“This one,” he says, picking up another camera, “was one of her favorites. It’s an EOS DCS 3. Expensive at the time and a little unwieldly, but she used it a lot. In Greek mythology, Eos was the goddess of the dawn who rose each morning from the edge of the ocean. What do you say?” He aims the camera at me. “Just a few?”
Norests on the tip of my tongue. It somehow feels different than when he took pictures of us together. Me standing alone in the light, no makeup or a persona I can don and doff, feels more exposed, vulnerable.
I nod permission, but give him nothing to work with. I stand in a pool of light and stare back at his camera. He doesn’t do that photographer thing—coax me, direct me, encourage me to pose or “give” him anything. He just clicks, changes the angle of her camera, of his head, the camera’s eye never leaving me.
“You done?” I ask.
“Not unless you want me to be.” He lowers the camera. “I’d like to take more.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to remember you exactly as you are right now.”
I scoff and shoot him a sour look. “Right now? Like this?”
He nods, his expression sober. “Exactly like this.”
There is such love in his eyes, such… I don’t know… adoration… that for a moment, I don’t know how to respond. It is a look, a love that reaches in and fills me up. I’m about to yield because that look could get this man anything he wants, when a wave of nausea overwhelms me. I rush from the studio, zigzagging from unfamiliar room to unfamiliar room until I stumble into a bathroom just in time to vomit. I haven’t eaten anything, so it’s a violent, fruitless expelling, but I hug the bowl tightly, my tears running into the toilet. I’ve tried to ignore the persistent pain battering the inside of my skull since I woke, but the heaving worsens the agony, and I close my eyes against light that has suddenly become unbearable. Slumping on the cold tiles, I let my body go limp, praying for oblivion.
“Dammit,” Canon curses, rushing in and scooping me up off the floor.
I want to tell him I can walk, but I honestly don’t know that I can. My head flops onto his shoulder.
“Neevah, baby.” I’ve never heard his voice this way. Desperate, panicked. Frightened. “I’m taking you to the emergency room.”
I open my mouth to tell him that’s unnecessary, but a sob comes out instead. It’s a wretched sound, and I resent my body for making it. I taste tears and grip his shirt with one weak fist.
“Mama. I want my mama.”
Most times when I’ve really needed her in the past, I’ve had to make do on my own. As I give in to the debilitating fatigue, I don’t believe this time could be any different, but I have to ask.
SIXTY-ONE
Canon
“Mrs. Saint… uh, Mathis, it’s Canon Holt.”
There’s a loaded pause on the other end of the line.
“Neevah’s director?”
“Yes, but I’m also…” I should have asked Neevah what she told her mother about us. Fuck it. “We’re also seeing each other. I’m not sure if she mentioned—”
“She did. In so many words. Is she… is she okay? Is something wrong?”
“I know she’s spoken with you about her lupus diagnosis and the kidney trouble.”
“Yes, I’m being tested, but they think I may be too old. Sixty is not old,” she says with indignant pride. “But they want a younger kidney.”
“Her sister still doesn’t know, right?” An edge creeps into my words.
“I told Neevah to ask her because it’s killing me, not being able to tell Terry. Has something happened?”
“Neevah’s in the hospital.” I glance up the hall that leads to her room. “She’s resting, but her blood pressure spiked again. They want to keep her here to monitor for at least a few days. They said some patients with kidney failure have been known to have strokes or heart problems.”
I draw a sharp breath that does jack shit to calm my rioting emotions. “The medications they’ve been using to manage her kidney function just aren’t doing a good enough job. She’s been trying to avoid dialysis, but her doctor thinks temporary dialysis is the best thing until we find a kidney.”
“Oh, my God,” Mrs. Mathis gasps. “What… what can I do?”
