Her voice rose, and Niko patted her thigh, making the low bear-cub rumble that meant annoyance or concern. Lina leaned against her for a moment, taking a deep breath and releasing it in a shuddering rush. My insides folded against each other; I wouldn’t be able to tell her about Dunja yet. She needed to know, and I needed her thoughts, but she was too delicate right now. I’d have to hold that on my own for at least a little longer.
“I’m fine, really,” she said to Niko, scooching away slightly. “I’ve got it now. Anyway, Riss, she came back maybe an hour or so later, and she just looked—I don’t know. Beside herself, but all hollow. Like someone had died or something. So then she went into the larder and poured herself a glass—”
“Not a shot glass, but a glass-glass?”
“An actual glass. Two-thirds of the way up, like she was pouring water, and then she just drank it down in one go. I swear, she barely even flinched.” She giggled wetly. “After that she just swiped the whole rakija bottle, like, to hell with this. It was actually pretty funny. I told her she was embarrassing us in front of the customers and then made her come home with me.”
“You told her—you made her come home with you?”
“It wasn’t so hard. She was getting a bit weirdly lovey by then.” Her lips trembled. “It’s all dissonance, like she . . . like she doesn’t know her own mind?”
“Okay, then.” I gritted my teeth. “I’m going to go see her. Why don’t you stay with Niko, bunny.”
She shook her head. “I’m coming with you. It’s bad enough I just left her in there in the first place.”
“Are you sure?” Niko murmured. “Iris can handle this, whatever it is. You could come home with me, sleep over tonight if you wanted.”
“No, you go on, I’ll see you tomorrow?” She looked back at me, teeth sinking into the notches of her lower lip. “You’re not some conquering hero, Riss. It shouldn’t always be just you when things get ugly, you know?”
THE PUNGENT BLISTER of liquor struck me as soon as we crossed our threshold. It was rakija, for sure; nothing else smelled both so sharp and foul. I assumed there were expensive brands that were probably smoother than anything I’d ever sampled, but from the smell of it, Mama hadn’t been indulging in anything particularly top-shelf. Beside me, Malina nearly gagged, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth.
“See?” she choked out. “It’s like you this morning. If all the air everywhere was made of your breath.”
I ignored her. “Mama?” I called out, peering into the kitchen. Empty.
“Iris? That you?”
A wave of chills swept down my spine; I almost didn’t recognize her voice. Underneath the slur, there was something else, a note of pleading I’d never heard from Mama before.
Another “Iris?” floated out, followed by a genuinely pitiful little moan. Lina and I exchanged a wide-eyed “oh shit” look before I laced my fingers with hers and followed Mama’s voice to her bedroom, Lina trailing behind me.
I gently pushed the door open, peering around it. Mama’s room was bigger than ours, but not by much, dominated by her sleigh bed. I lifted my gaze to the nook beneath her window, and my heart gave a hiccup—there she was, back against the wall and knees drawn up to her chin, her gray sheath ridden up so high I could see the long, tempered muscle of her thigh.
I let go of Lina’s hand and slid between the footboard and the armoire, perching on the edge of the bed. Mama looked up at me wide-eyed, her face pale and salty-streaked with tears. She seemed so achingly young that I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with sympathy, a corkscrew twisting in my center. With her hair tangled and undone, dark as baker’s chocolate and so long it nearly reached her waist, I suddenly remembered that Mama—the villain and the wicked witch, the stepmother who’d had the misfortune of actually bearing her unwanted offspring—was barely thirty-six years old.
“How are you doing?” I said, trying to remember the last time I’d spoken to her so gently. “I think maybe you need some water.”
She shook her head once, like a decisive toddler. “No water.” Squinting one eye shut, she reached down and groped around the floor beneath the alcove. “Was a bottle there . . .”
“I think that’s all gone now. Why don’t we—”
I went rigid as she wrapped her fingers around my wrist, tugging at me until I stood from the bed, practically looming above her. Her face turned so soft as it tilted up toward mine that I barely recognized my own mother.
“Iris . . . ,” she murmured, stroking the inside of my wrist. Her eyes filled with tears, like water rushing over a frozen pond, and her face crumpled. “My hibiscus daughter. Why . . .” She shook her head and swallowed. “Why did you have to grow up so strong? Why did you have to make it so hard?”
With that, her arms circled me, locking around my waist, and she buried her cheek against my middle. I was so shocked that for a moment I stood stiff, arms lifted away from my sides.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered against my belly. “It wasn’t supposed to . . . it wasn’t supposed to go like this.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered, setting one hand cautiously on top of her head. Her hair was finer than mine, thick and silky, the crown of her head warm beneath my palm. I dug my fingertips into her scalp and rubbed, trying to ease her like I did with Malina sometimes. “What wasn’t supposed to?”
She whimpered against my stomach, her shoulders hunching, and I felt such a tremendous, unfamiliar flood of love for her I almost began to cry myself as I met Lina’s wide eyes above Mama’s head. “Let’s get you into bed,” I said.
She let me hook my hands under her armpits and heave her bonelessly up against me, Lina pulling down the sheets and gently tugging her toward the middle of the mattress. As soon as I moved away she bolted upright, her face taut with panic. “Where are you going?”
“Just to bring you some water,” I soothed. “I’ll be back in a minute. Lina will stay with you.”
Mama shot me a look halfway between pleading and suspicion, then sank back onto her elbows, letting her head fall against Lina’s shoulder. “My cherry girl, you smell so sunny,” I heard her mumble as I left. “Do you still love me? At least a little?”
In the bathroom, I filled a glass and ran a washcloth under the faucet, wringing it out. The girl in the mirror looked so much more in control than I felt. Her eyes stared back at me, water-pale, and in the dim light from the tiny window the bones in my face looked not just stark but beautiful, my lips fine and dainty as the negative space left behind by a paintbrush. I splashed water on my face, taking deep breaths until my hands stopped shaking. I could do this. I could always do whatever it took.
Back in the bedroom, I clambered carefully onto the bed, shuffling to Mama on my knees. I handed the glass to Lina, and she held it to our mother’s lips and fed her tiny sips as I dabbed at her face and the ruined front of her dress.
“Can you turn around for me?”