Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) (19 page)

My mother kept scraps of fabric. I was surprised to see
neither a trace of fading nor a moth hole. The tiny bits could have been
snipped free from their dresses yesterday. I will confess I didn’t believe her
words, not until I touched one of the pieces. I won’t tell Rebecca what I saw.
I’ll let her discover that herself.

Perhaps it’s only a
vanity. The mother not quite willing to let go of her child. Who knows? It’s
almost silly, this keeping hush. I should just tell Rebecca in person instead
of writing it down, but would I have believed my mother?

I’d like to think so.

§

I hate this place—the smell, the withered limbs hidden
behind each door, the traces of withered lives hanging in the air. No one comes
here to get well, only to wait.

My shoes tap on the tile floor; the sound hovers in the air for a
quick instant, then the walls tuck it away. I brought yellow roses this time,
and I hold them away from my body so the stink won’t linger on my clothes. My
mother has never understood why I don’t like them; I’ve never understood why
she does.

I take a deep breath before I
enter her room and put on a smile that should feel normal by now, but it
doesn’t. It feels like a lie.

When she sees me, her eyes narrow, her lips thin. The nurse
acknowledges me with a nod and pats my mother’s arm. Adjusts the sheets around
her frail body.

“Helen, look, it’s Rebecca, your daughter,” she says a little too
brightly.

My mother would hate this false cheer. I know she would.

“It’s a beautiful day today, isn’t it?” I say. To fill up the
silence, to pretend.

“Well, I’ll leave the two of you alone,” the nurse says as she
makes her exit, pulling the door shut behind her.

Images flicker across the screen of the television in the corner,
but the volume is so low, even the commercials seem little more than a soft
hum. I busy myself with arranging the flowers in a vase. My father always gave
her yellow roses on her birthday. It isn’t her birthday, but at this point, it
doesn’t matter.

The yellow petals should
bring a touch of brightness to the room; instead, they bring a sharp sting of
hurt deep inside my chest. I turn to see my mother watching me, her eyes wary.
The expression turns her face into a stranger’s. Another thing that should feel
familiar by now, but even after six months, it doesn’t.

“Sarah couldn’t come today, Mom, but she sends her love.”

In truth, I don’t want Sarah to see her grandmother this way. I
sit beside the bed and take her hand, her skin like tissue paper crumpled then
pressed flat again. She pulls away. Makes a gravelly sound low in her throat.

I look down at my lap and think about the day Sarah was born. I
remember the way my mother held her close, tears glittering in her eyes, as if
it were yesterday instead of eight years ago. The way her voice caught when she
sang a lullaby, the same lullaby she said she once sang to me. I push the
memory away and babble about nothing until finally, I let the words fade away.
What’s the point? My mother isn’t here anymore.

§

Something is…off. I jump at shadows. I can’t remember if
I locked the door. Last week, I went to put the laundry in and found towels
sitting in the washing machine. From the smell of mildew, they’d been there for
several days.

This morning, I couldn’t find my keys. I spent an hour trying
to find them, and when I did, they were hanging from the hook where I always
put them. It was strange. I’ve never been the forgetful type. Maybe it will
pass.

§

My father gave my mother roses for her birthday, their
anniversary, for no reason at all. She would always pluck one petal from the
roses. Only one. I asked her why once and she smiled, but she didn’t answer.
I’m sure I do silly things that make Sarah shake her head, too.

Every time I buy the roses, I hope they’ll trigger something,
some spark that will bring her back, even if only for a moment. Silly, I know.

§

There are gaps, spaces where names for things used to be.
I’d convinced myself it was nothing more than old age, but today, after I went
to the supermarket, I sat in the parking lot with my car running, trying to
remember if I needed to turn right or left. I wasn’t truly scared, but
confused. I remembered what the house looked like. I remembered the street
name, but I had no idea how to get there.

