She seemed almost frightened. This was a big change from her usual stiff anger.
“Mom? What are you not telling me?”
I hadn’t called herMother. I had no idea why. “Mom” just came out.
Her gaze slid to me as she drew in a jagged breath. Her eyes were softer. “You called me Mom in the hospital when you first awakened.”
Right. Before I figured out what she had done. Dumb mistake. I picked up the old scissors I was using to prune the rosebush and lopped off a dead, drooping bloom. It hit the earth with a thud and shattered into loose petals.
She was quiet a while, probably hoping we were about to have some big mother-daughter reconciliation. As if she hadn’t just had the love of my life arrested and moved me away.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet. “If you have a seizure by yourself, no one will be there to reorient you to the world. That’s what I’ve been here for. I try to keep you safe, try to keep your medical care continuous and thoughtful. Some doctors would try any random thing, without concern for the effect on you.”
“Like what?”
“Like drugs that made you sleep all day. Or ones that caused you to cry nonstop. I have careful notes. You are my daughter. The best thing in my life. Every decision I make is for you.”
“Sure, like having me declared medically incompetent.”
“I don’t think you’re ready to be alone in the world.”
Back to that. “Tucker will help me. And he won’t keepme from watching television. Or using the internet. Or having a phone.”
She pushed a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “I do all of that to protect you.”
I kept my eyes on the flowers. “I don’t even know my own father.”
“That was his choice,” she said. “And we don’t talk about him.”
“Maybe I’ll find him myself.” I stole a glance at her to gauge her reaction.
Her look wasn’t angry, though, just resigned. “You can certainly do that. But don’t get your hopes up.”
I stabbed my little shovel in the ground. “Are you going to tell me what I need to know when I go, or will I have to figure it out on my own?”
She flicked a beetle off the stair near her worn gray shoes. “I have a list of the meds we’ve tried. They all seem to fail eventually. You weren’t a candidate for brain surgery.”
“Do I have a regular doctor?”
“We go to the Austin Regional Clinic. Your records are there. And at the children’s hospital.”
I cut dead buds off the nearest bush, working to avoid getting stuck by thorns. “I never remember what causes them.”
“There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s not hunger or tiredness. We checked vitamins and all that.”
“Just random.”
“Puberty made it worse, but clearly you’re through that.”
My cheeks burned at the reference to my night with Tucker. “You put me on the shot.”
“Years ago. There is a school of thought that hormonechanges with menstrual cycles can trigger seizures. We couldn’t afford to wait and see with your memory loss, so we went the preventative route.”
This was the longest conversation we’d had since my memory was wiped in the hospital. I had no notes that we’d ever talked this way before. Only that I shouldn’t trust her.
Should I trust what she was saying now?
Her face seemed relaxed, her fingers worrying a bit of string that had pulled loose on her skirt.
