I leaned in close to my door and looked at the houses flying by, too fast down this hill, the feel of the tires loose and sliding. Clinging to the door handle and my seat belt.
The problem is, you can’t believe anything that happened before. It’s just a story to you. It isn’t real. You think the world began with you. But it didn’t. It began with me.
My grandfather would be driving home in the snow and cold without windows. Just the cold wind, freezing, and pebbles of safety glass everywhere. Wearing his sport coat and collared shirt, this was what made it unbearably sad, I see now. An old mechanic trying to look like a gentleman. Trying to have dignity, trying to put his life in order, driving that night in the waste of a car, exposed. No headlights or taillights, and he could easily have had a collision. I was so worried I could hardly think. A dark shape drifting, waiting for impact.
If he made it home, he’d be leaving the car out to fill with snow, going inside alone. He had invited us to live with him.
You’re not giving me the silent treatment, my mother said. You’re going to talk with me.
She was looking over at me while she drove. On the highway now, safer than sliding down that hill.
Answer me.
Okay.
You tell me what happened. You tell me what he did when I was fourteen.
He left.
That’s right. Tell me more.
He left while your mother was dying, and you had to take care of her.
That’s right, but far too fast. This went on for years. Do you understand years? Every day?
It went on for years.
What was one day like? Tell me about one day.
I hated my mother then. I wanted to leave her and live with my grandfather. I wouldn’t have to get up so early, I said.
What?
If we lived with him, he could take me to school later.
My mother slapped me, hit me with her open hand as I hid against the door and covered my head. You will not fucking do that to me! she yelled. Slapping at me and trying to stay in her lane, swerving.
I’d have a family! I screamed.
My mother stretched like an octopus, arms everywhere, able to slap my face and arm and leg all at the same time she held the wheel, unfurling herself in darkness, a frightening rush I couldn’t escape.
We were swerving across lanes, other drivers on their horns. My face pressed against glass as I tried to get away, and we fishtailed toward the guardrail, straightened out, and slid to a stop on the shoulder.
My mother on me then as if I were prey. Grabbing my wrists and smashing me into the corner. Her leg over me, holding me down. You will tell me, she said. You will tell me what it was like. One day. I wake up in darkness, early, and what happens?
Your mother is sick.
That’s right. She’s been sick all night. I’ve been up all night. I slept an hour or two.
You have to clean up things.
That’s right. What things?
Everything awful.
Yes. Everything awful. And what is my mother doing?
I don’t know.
My mother shook me. Think, Caitlin. What do people do when they’re dying?
I don’t know.
Moaning. A lot of moaning and twisting back and forth. Screaming sometimes. Crying and self-pity. Vomiting and shitting and pissing and bleeding. Tell me what that was like.
It was too much, I said. You wanted it all to stop.
That’s right. And then later in the day it might be quiet for a long time, and she was gone. I’d say her name and it was as if she didn’t even hear me. What was that like?
Like being a ghost.
See? You’re not so bad at this. All you have to do is give a shit and think for a moment. This was my real life, not a story. These were days I lived, as real as your days now. And tell me about my friends. Who did I see? Who were my friends and family for those years?
No one.
And who made sure I got to have my childhood? Who made sure I went to school and had decent clothes and went to birthday parties and finished my homework?
No one.
No one. And who is my father now?
My grandpa.
I expected her to hit me, but she didn’t. She let go of my arms and retreated back across the seat to her place behind the wheel. She put on her seat belt and pulled out carefully into the slow lane and drove without speaking to me. Sound of the wipers, sound of wet roads, slush thrown by the wake of trucks as they passed, covering our windshield, blotting out everything and then clear again. Our turnoff to the industrial section, almost no one else living here, narrow strip of houses and apartments between an airfield and parking lots.
We walked upstairs, and at the door my mother stopped. I’m going to give you one last chance, she said. Over the next day or two, you’ll live what I lived then, and that will be your chance to see.
What does that mean?
That’s what you’ll be learning.
My mother dropped all her clothes just inside our door, in the kitchen. She stripped naked. Cold white with splotches of red on her back. A strong back, and she let out her ponytail and sat down on the cold tiles of the floor.
It’s all you, she said. Run me a bath, and then drag me over and get me on the toilet seat and then in the tub. Then fix dinner, but don’t forget to check on me in case I might be drowning or dying in some other way.
What?
You heard me. Start working. It’s going to be a long night for you, and then a long day, and then a long night, and after a while, you won’t care whether it’s day or night. You’ll only want to sleep.
~ ~ ~
My mother lay down on the floor. I’m getting cold, she said. Better hurry with that bath. And don’t let my skin rub when you drag me. She always said it felt like her skin could rip off. I always had to be so careful with her skin.
I hurried to the bathroom, put in the drain plug and ran the water, not too hot. I didn’t believe this game would go on long. I would put her in the bath and fix dinner, and then we’d watch TV and I could go to bed.
I grabbed her wrists to drag, but she had gone limp, head lolling, and was so heavy and stuck to the floor.
I pulled again and she screamed and I dropped her wrists, which slapped hard against the tiles.
She screamed if I pulled like that, my mother said. You can’t yank anything, or rub anything. Cancer spreads everywhere. It might begin in one place, but it travels inside and new places become sore. You never know what part of her might hurt next. I used to think if I pulled an arm too hard it might come off, rotten at the joint. All her joints were sore, and bruises everywhere.
I can’t do this.
My mother smiled. That’s right. That’s what I said, though not so early. You’re being a baby. You don’t get to say I can’t do this until a few months have gone by. That’s when you say it and mean it.
I took one of the towels from the bathroom and laid it on the floor beside her. How do I get you on the towel?
There were no instructions, my mother said. No one ever told me how to do anything.
I knelt on the floor and tried to push the towel in along her back, lifted her shoulder blade with one hand. But I wasn’t strong enough from this angle. I had to kneel on the other side and lean over and pull her toward me, my face in close to her armpit, strong smell of sweat from a day of work. Skin clammy and not soft like Shalini’s. My naked mother. I held her close and pulled the towel under, then moved down lower to her hips, all the dark hair down there, and rolled her toward me. She was so much bigger than I was, stronger and taller.
I crossed her arms over her chest, knelt in close behind her head, and pulled on the towel beneath to slide her along the floor. She could have been a dead body. We hit carpet and stopped. I pulled and could not drag her. I can’t do this, I said.