“Box of Rain” started to play. I smiled at my mother.
“What the hell is this?” Mother hissed, eyes narrowed into slits, snakelike, cold and silver.
“The song you asked for,” I stumbled. “The Grateful Dead. Remember you said—”
“Turn it off!” Mother ordered. “Now!”
“But you—”
“I don’t listen to music like that! It’s noise. Dirty white noise.” Spittle flew from her mouth as she spoke. She’d bolted up to a sitting position, her hand gripping the safety bar on the side of the bed, rattling it, trying to push it down like she was going to either run away or come at me.
What had happened to the wistful Deadhead from this morning? The one who’d called medear?
Was this the medication? The pain?
Had she just totally forgotten requesting the song?
I stopped the music. “Okay,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice calm and cheerful. “I’m sorry. I thought—”
“You didn’t think. You never think,” she said.
Her words were like hooks that dug into me, dragging me back to my childhood, to the way she’d get mean after a few drinks.
She’s sick, I told myself.She woke up alone and she was scared.
I took a deep breath, determined to turn this around. “Is there something you’d rather hear?”
She grinned up at me. But it was a twisted, maniacal grin. A smile Irecognized from when I was a little girl. A rictus grin tightening every muscle in her face, showing her little yellow teeth.
The scars on my back twinged.
I wanted to run. To get the hell out of there.
“A bird with a broken wing at the bottom of a well,” she said, her voice a low hiss.
My heart banged hard in my chest. “I beg your pardon?”
“A pitiful scream no one can hear.”
My mouth went dry. I started to back out of the room. “I… I’m going to check on the… on the soup,” I stammered.
“Eee-eee-eee,”Mother squeaked. “Poor little blue jay dying all alone down there.”
“I’ll be back with a bowl of soup and some crackers,” I told her, forcing the words out as I fought not to run screaming from the room.
My mother smiled.“Eee-eee-eee,”she sang. “You remember, don’t you, Alison?”
I ducked out of the room, shaking my head.No, no, no, no!
I hurried to the kitchen, leaned my back against the wall and made myself take deep breaths. My legs felt weak and rubbery. I slid down so that I was crouched, all tucked up like a little girl, hiding there in the corner of my kitchen. Tears burned my eyes.
Moxie came to check on me, nosing at my face.
“I’m okay, girl,” I told her.
But I wasn’t okay. Not really.
It was impossible.