Luckily, I saw my neighbor, Emma (I remembered her bright
yellow Volkswagen without a problem), and I followed her. None of the streets
looked familiar, and by the time she turned onto my street, my hands hurt from
holding the steering wheel so tight.

I lied. I
was
frightened. I know I should call the
doctor, but that would make it real.

§

Even now, I replay the day before I found her over and over
in my head. Was there something, some clue in her behavior? Her speech? Sarah
was running around. Was it possible I missed a forgotten word, a dropped name,
in the noise?

She made us lunch. She even cut Sarah’s sandwich into triangular
shapes—something that Sarah had only started requesting two weeks earlier. If
she remembered something like that, how could a day, one single day, strip it
all away?

The only thing odd was the way she hugged me before we left. A
little tighter, a little longer than normal, and she looked as if she wanted to
tell me something. Then Sarah tugged my hand; Mom patted my arm and told me to
go. I felt her watching us walk to the car, and I swear she was watching as we
drove away from the house. It’s probably my imagination, though, embellishing
the memory with a wish.

§

I was cleaning today, and I knocked the box aside.
Nothing spilled, thank goodness, but one red petal was sitting on the edge,
ready to fall. When I touched it, I felt the tingle on, under, my skin, like I
did when I touched my mother’s fabric scraps. And then it was as if something
swooped in and filled up all the spaces in my head.

It was extraordinary. I had no idea the box, the magic, could
do this. But I need to remember that these petals belong to Rebecca, not me.

§

She didn’t answer the phone, which wasn’t like her, so I
went to her house after I dropped Sarah off at school. I found her sitting
dull-eyed in her living room, still wearing her nightgown. She cried when I
talked to her, shrieked when I took her hands, screamed when the paramedics arrived.
But what else was I supposed to do?

I was so sure it was something small. Maybe a seizure or a fall
that clouded her thoughts. They gave her a sedative, and as I followed the
ambulance to the hospital, I couldn’t remember if I told her I loved her the
day before. I still can’t remember, but I have to believe that deep inside, she
knows.

§

I told myself it was a fluke. My imagination. My hands
were shaking when I opened the box, but I had to try it again. I’m sure Rebecca
would understand. I know she would. I took one petal out, cupped it in my hand,
and felt the soft whisper of magic beneath my skin. A dance without music. A
dream without sleep. Like before, the empty spots inside me, inside my head,
vanished; like before, it didn’t last long enough.

Magic never does.

§

She babbled the first two months, but everything that came
out was a jumble of chaos. Once or twice, I thought I heard her say my name,
but no matter how many times I tried to talk to her, she cringed away. I told
her stories—the time we went to the beach and I got stung by a jellyfish. How
after my tears dried, I realized that she, too, had been stung. The night of my
junior prom and how she drove me crazy asking for one more photograph. Just one
more. The day of my wedding when she gave me a lace-edged handkerchief that
once belonged to her great-grandmother, and how she waved her hands around my
eyes so my tears wouldn’t run down and ruin my makeup.

I kept waiting for her to wake up, to come back. I brought roses;
she tore the petals from one of the blooms and held them tight in her fists,
muttering incoherencies all the while. When I took the rest away, she screamed
and pulled my hair. I didn’t bring them again until her words vanished and the
light in her eyes faded.

§

I used another petal. I felt terrible taking away another
piece of something Rebecca should have, but she’ll be here soon and I don’t
want her to see me that other way. She’ll worry. She’ll insist I call the
doctor.

I hope she’ll forgive me. I hope she’ll understand.

§

I drive to the facility like I do every week, but today I
sit in the parking lot with the engine running. The building looms like an
empty hotel with each window a glittering reminder that once upon a time there
was joy and laughter. Little of that here, now.

Once, we went on a camping trip to a cabin in the mountains and
in the middle of the night, I climbed into my parents’ bed because the noises
terrified me. My mother told me the bugs and the forest animals were having a
party, and if I listened very carefully, I would be able to hear them laughing.
She didn’t make me go back to my own bed, though. She simply scooted over so I
had enough room. I was young, younger than Sarah is now.

