Almost Crimson by Dasha Kelly

have her mother scribble across the back. When CeCe started returning the endorsed check, the manager deducted their rent and returned the remaining cash.
    When CeCe turned away from the locked door, she was surprised to see her mother standing at the kitchen table, not sitting, making eye contact with her. Her mother even wore the outline of a smile. CeCe eyed her mother as she maneuvered around the coffee table to drop her duffel bag. She walked across the room to hug her mother and then open the refrigerator door.
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    CeCe spent the first few days home assessing bills and the cupboards, washing and hanging laundry, making daily trips to the library. Her mother didn’t ask many questions about camp, just kept her eyes on CeCe with that ill-fitting grin.
    At the end of the week, before grabbing her tote bag and heading out to catch the bus for her library retreat, the phone rang. The rare clamor filled their small apartment, making them jump. CeCe lifted the receiver. It was Ms. Petrie. CeCe wished she were at the bus stop already.
    â€œI wanted to make sure you and your mom were all set for tomorrow,” Ms. Petrie said.
    â€œTomorrow?”
    Ms. Petrie sighed into the phone and chirped, “So glad I called.”
    CeCe listened as the social worker described the therapy series her mother had been committed to attending for the next six months. She would need to catch the bus to a counselor whose office was across town.
    â€œHe’s really one of the best to deal with her type of, um, issues,” Ms. Petrie said. “Are you excited about your part?”
    â€œWhat part?”
    â€œI know you’ve been a big girl for a long time but, legally, we can’t have you stay at the apartment alone for more than thirty minutes,” Mrs. Petrie said. “So, instead of making you sit in the waiting room of the therapist’s office, we were able to get you free piano lessons at a studio down the hall.”
    CeCe knew she was supposed to return Ms. Petrie’s excitement, but there were too many other, darker emotions waiting in queue. CeCe felt the sludge filling her skull. She wanted this woman’s voice out of her ear.
    â€œWhat if I don’t go?” CeCe asked.
    â€œI’m sorry; you have to go. Otherwise, I could get in big trouble with my supervisor,” she said, “and your mother could get arrested for endangerment.”
    CeCe was quiet. Her neck grew hot as she gripped the receiver. She wrote down the address and called the transit office for the bus routes. She heard her mother in the bedroom, adjusting herself on the mattress, and felt a headache pressing against her ears and the backs of her eyeballs. CeCe slammed the front door when she left.
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    â€œLet’s go, Mama,” CeCe said, standing in the doorway of their bedroom. Her mother had been moving in circles, smoothing the blanket, slipping on her shoes, straightening the stacks of papers on the dresser. “We can’t miss the Kennedy bus.”
    Two bus transfers and an hour later, they arrived at a strip mall in the Birchdale neighborhood, a small enclave on the far-east end of the city. The property was modern and clean, with a video store, dry cleaners, and other small businesses. Between the insurance office and the shoe store, a nondescript glass door led to an upstairs maze of boxy, wood-paneled office spaces. A directory sign pointed to the music school at one end of the hallway and Dr. Carroll Harper at the other.
    CeCe’s piano lesson started thirty minutes later than her mother’s session, though they would finish at the same time. CeCe walked with her mother to the doctor’s office. A scent of spiced apples greeted them inside. The waiting area was small. There were four cushioned banquet chairs and another closed door with a wooden sign hung from a thick, orange ribbon: “In session. Please have a seat.”
    CeCe and her mother took a seat on each wall.