Page 9 of Home Is Where the Bodies Are

Beth looks to me, like that same claims adjuster, deciding there’s still value, despite the damage. “How long?” she asks.

“Twenty-nine days.”

“Good,” she says with a nod. “Keep it up.”

It’s the most encouragement she’s capable of offering me because I’ve let her down far too many times to warrant any more.

“Is Mom...?” I don’t finish my sentence, and I’m not sure why I even started it in the first place. I know the answer. But sometimes we question the things we already know.

Beth nods. “Yeah, she’s gone.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, picturing one of the last times Mom smiled at me. We were out shopping at rummage sales on a Saturday morning. She always loved a bargain and truly believed one man’s garbage was another man’s treasure. At a garage sale, I spotted a Remington Model 5 vintage typewriter. It was beautiful, priced at over four hundred dollars, less than half of what it was worth, but more than I could afford. I admired it for a few minutes before pulling myself away. Mom went up to pay for a small knickknack and tossed me the keys to her vehicle, telling me to turn on the air. She was going through menopause at the time and couldn’t stand the humid Wisconsin summers paired with her hot flashes. Ten minutes later, she returned to the car carrying the typewriter and gifted it to me. I told her it was too much. She disagreed. I asked her how she could afford it. She told me not to worry about that. I told her I would pay her back. She smiled and said I could pay her back by writing a book. I promised her I would, but I never did, and years later, I sold the typewriter for drug money. She was as patient as a mother could be, but I wore it so thin, it became dust.

Beth rests her hand on mine. It’s warm and comforting, something I haven’t felt in what seems like forever. Day twenty-nine. I was one day away, just one day. I can hear my mother’s words. The last ones she ever said to me.Come back when you have a chip.

SIX

BETH

Michael takes it slow down the long driveway. One of my headlights is burnt out, so only the right side is fully lit. The wind whips through my partially rolled-down window, and I can almost hear it carrying my mother’s final words to me. I glance in the rearview mirror at Nicole. She sits quietly in the back seat, writing in her notepad. The pen scratches at the paper. She’s always been that way. Rather than express how she’s feeling outwardly, she writes it down, spinning poems and pithy lines out of her pain. She hasn’t said more thanhelloto Michael when she greeted him in the car after leaving the hospital, so maybe she’s writing about that.

The house is dark, and I know they’ve come and taken Mom away. This place used to be a home. Now I don’t know what it is.

“Just park right here,” I say.

Michael shuts off the engine and hands me the key. “I’ll fix that headlight for you.”

“You don’t have to do that.” I can’t tell if he’s being kind just because, or if it’s because he feels sorry for me. Maybe there’s no difference.

He presses his lips together and nods. “I know.”

Inside the house, I turn on the lights. A bulb over the kitchen table flickers, signaling it’s close to burning out, and I could say the same for myself. Without Mom, it feels empty in here now. Michael carries in a small bag of groceries he picked up while I was in the hospital with Nicole. At the doorway, she stops suddenly, like there’s some sort of invisible force keeping her out. She looks down at her feet and inches one foot forward. A couple of large moths fly inside, darting toward the flickering light above the kitchen table. They swirl around one another, performing a synchronized air show of some sort.

“Nicole,” I bark. She snaps out of it, looking to me with those big empty eyes. “Close the door. You’re letting all the bugs in.”

Her breath hitches as though she’s bracing for impact and standing at the edge of an airplane door, thirty thousand feet above Earth with no parachute, rather than at the threshold of her childhood home. Nicole steps in quickly and closes the door behind her, letting out a sigh.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

She nods several times and swivels her cross-body bag behind her. She was robbed during the attack, so all that’s in there are pads of paper and pens, but those are the most valuable things to her. I’d like to say I’m scared of losing her, but she’s been living this way for so long that it feels like I already have, and I came to terms with that loss a year ago.

In the living room, there’s an empty space where Mom used to be. The hospice bed is gone. The machines and IV stand are gone. She is gone. There are outlines where the items used to be, from where the dust has settled. If I concentrate hard enough, I can still see her lying there looking out the window. A chill runs down my spine. Nicole leans against the archway, using it to keep her frail self upright, while Michael stands stoic beside me. They take it all in, just as I am. But it’s different for them. They haven’t lived in this house the last few months. They haven’t seen it transform from a home to a hospital to a memorial. They didn’t watch Mom die slowly and then suddenly, all at once. And I hate them for that.

I swallow hard and cross the room, careful to walk around the bed that is no longer there, and take a seat on the floral-patterned couch.

Michael clears his throat. “I picked up some scotch. Do you want some?”

“Is Seagram’s not good enough for you?” I tilt my head, half teasing but mostly serious.

“I’ll have some,” Nicole says.

I don’t think it’s a good idea, given her recovery, but I don’t say anything. I’m not her mother, and she didn’t listen to Mom anyway.

“All right, Port Charlotte for Nicole and me. Seagram’s for Beth,” Michaels says with a smirk.

“Give me your stupid fancy scotch,” I huff.

He smiles and disappears into the kitchen. Several cupboards open and close. Ice cubes pop out of an ice tray and clink against glasses. Nicole sits down next to me. When the couch cushion barely sinks, I realize how thin she’s gotten. She pulls the sleeves of her oversized sweatshirt over her thumbs and places her hands in her lap. Her posture is rigid, and I can’t tell if it’s from the pain she’s in or if it’s because she’s uncomfortable being in this house.

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