My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. My knuckles turn
white. I can’t do it. I can’t face the stranger today. She doesn’t know who I
am anymore; she won’t know I wasn’t there.

I hate this. I hate all of it. Tears well up in my eyes. Spill
over my lashes. As I drive away, I promise myself I’ll come next week. I just
can’t face her today.

§

My fingertips grow cold when the magic starts to fade. My
thoughts twist and turn, and the words spiral out to nowhere. A ribbon I can’t
catch, no matter how hard I try.

§

One week turns into two. Then three. I go back on a rainy
Sunday afternoon and get out of my car quickly, before I can change my mind.
The nurse smiles, but I see the accusation in her eyes. I don’t smile back.

§

Rebecca is coming over today. I sat with the box for an
hour, afraid to use another petal, but too afraid not to. Is one more day with
my daughter too much to want?

In the end, I plucked one from the box and held it tight in my
hand. My skin danced and I felt the missing words, the missing spaces, return.
I felt like myself again. I felt alive.

What will happen when I
forget the magic inside the roses? When I stumble around in my apartment,
frightened by the sights and the sounds, like a drowning woman in a dark ocean
of forgetting? When I forget that the box is my life preserver? When I touch
the roses, they say, “Helen, your name is Helen.”

What will happen when I forget they’re telling the truth?

§

When the doctor said she had Alzheimer’s, all the air rushed
from my lungs. I barked a laugh. Maybe I’d misheard. “When I saw her yesterday,
she was fine.”

I hid my hands so he couldn’t see my fingers twist. The doctor
said nothing, but I saw in his eyes that he thought I was lying.

“We spent all day together,”
I said. “All day. She was perfectly fine. And I saw her a week before that and
she was fine then, too. I would have seen something if, if…” The words got
caught in the tears I couldn’t hold back. For several long minutes that felt
like hours, I cried into my hands, feeling the weight of his gaze.

“In this stage, sometimes patients do exhibit moments of clarity.
The disease affects everyone differently, and,” he added kindly, “sometimes we
see what we want to see.”

But I know who I saw. My mother, not a stranger.

§

The box is half empty now. I should stop. I know I
should. But I don’t want to give Rebecca up yet. I don’t want to give up myself
yet. I hope she doesn’t hate me for this.

§

I brought pink roses this time. My father gave them to her
sometimes. Not often, but enough. When I was a teenager, I finally realized the
pink roses were apologies. After I put the flowers in the vase, I turn around.
Her eyes are blank; her mouth slack.

I take a deep breath. “We have to sell your house, Mom. I’m so
sorry, I didn’t want to, but we can’t afford not to, and I refuse to put you in
one of those other places, especially since we don’t know how long you’ll
be…here.”

She says nothing. I know she doesn’t understand what I’m saying,
but I fight the urge to wither beneath her gaze. After a time, I kiss her
forehead and smooth back her hair.

“I’ll see you next week,” I say.

I take her hand. She doesn’t pull away, but I might as well be
holding a mannequin.

§

I’m afraid. I’m so afraid. There’s only one petal left
and Rebecca and Sarah are coming over today. I should save it for her so she’ll
believe, so she’ll save up little bits and pieces and tuck them away for Sarah,
but I’m not ready to say goodbye.

Not today.

§

I stand in my mother’s living room, staring at all the
knick-knacks and what-nots. For a moment, I contemplate hiring several college
students to come in and cart everything away, but then I see the tiny carved
lion my father brought back from a business trip to Africa. Sarah loved to play
with it when she was a toddler, and I was always afraid she’d break it, but my
mother always brushed my concerns away with a small wave of her hand and a
smile.

I start with her bedroom, boxing up things to donate and things
to keep. In her jewelry box, I find a gaudy ring I bought for her at a school
holiday sale and a bracelet of wooden beads Sarah made for her in kindergarten.
I run my fingers over them and smile. I can’t believe she kept all this stuff.