door, watching for footsteps. I fell asleep staring at his amethyst earring, backless, with the gold post turned upward like a spike.
~
The day my mom dies, there are a thousand cherry blossom petals stuck to her hospital room window. She has the room to herself, a last bone of pity thrown by her doctor. She has been in this hospital once a year for the past five years, and each time I think she’ s going to die. Now it’ s actually happening, and I can’ t get myself to feel a damned thing.
There’ s no respirator, no heart monitor like last time. Just a morphine drip plugged into her like a cellphone charger, an input cable. A catheter bag hangs just below her bed, half-full of amber liquid. Output.
Jenn is pissing me off, fussing over her, taking the sponge-stick of water and forcing it into her mouth. We all know why we’ re here, the doctor has told us about her brain aneurysm, and at this point she can’ t even hear us. All we can do is wring our hands as her organs shut down one by one, like lights down the hallway of a closing building. If our souls leave us when we die, she left early, pulling herself from her alcohol-ravaged body and running to freedom.
This 8 th-floor room gives a perfect view of the cemetery across the street. I curse the city planner who made that decision as I watch a steady rain beat down on the mossy gravestones. As soon as the thought pops into my head, I try to stop thinking about the water dripping into their caskets, but the image of their bodies molding like old, wet cheese will stick in my head for the rest of the day. Her body is so damaged by years of drinking and smoking and getting the shit beat out of her, it seems like one good rain will wash the flesh off her bones completely, and who will she be, then?
I go to work, because watching her die is killing me. Before I go, Jenn shoves a bracelet that the EMT took off my mom’ s wrist onto mine, and I kiss her one last time.“ Bye, Mommy,” I say. It’ s the only time I’ ve called her that— I figure she deserves to hear it once. I squeeze her hand before I leave, and for the first time in my life it’ s cold instead of hot, dry instead of moist. Coming here was pointless, I think. She’ s been dead for years. I don’ t fall asleep until 2:19 a. m. The coroner’ s report puts her time of death at 2:15 a. m., and I try to tell myself that it means something, but I’ m too logical to really believe it.
I hate everything about the funeral. I hate that it’ s a monsignor, and not a real priest, I hate that only half of her siblings show up. I hate that her boyfriend brings a“ friend” who is clearly a hooker, and that he is drunk when we bury her.
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