Author Games: Circle

Task Six | Females

4 // ROBIN LAVERNE

It's a warm day when I hear ma is in the hospital.

Snapshot:

New York City, Spring 2017

They call it a stroke of luck when someone's heart fails- or perhaps, speeds up- and they survive a fall downstairs. I imagine ma smiling near the railing, the distant sound of Gilmore Girls playing in the background, her extra-buttery popcorn popping with the smell of it wafting to and fro; I imagine her existence yellow and bright, not even realizing the ache beginning to form. Not noticing the darkness looming inside her chest.

It's the middle of the afternoon- it must be, otherwise ma would've been asleep already, or too caught up in her morning coffee on the front porch to trip and tumble down steps. Of course, if she'd only fallen down those four concrete stairs leading from the front door to the street, I doubt the doctors would have clued me on the detail. But they did- and the descent down a full story, top to bottom, now broke its toll on my ma's body.

I imagine the popping sounds fading out- the credits of a finished episode filing by, blurry and low volume; I smell ripe and melting butter, and hear the crash thrum and bang until softening at the floor. If the attack had taken her heart, would she have died among the scene of microwaved margarine and a television show rewatched thrice?

Perhaps. And I can't imagine her face- I try to, and I've counted the bruises and their edges, the vessels popped just like corn beneath her skin. I remember every detail about her fragility, laying back asleep in the hospital bed, breathing quickly because not enough air was filtering through her lungs. There was enough to where she didn't need help from machinery, but where did that land her? In pain. So much of it. She couldn't wake up, it was too strong.

I'd never seen her like that. Delicate, one more punch from breaking. The shatter in my own heart was no match for the one in hers; together, we were the beats of rocky ground, booming to the sound of collision- crash, and then burn.

She didn't wake up when I went to see her. Her eyes flit and fluttered, perhaps trapped in a dream of whimsy, her hand latched onto a man's- loosely, for she knew he wouldn't leave; but maybe it was a nightmare, she drifting alone and dying so. They never opened, however, and my nails ticked and tapped against themselves in a hushed wait, the blinding white frail and loud at once, the windows flashing traffic ahead yet tinted a stark grey. Everything fell stiff, and I couldn't stand it. I can't ma. I can't...

I lifted my camera- the nickname of magic thing dissipating at the same rate a coffin is lowered into the ground- and took a single picture of her laying there. Her hands sat palms up, skin wrinkled and crumpled like it was paper to tear; I wanted her to wake, or to laugh. That laugh, I think, could cure illnesses in every century. My best medicine, my best love.

But unconsciousness kept her, locked by heart-attacked key; I remember a nurse alerting me of visiting hours' end, her thin smile offering a blanket and pillow to let me stay the night, in case ma woke. There's a chair in the corner, she'd said, so rest now.

I took the gifts, but set them on the floor. I wasn't staying. I wasn't. I can't.

There was a plane, stationed outside the city at JFK airport, waiting. Not for me, but for its seats to be filled by ticket holders. I was one, and I had to go. But my ma's breathing worried me, and I hesitated, waiting for the hour to unfold, to freeze, to wander by. I think, a daughter would stay, at least in the state, and be there to care when their mother awoke. But I think- I am not that daughter. And she's not a mother who will die today. She wouldn't.