We had just stepped into the cottage.
Coming home after being gone for even just a few weeks was like coming back to a garden that had been left untended for some time—lifeless, colorless, dreadful.
“Groceries,” Ivy said, tossing her house keys into the dish by the door. “I’ll whip us up some vanilla rose moon milk.” While she walked down the hall to the kitchen, I watched from the foyer rug until she disappeared behind the kitchen’s swinging door. Then my attention turned to Mom’s door.
If I was going to take Mom’s life, it had to be at this very moment.
Three steps, and my fingers touched the brass door knob for the last time.
Upon entering the bedroom, I closed my eyes, seeing myself standing over Mom’s bed in my mind.I’m wearing the red dress, but the strap is broken again and dangling down my side. This Adora looks just like me, with braids mixed into blonde hair that had been brushed out by salty air. Except she doesn’t look to be in love, or happy, or sad, or anything.
She’s just standing there, empty, looking down at Mom as the room dims.
My eyes fall on Mom, too.
She looks like a once upon a time.
In the shadow of the other me, Mom’s fingers are clasped together against her chest as the covers are pulled up to her waist. After not seeing the sun for well over a decade, she has turned pale, though her lips remain pink. Despite her preserved perfection, the darkness that envelopes her mind is like a hidden room where only vicious things sleep.
The other me lays her hand against Mom’s cheek, and then I’m in the water with her, sucked back into the ocean, saltwater clogging my throat, filling my lungs. This time I’m under the surface with Mom, staring into scared blue eyes, and I haven’t seen them in so long that they instantly make me cry. They take me to six years old again. And even though she’s scared, she still holds me in her arms, threading her fingers into my hair like I’m her little girl. For a split-second, while we’re lost in her mind, a panic and inescapable burn in our lungs and chest taking full possession of us. I grab her hand because it’s the only thing I can do.Hold on,I want to scream, but only bubbles come out.It’s almost over, just hold on.There’s a pounding in the ocean, as though it has a pulse, a heartbeat. A knocking.A thump … thump … thump.It’s a beating in my ears. It’s dark down here, it’s cold, so cold, and we’re running out of air.
She’s going weak, and I can’t breathe.
Not until the other me pulls her hand away.
A rush of clean air slithers down my throat just as I burst into tears.
My fingers are shaking, my legs are unsteady though my feet are nailed to this spot. All I can do is watch as I slide the pillow out from under Mom’s head. My movements are robotic. My face is vacant.
I don’t pause. Not even for a second.
So, I scream at myselfto stop, wait, let me say goodbye.This is so much harder than I imagined, and I don’t know if I can let go. But it doesn’t matter because the other me isn’t stopping. The other me is pressing the pillow against her face, and she swears she can feel her breathing into the cotton.
There are two of me in the room.
One is numb, a blank expression, a murderer.
The other is screaming, tears soaking her face.
If only I could unbolt my feet from the floor ...
Then I was snatched up and thrown against a wall.
Bright blue-moon eyes were staring back at me. It took me a second to realize that it was Ivy and not Mom standing there, pinning me against the wall. “You could have killed her!” she shouted. I didn’t hear her but watched her lips move as she said it. And as the seconds passed, the fog cleared and I could hear her, an ombre voice rising.
“Adora!” she shouted, squeezing my arms. “Why would you do that?!”
The heartbeat on the monitor filled the room like the pounding in the ocean. She was still alive.
I wrestled out of Ivy’s arms. “She’s suffering!” I cried, trying to pry her fingers from me. “We can’t leave her like this. She doesn’t deserve this.”
Twenty minutes later,Ivy and I were standing in the kitchen.
Neither of us had spoken for at least ten minutes.
Ice frosted the kitchen window, making everything on the other side of it blurry, like a fun mirror.
Ivy slid a cup of vanilla rose moon milk across the island in front of me. “First Kane, now Mom...” she leaned against the counter. “Why are you so hell-bent on throwing your life away?”
