footsteps, and then peered around the corner, to the living room.
Her mother wasn’t there.
She’d held her breath as she passed under the low arched doorway of the dining room, separated from the kitchen by a swinging door (one side of which would no longer swing, since either Bill or Frank—neither of whom would admit to it—had pulled it off the door frame by hanging from it, and because their father, who had no carpentry skills, also refused to hire anyone to do any work around the house.) If her mother was behind that door, she was standing too still to be detected.
Mira pushed open the side that still opened, and stepped into the kitchen.
Nothing.
Only her mother’s half-empty coffee cup on the counter, with a bright red imprint of her lips on the rim.
Mira touched the cup. It was cold.
There were only two other places in the house her mother could be, Mira knew: the half-finished basement (except that Mira didn’t hear the washer or dryer) or the walk-in pantry. They had only one car, and her father would have taken it to work, so unless her mother had walked into town (unthinkable, as she didn’t even own a pair of real walking shoes, and it had rained that morning, so there would be puddles, and what would she do in their small town anyway?), she had to be in the house.
Perhaps, Mira thought, her mother was alphabetizing soup cans in the pantry or checking expiration dates. There was one bare bulb in the pantry, and the space was large enough, even crammed as it was with cans and jars and boxes of pasta and Pop Tarts and Frosted Flakes, that her mother might comfortably stand inside it or even sit on a chair if she wanted to, looking around, making lists.
Mira walked to the door and put her hand on the warm solidity of the fake brass knob, and had the sure sense of something beyond the door. But what? Not her mother, exactly, but some suppressed energy, some barely perceptible movement, some silent intense activity, like cell growth or furtive sex. It crossed Mira’s mind that there might be someone behind that door who was not her mother at all—or that her mother might be in there with someone.
She hesitated, and then pulled the door open so quickly she felt a rush of wind on her face and neck, and the bright overhead light nearly blinded her after the darkness of the hallway, and she gasped when her mother turned around, seeming less bathed in that light than emitting it, standing as she was in the center of the pantry, directly under the one bare bulb, wearing what looked to Mira at first like some kind of white choir robe made of feathers, or giant wings wrapped around her body, eyes closed but lips and cheeks vividly, garishly, painted red (although in real life Mira’s mother wore makeup only on Sundays, for church, or on the rare weekend nights Mira’s father took her out to dinner). Her skin looked wet, coated with dew or sweat, and Mira got a quick but definite impression that her mother had just hatched or was in the process of hatching, or being born, or being reanimated after death.
Mira froze in the doorway, hand flat against her chest, heart pounding into her palm. Her mother slowly opened her eyes and said, “Mira?” in a voice a hundred times softer and more full of patience and motherly affection than Mira had ever heard it.
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Are you—?”
“What, sweetheart?”
Mira took a step backward, and her mother simply pulled the door closed again between them, and Mira hesitated for only a second or two before returning quickly to her room and getting back into her bed where she belonged.
As the years passed, like so many other incidents from childhood and adolescence, that moment became a confused vision in her memory, and often Mira would think she’d simply dreamed the whole thing, or hallucinated it. (Was it possible the Tylenol she’d taken that morning had codeine in it? Could she have had, in addition to her period, a fever?) But she also
Her mother wasn’t there.
She’d held her breath as she passed under the low arched doorway of the dining room, separated from the kitchen by a swinging door (one side of which would no longer swing, since either Bill or Frank—neither of whom would admit to it—had pulled it off the door frame by hanging from it, and because their father, who had no carpentry skills, also refused to hire anyone to do any work around the house.) If her mother was behind that door, she was standing too still to be detected.
Mira pushed open the side that still opened, and stepped into the kitchen.
Nothing.
Only her mother’s half-empty coffee cup on the counter, with a bright red imprint of her lips on the rim.
Mira touched the cup. It was cold.
There were only two other places in the house her mother could be, Mira knew: the half-finished basement (except that Mira didn’t hear the washer or dryer) or the walk-in pantry. They had only one car, and her father would have taken it to work, so unless her mother had walked into town (unthinkable, as she didn’t even own a pair of real walking shoes, and it had rained that morning, so there would be puddles, and what would she do in their small town anyway?), she had to be in the house.
Perhaps, Mira thought, her mother was alphabetizing soup cans in the pantry or checking expiration dates. There was one bare bulb in the pantry, and the space was large enough, even crammed as it was with cans and jars and boxes of pasta and Pop Tarts and Frosted Flakes, that her mother might comfortably stand inside it or even sit on a chair if she wanted to, looking around, making lists.
Mira walked to the door and put her hand on the warm solidity of the fake brass knob, and had the sure sense of something beyond the door. But what? Not her mother, exactly, but some suppressed energy, some barely perceptible movement, some silent intense activity, like cell growth or furtive sex. It crossed Mira’s mind that there might be someone behind that door who was not her mother at all—or that her mother might be in there with someone.
She hesitated, and then pulled the door open so quickly she felt a rush of wind on her face and neck, and the bright overhead light nearly blinded her after the darkness of the hallway, and she gasped when her mother turned around, seeming less bathed in that light than emitting it, standing as she was in the center of the pantry, directly under the one bare bulb, wearing what looked to Mira at first like some kind of white choir robe made of feathers, or giant wings wrapped around her body, eyes closed but lips and cheeks vividly, garishly, painted red (although in real life Mira’s mother wore makeup only on Sundays, for church, or on the rare weekend nights Mira’s father took her out to dinner). Her skin looked wet, coated with dew or sweat, and Mira got a quick but definite impression that her mother had just hatched or was in the process of hatching, or being born, or being reanimated after death.
Mira froze in the doorway, hand flat against her chest, heart pounding into her palm. Her mother slowly opened her eyes and said, “Mira?” in a voice a hundred times softer and more full of patience and motherly affection than Mira had ever heard it.
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Are you—?”
“What, sweetheart?”
Mira took a step backward, and her mother simply pulled the door closed again between them, and Mira hesitated for only a second or two before returning quickly to her room and getting back into her bed where she belonged.
As the years passed, like so many other incidents from childhood and adolescence, that moment became a confused vision in her memory, and often Mira would think she’d simply dreamed the whole thing, or hallucinated it. (Was it possible the Tylenol she’d taken that morning had codeine in it? Could she have had, in addition to her period, a fever?) But she also
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