33.
MY CELLPHONE RANG TOO EARLY IN THE MORNING. A number I only vaguely recognized. I let it go to voicemail, crawled out from under the quilts of my bedroll, crept into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee.
Outside the kitchen window, a dusting of snow. The snow still coming down.
Abra had fallen asleep on the couch.
My kitchen lights flickered off. On again.
The sound of the kettle whistle.
Abra sat up, tired. “How will we look back on these days, Lady Yaga?”
I glanced up at the painting of the winged house. “With relief that they’re over and some odd wish we could go back and do it all better.”
I liked the way that Abra was still young enough to think of me as an oracle.
I grabbed a blanket, took my coffee out onto the front porch, dialed voicemail for the message.
A shaky voice. Lara. One of the newer caregivers from Milagro. “Ariel, you need to come up to the house right now.” A silence. “Your mother is passing today. All the signs are here.”
I didn’t call Lara back, just finished my coffee, ducked back inside, threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, pulled on my boots, didn’t tell Abra the why of my sudden hurry.
I made an egg sandwich for Maxito, stuffed his clothes into my purse, lifted him out of his bed in his pajamas, whispered, “we have to go to daycare a little bit early today, sweetie.”
As I buckled him into his car seat, he smiled sleepy.
I handed over the egg sandwich, drove toward town, drove into the building blizzard, tried not to drive too fast, probably drove too fast.
Your mother is passing today. Most of me knew I didn’t have to be there when she passed, but the world seemed to want me there. You need to come up to the house right now.
I dropped Maxito off at his new daycare, helped him brush his teeth in the school bathroom before circle time, made my way to the house. Lara hugged me when I stepped into the entry-way, hugged me for so long I wondered if my mother had already died.
But Lara led me into my mother’s room. She lay there on her back, mouth open. I watched her chest. Her breath. Life or death. She was a skeleton in her purple T-shirt and silk leopard-print robe. The hiss of oxygen. The rise and fall. She was alive.
I sat down next to her. Sat there for a long time.
Lara sat next to me, said, “I’ve been doing this work for years. This is your mother’s day.”
I didn’t want to argue with a professional, but I said, “my mother will surprise you.” Then I doubted myself. Maybe I was just jaded to death dates. “Should we put on some music?”
Lara put on a CD. Buddhist chanting. The heart sutra. She turned the volume down to a whisper. And the two of us just sat there, kept sitting:
All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.
So, in emptiness, there is no body ...
I THOUGHT ABOUT Gammie. No one sat with her as she died. She lived alone. Ninety-one years old. She just got up in the middle of the night to pour herself a glass of milk and bourbon and she fell down. I missed her, my Gammie. Wanted to call her now. Ask her what I should do:
There is no ignorance,
and no end to ignorance.
There is no old age and death,
and no end to old age and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering...
MY MOTHER OPENED her eyes and jerked up, stared at the two of us siting there. The whisper of the heart sutra, the hiss of oxygen. “What? Did you think I was dead? I want an omelet.” She shook her head and cackled. “Someone make me a fucking omelet.”
I CRACKED EGGS in my mother’s kitchen, whispered to Lara, “What were the signs? That made you think she would die today?”
Lara chopped herbs. “The lights flickered,” she said softly.
I thought about that. Was she kidding? “The lights flickered at my little place south of town, too,” I said. “There’s actually a blizzard.” I flipped the omelet.