Ana in the fetal position on the living room floor. She was wearing my robe.
“Are you okay?” I asked because I had to.
“Storm,” she groaned. She was shivering.
“Do you want a blanket?” I was already taking one off the couch and spreading it over her. A mother’s instinct. I couldn’t help it. She needed me. She was dying.
“Celia’s pissed.” The sides of her lips curling up. Her eyelids fluttering closed. She was wearing the black wig with the pink streak again. “This storm is for us.”
For you, I wanted to say. It’s for you.
“But what she doesn’t realize is that she’s washing any evidence away.” Ana pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Stupid bitch.”
“They’re going to find him, Ana.”
“I know,” she said.
Portico’s shrine tank on the coffee table. With Rice Krispies in it now. Next to the tank the remote. “Don’t do it,” she said.
But I had to. I turned the TV on. I flipped through the channels. First slow, then fast. I went through all of them. Nothing. I went through again. “Mute, please,” she said, and I muted it for her.
“Tea, please. Can you make me tea? And Red Vines. Two standing up in a jar.”
“A jar?”
“Pleeease.”
I made the tea. I found a jar for her Red Vines. On the counter a note from the boys. Mom and Ana, Have a GREAT day doing yoga. Can we make dinner tonight?
They had never left me a note like this before. But now, on this day of all days, a note? I didn’t deserve this. How happy they were, how happily unaware—I wanted to cry, but I was too numb to cry. The cold metal feeling of shock, the fuzzy hangover of the pills. How would we make dinner together? How would I possibly get through that? How would I get through anything now? It seemed impossible.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I told her. My best friend, my soul sister, my support system, curled up on the ground like a baby. I set the tea and the jar of Red Vines on the carpet next to her hands.
“You can,” she whispered.
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t.” I scrunched my hair and tugged it. It felt good to feel something. “But there’s no way out. I don’t see a way out.”
“The only way out is death,” Ana said, more voice in her now.
“What am I going to do?” I tugged my hair harder. I paced faster. “I can’t kill myself.”
“No,” she said. Did she chuckle? “Then you would be your mother.”
I stopped. “What did you say?”
Ana rolled her eyes like I was being dramatic. “Didn’t your mother kill herself??”
Fuck you! I wanted to kick her. But she was dying. And she was right.
My mother. Dead in her smelly chair. Wine spills on the carpet. They looked like birthmarks. How it reeked. How her hair had frozen around her face. The organization of her table. How she handled the things she loved with such care. Wine cups in a stack. The pack of red straws. Trash can by her feet. Orange bottles in a row.
Ana, propped on her elbow, was studying me. The feeling of being laid bare. What was it that she understood about me? And why the hell did I care? I wanted her to look away.
“Tell me again,” she said, “what happened to your mother.”
“I told you already,” I said.
“Can you tell me again, please?” Her eyes like a doe.
I tried to calm down. “Overdose,” I said evenly.
“In her chair,” Ana said slowly.
“Yes, in her chair. She died in her chair watching soaps and drinking red wine from a box, and she took too many pills and fucking overdosed and died, okay?” And then I lost it. “Fuck! Why are you asking me about this right now?”
Ana stretched her neck. She was making me wait. She stretched to the right and then she stretched to the left. Then her eyes settled back on me. A flash passed across them. “Last time, you said it was white wine.”
My shoulders locked. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. “White, red, who fucking cares! Fuck, Ana!”
She blinked. “Interesting” was all she said.
My whole body was vibrating. I was going to explode. Calm down, Nancy. Breathe.
Ana stirred her tea with her finger. It was still steaming. “I’ve never seen you so emotional,” she said.
I made my voice toneless, vacant. “Of course I’m emotional,” I said.
This hollow version of Nancy no longer interested her. Her eyes wandered to the TV. She took a sip of her tea. And then she said, “Look.”
On the screen was Peter’s face. Peter smiling on a sunny day with a toothpick in his teeth. Over his chest his name appeared: PETER TACKMAN. I fumbled for the remote. I pressed the mute button right in time for the newscaster to say, “If you have any information, please call this number.”
“That means they have nothing,” Ana said.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Oh my God, Ana. Oh my God!”
“Oh my free will,” she corrected.
I was defiant. “Oh my God.”
She rolled onto her back like a lazy dog. “The boys want to cook with us tonight. Isn’t that adorable?”
“I’m going to say no. They can go out tonight.”
She bit her finger. “I already told them yes.”
“You already told them yes?”
“You were sleeping,” she said. She winked at me. “I like playing Mom. It’s fun.”
“Oh my God,” I said, just to piss her off.
“Plus, we should act normal right now. We shouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary.”
I knew she was right. This was when we put on our costumes. This was when the charade began. This part was even worse than the crime itself, because it would have to go on forever.
“Nan,” she cooed. “Are you mad? Don’t waste your time being mad. Plus, you can’t be mad at me.” Her sad puppy eyes. Her overdone frown. Like she was taunting me. “I’m dying.”
?
The storm didn’t stop. A tree fell straight across the driveway so we couldn’t leave. I called the tree service. No one picked up. Ana was fine and then she wasn’t fine and then she was fine again. “I’m weakening,” she said, “but it’s not over yet.” She kept asking me to get her things. She was trying to keep me close because she could feel me wanting to get away. Can I have more tea, please? Can I have more Red Vines, please? Nan, can you make me a peanut butter sandwich? You make the best peanut butter sandwiches. Pleeease?
She didn’t eat the sandwich. She barely looked at it.
I said, “You’re not eating.”
She pouted. “Because I can tell you didn’t make that sandwich with love.”
She was dying so I had to be nice. She was dying so I had to refill her tea again and again and again. So many times I began to wonder if she was just pushing me to see how far I would go. She would take three sips and say, “Can you put in a little more hot water, please?” She finally got off the floor and moved to the couch. Her used tea bags—she tossed them into Portico’s tank.
I said, “We should put that outside soon. It’s starting to smell.”