“Those girls gave you a bad time,” she says one day. I’ve made both or us a cup of tea—she’s permitted this—and we sit at the kitchen table, drinking it. She’s still surprised to catch me drinking tea, and has asked several times whether I wouldn’t prefer milk.
“What girls?” I say. My fingers are a wreck; I shred them quietly, out of sight beneath the tabletop, as I do in times of stress; an old bad habit I cannot seem to break.
“Those girls. Cordelia and Grace, and the other one. Carol Campbell.” She looks at me, a little slyly, as if testing.
“Carol?” I say. I remember a stubby girl, turning a skipping rope.
“Of course, Cordelia was your best friend, in high school,” she says. “I never thought she was behind it. It was that Grace, not Cordelia. Grace put her up to it, I always thought. What became of her?”
“I have no idea,” I say. I don’t want to talk about Cordelia. I still feel guilty, about walking away from her and not helping.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she says. “They came to me that day and said you’d been kept in at school, for being rude to the teacher. It was that Carol who said it. I didn’t think they were telling the truth.” She avoids the word
“What day?” I say carefully. I don’t know what day she means. She’s begun to get things mixed up, because of the drugs.
“That day you almost froze. If I’d believed them I wouldn’t have gone to look for you. I went down the road, along by the cemetery, but you weren’t there.” She regards me anxiously, as if wondering what I will say.
“Oh yes,” I say, pretending I know what she’s talking about. I don’t want to confuse her. But I am growing confused myself. My memory is tremulous, like water breathed on. For an instant I see Cordelia and Grace, and Carol, walking toward me through the astonishing whiteness of the snow, their faces in shadow.
“I was so worried,” she says. What she wants from me is forgiveness, but for what?
On some days she is stronger, and gives the illusion of improvement. Today she wants me to help her sort through the things in the cellar. “So you won’t have to go through a lot of that old junk, later on,” she says delicately. She won’t say
“I can manage,” says my mother. From the days when managing was enough. We sort through the old magazines, the stash of different-sized cardboard boxes, the shelves of clean jars. She threw out a lot less than she could have, when they moved; or else she’s accumulated more. I carry things up the stairs and stow them in the garage. In there they seem disposed of. There’s a whole shelf of my father’s shoes and boots, lined-up pairs: city shoes with perforated toecaps, overshoes, rubber boots, wading boots for fishing, heavy-soled boots for walking in the woods, with a bacon grease patina and leather laces. Some of them must be fifty years old, or more. My mother will not throw them out, I know; but neither does she mention them. I can sense what she expects of me, in the way of control. I did my mourning at the funeral. She doesn’t need to deal with a tearful child, not now. I remember the old Zoology Building where we used to go on Saturdays, the creaking, overheated corridors, the bottles of eyeballs, the comforting smells of formaldehyde and mice. I remember sitting at the dinner table, with Cordelia, his warnings washing over our heads, the ruined water, the poisoned trees, species after species snuffed out like stepped-on ants. We did not think such things were prophecies. We thought they were boring then, a form of adult gossip that did not concern us. Now it’s all come true, except worse. I live in his nightmare, no less real for being invisible. You can still breathe the air, but for how long?