Trey speaks up. “I thought I’d show her around.”
I’m relieved by the suggestion, but my mother shakes her head. “I need to talk to my daughter in private.”
The thought makes my stomach tighten. Trey is already turning back down the path when my mother tells him to wait a moment. She takes him aside and says, “I have a job for you. On the east side,” then whispers something into his ear. He listens intently, gives me a nervous glance, and then heads out. I’m amazed. Here, she is a leader. At home, I was the only person she was in charge of, and she was gentle, quiet, even when I misbehaved. She certainly never ordered me around. It just seems so unlike her. I refuse to be impressed. Before I can stop my gaping, she turns her eyes toward my face. She motions for me to follow her, but it’s like my feet have rooted in the ground. I don’t want to go. I need to get away. Just be alone. To sort out this whirlwind of emotions inside me. She gives me a look as if to say What are you waiting for?
But I can’t. I can’t bring myself to move. This is my mother. The mother I lost so many years ago. Standing in front of me.
“I, um, have to use the bathroom,” I manage.
Her face breaks into a small smile before melting into a frown. She shakes her head. “Kiandra …”
I can tell by her expression that I’ve flubbed, that obviously dead people don’t need to do such things. Heat rises in my face. I peel my feet from the ground and trail behind her into the woods. As we walk she says, “How is your father?” as if he’s some acquaintance and not the man she was married to for ten years.
“Fine,” I say, forcing the word out of my throat.
“I miss him,” she says softly. Then she stops and looks at me. “I missed you. You’ve grown up so well. You’re beautiful.”
“And you missed it all,” I mutter.
She nods. “I know. I feel bad about that. But obviously your father didn’t do such a bad—”
“No. He didn’t. You’re right.” I don’t mean to snap, but my words come out that way. Once again I feel like I’m seven years old, back in that house on the river, having a tantrum.
She stares at me. “You’re angry.”
With her eyes boring into me, I get a familiar feeling. I feel the waterworks starting. I’m going to cry again. Whenever she would look at me that way, for breaking a vase in the living room, for hiding my new dress when I ripped it, or whatever, I would always stare into those eyes and cave. I’d run into her arms and beg her for forgiveness, beg her to love me again. But not now. Now I’m beyond that. I don’t need her approval anymore. And I’m not going to cry for her. “Wouldn’t you be?”
She sucks in her bottom lip. “Your father didn’t tell you anything.”
“No,” I say, looking away and hardening myself. “And after a while I stopped asking. I know why he wouldn’t. Suicide isn’t something you discuss with a seven-year-old.”
“I’ll never forgive myself for not saying goodbye to you properly. It was just … too hard. I wanted to. But I knew if you cried and begged me to stay, I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. And I needed to.” She stares hard at me. “I needed to. For you.”
I squint at her. “For me? That’s stupid.”
“I know it might have been cruel to leave. But it would have been even crueler if I’d stayed.” She sighs. “I had a brain stem glioma. Do you know what that is?”
Now we’re alone among the tall pines. The wind rustles through them but makes no sound, so I swear I can hear my heart beating. “Brain stem? You mean …”
“A tumor. In my brain. A very serious one. The prognosis was bad, and some days the pain was unbearable. I talked it over with your father. If I was going to die, I wanted to have some control over it. So that was what I planned. I meant to say goodbye. Really, I did.”
I swallow. “Why didn’t Dad tell me?”
“Did you ask him?”
“I didn’t think I had to! I thought I knew what happened. I thought you …” I know I didn’t think anything at the time. I thought my mom had gone away, and my father wouldn’t say more than that. Over time, though, I put the pieces together, and it formed a picture that could mean only one thing. Suicide. And it was suicide. She didn’t have to do it. She could have had more time with me, and she chose something else. Even a day more, an hour, a minute—all that precious time we could have had together was thrown away. I stand there on the path, shaking. “You should have stayed with us.”
“And have you see me so weak? So sick? I wasn’t your mother anymore. I couldn’t care for you. I was helpless.”
“I wouldn’t have cared! I just wanted you. Sick or healthy. I didn’t care!” I shout.
“You wouldn’t have had me either way. The doctors gave me three months to live. I was beyond chemotherapy. It was too late.”
“But even a few more days,” I protest, but it comes out soft because suddenly I feel very weak.
“You’re tired,” she says. “You need rest.”
I remember how she used to usher me up to my bedroom every time I acted out of line, saying, “You’re tired and need to rest.” No, she just wants to be done with me. I bet ghosts don’t even need to rest, just like they don’t need to use the bathroom. The thought makes me more bitter than ever. “I’m fine. I wish you would have stayed.”
She is silent for a moment. “And I wish you had stayed alive. You should have left when Trey told you. But we all can’t have what we want, now, can we?” She sounds like she did whenever I told her I wanted dessert, never mean, just sweetly condescending. In my mind’s eye, I’m in the kitchen, reaching for a bag of cookies in the pantry. She slams the door and smiles at me. We all can’t have what we want, now, can we?
I feel a new wash of tears fall over my cheeks. It was futile to think I could harden myself against her. She is my mother. I was deluding myself when I said I didn’t care. She is my sun. Even if she hated me, that fact would never change.
“You don’t even want me here now. You sent Trey to make sure I stayed away, because you didn’t want me with you.”
She puts her hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me, Kiandra. I want you. It hurts me terribly not to be with you, but it made me happy to know that you were having a life. More than anything, I wanted you to live. To be happy and live.” She enunciates the last word as if teaching it to me for the first time. “You were happy there, without me, weren’t you?”
I wipe the tears from my cheeks and look out toward the east bank. I think of Justin, and my father. I wonder if Dad has made it up to the river yet. I wonder how I’ll look when they find my body. How they’ll react. The thought of my father seeing me that way twists my heart. I’m his everything. That’s what he said to me, about a thousand times, on that ride up from New Jersey. He kept chewing on the inside of his cheek and looking over at me with crazed eyes. You’re my everything. I won’t let anything happen to you. I nod.
She smiles a little. “You had a boyfriend, didn’t you? What is his name?”
I nod again, less forcefully this time. I’m not really sure what we were, as of last night. I guess we were still boyfriend and girlfriend. “Justin,” I say, but I’m back to thinking about my dad. You’re my everything. More tears slide over my cheeks. “But I can’t stop thinking about Dad. This will kill him.”
“Yes. I know it will.” She bows her head for a moment, then moves closer to me, and I think she’s going to hug me again. Instead, she leans in close to my ear. I feel the familiar sweep of her lips on my cheek. It sends the world reeling for me, but not as much as her next words. Very quietly, she says, “And that is why I am going to send you back.”
It takes a moment to register. I search for another meaning, but can’t think of one. “What … You don’t mean that …”