Page 3 of Can't Get Enough

“We’ll be here until you arrive.”

“Thank you.”

I barrel through a yellow light, glad that most people on this side of town seem to be off the streets this late on Christmas Eve. Tears track a hot streak over my cool cheeks.

“Stop,” I snap, swiping impatiently at the wetness. “Mama will be upset enough without seeing you all broke down.”

Butbroke downis exactly how I feel, like every wall, everythingthat has been holding me up, holding my fears back, collapsed when I saw the chaos at the house.

I pull into the parking lot and it’s like stepping back in time, except years ago this plaza was the thriving center of our community. I’d be here with Mama all day on Saturdays, roaming from Cato to Lee’s BBQ to the small bookstore at the end of the row whenever I wasn’t helping in her bakery, Sweet Tooth. The pastel cupcake sign that used to grace Mama’s shop is long gone. A hardware store took over when she had to shut down, but even that store has left the plaza. The sign hanging up now saysFOR LEASE. A haze of disuse shrouds the lonely plaza. Even the few vehicles in the parking lot seem not so much parked as put out to pasture.

I spot the squad car right away and pull up beside it. Not even bothering to turn off Mama’s car, I slam into park and jump out, leaving the driver’s door open. The police officer leans against the car, but I glimpse Mama in the back seat and my heart clenches. Once when I was sixteen, the cops picked up some of my friends and me for “cruising.” Whatever we were doing was harmless, but we were a bunch of Black kids hanging out late, so we must have been up to no good.They made me sit in the police car until Mama came, and I quaked in fear waiting for her to arrive. All my adolescent bravado fell away and I remember feeling so young and so small in that big back seat. It’s Mama in the back of the cop car now, but I still feel small and completely unprepared for what’s ahead.

It’s funny how the tables turn.

I’m only now realizing that often when people say “it’s funny,” they really mean that it’s… sad. A sad reversal of fortune. To have always been the parent. And now to be…

Mama doesn’t look up, but I sense that she knows I’m here. I reach for the door handle, but the officer stays my hand.

“Can we talk for a minute before you…” He tips his head toward the car.

I lick my lips nervously at the ominous weight of his words. “Of course.”

“This was in her purse.” He extends a slip of paper to me.

If lost, call my daughter Hendrix Barry.

My cell number is scribbled at the bottom.

If lost, as if she’s a misplaced item. Something that could be easily returned, only I don’t think anything can bring my mother back. Not ever really again.

“That’s how we found you so fast,” the officer continues. “I checked the records, though, and we’ve, uh… had a few calls about her before. She seems a little more disoriented this time. In the past, we called a Catherine Simmons.”

“Yeah, she… um, Mrs. Simmons very recently passed away. I didn’t find out until tonight.”

“What’s your mother’s condition?” he asks, eyes trained on my face.

“Alzheimer’s.” The word still feels unfamiliar, the hard consonants of it scraping against my teeth and tongue. “She was diagnosed last year. Early stage and it’s been manageable. I live in Atlanta, but she didn’t want to move there. She wanted… she wants to stay here, to stay home. And we agreed only because she had Catherine.”

“Can I be frank?” Officer Billings asks, barely waiting for my nod before going on. “In cases like this, social services will step in and tell the family that if you don’t make some kind of arrangements, you’ll be held responsible if anything happens to her or to someone else.”

“Arrangements as in—”

“She can’t live alone anymore, Ms. Barry. What that looks like, you and your family will have to determine, but this can’t continue. Not just because it’s disruptive for us, but for her own safety.”

It’s nothing I didn’t know, but it’s a tidal wave, and the only thing standing between me and the inevitable crash was Ms. Catherine. Now she’s gone.

“This won’t happen again.” I flick a glance over his shoulder to my mother’s silhouette in the back seat. “We’ll figure it out. Thank you for calling and for taking care of her.”

He offers a brief nod and opens the door.

“Mama,” I say, smoothing the distress of the last hour from my tone. “Let’s go home.”

The eyes my mother lifts are familiar, because they are the same deep shade of sable brown I meet in the mirror every morning, but they are foreign in their vacant bewilderedness.

“Huh?” Mama says… asks.

“Let’s go home,” I repeat, taking her elbow gently, helping her out of the car.

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