out again. Grabbing her ribs with her hands, she pumps them to make herself breathe faster.
Then she is at the foot of the bed, and Mother is up and well, wearing a lovely blue dress. Mother holds out a spoon and says, “I made you some jam, since you were very good.” Caitlin doesn’t want jam, but she wants Mother. She leans in and water goes down her throat again. Gagging, Caitlin keeps swallowing, feeling her stomach turn delightfully icy. “That’s good,” says Mother, but her voice is rough and deep. Then she disappears, and Caitlin rolls over to find Mother in the bed next to her, asleep. Where is the blue dress? Another coughing fit comes, and everything goes black. Caitlin is asleep, but she can still feel herself coughing. Someone has put her in a hot bath, but it’s still summer and she should be outside in the mud. “I don’t want to wash my hair,” she whispers, and then shudders so hard she’s afraid her bones will snap. “Help!” She gags, smelling Father behind her. She tries to run, but trips over Mother and falls off the bed. “Help! Help!” she keeps saying, until Mother puts cool clothes on her and sings. “Away, past the shore,” she croons, “I will meet my evermore.” Caitlin doesn’t know that song. Breathing becomes easier, and Caitlin lets her head fall on Mother’s cool breast.
Chapter Forty-Six
Vanessa
When school is canceled, Vanessa takes the opportunity to hide in Father’s library, carefully turning pages and drinking in the words of her favorite books. Her pleasure is soon overcome by sick guilt, however, that she’s somehow profiting from death. Father hasn’t mentioned their night meeting in the library and seems so nonchalant that Vanessa wonders if it was a particularly lucid dream. He goes to meet with the wanderers every morning, bringing back names of the dead. And in every heavy deposit of death, there are names of girls she once knew, played with, hated, ignored. So many names. Vanessa puts down the books and takes to her bed.
She discovers that grief is a liquid. It passes thickly down her throat as she drinks water and pools soggily around her food. It flows through her veins, dark and heavy, and fills the cavities of her bones until they weigh so much she can barely lift her head. It coats her skin like a slick of fat, moving and swirling over her eyes, turning their clear surfaces to dull gray. At night, it rises up from the floor silently until she feels it seep into the bedclothes, lick at her heels and elbows and throat, thrust upward like a rising tide that will drown her in sorrow.