“It’s been a while,” she says as she pulls out the guest book and pushes it in my direction. There’s judgment in her tone, but I try to ignore it; instead, I look down at the book. The page is fresh and I write my name in the top spot, noticing the date in the upper right-hand corner—Monday, June 3. I swallow hard, trying to ignore the pinch in my chest.
“I know,” I say at last. “I’ve been busy, but that’s no excuse. I should have come sooner.”
“The wedding’s comin’ up now, isn’t it?”
“Next month,” I say. “Can you believe it?”
“Good for you, honey. Good for you. I know your mama’s happy for you.”
I smile again, grateful for the lie. I’d like to think my mom is happy for me, but the truth is, it’s impossible to tell.
“Go ahead,” she says, pulling the book back into her lap. “You know the way. A nurse should be in there with her.”
“Thanks, Martha.”
I turn around and face the interior of the lobby; there are three hallways, all jutting out in different directions. The hallway to my left leads to the cafeteria and kitchen, where residents are served from vats of various mass-produced meals at the same time every day—woks full of watery scrambled eggs, spaghetti with meat sauce, poppy-seed chicken casseroles served with wilted lettuce drowning in salty salad dressing. The one in the middle leads to the living room, a wide-open area with televisions and board games and surprisingly comfortable lounge chairs that I have fallen asleep in more than once. I take the hallway to the right—the hallway littered with bedrooms, hallway number three—and walk down the endless stretch of marbled linoleum until I reach room 424.
“Knock, knock,” I say, tapping on the partially cracked-open door. “Mom?”
“Come in, come in! We’re just getting cleaned up in here.”
I peek into the bedroom and catch a glimpse of my mother for the first time in a month. As always, she looks the same, but different. The same as she has looked for the last twenty years, but different from the way my mind still chooses to remember her—young, beautiful, full of life. Colorful sundresses that grazed her tanned knees, her long, wavy hair clipped back at the sides, her cheeks flushed from the summer heat. Now I see her pale, frail legs peeking out from behind the opening of a robe as she perches in her wheelchair, expressionless. The nurse is brushing her hair, now cut to her shoulders, as she stares out a window overlooking the parking lot.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, moving closer. I sit on the side of the bed and smile. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, honey,” the nurse says. This one is new—I don’t recognize her. She seems to sense that and continues talking. “My name’s Sheryl. Your mama and I have been getting close over these last few weeks, haven’t we, Mona?”
She taps my mother’s shoulder and smiles, brushes a few more times before placing the comb on her bedside table and wheeling her around to face me. My mother’s face still comes as a shock, even after all these years. She isn’t disfigured or anything; she isn’t maimed beyond recognition. But she is different. The little things that made her her have changed—her once perfectly manicured eyebrows are overgrown, giving her face a more masculine appearance. Her skin is waxy and devoid of all makeup, her hair washed with cheap store-brand shampoo that leaves the ends wiry and wild.
And her neck. That long, thick scar that still rests across her neck.
“I’ll leave y’all to it,” Sheryl says, walking toward the door. “If you need anything, just holler.”
“Thank you.”
I’m alone with my mother now, her eyes boring into mine, and those feelings of neglect come raging back. Mom was placed in a home in Breaux Bridge after her suicide attempt. We were still too young to care for her ourselves—at twelve and fifteen, we were sent to live with an aunt on the outskirts of town—but the plan was to take her out when we could. Care for her when we could. Then Cooper turned eighteen, and it was clear that she couldn’t go with him; he couldn’t stay put for long enough. Couldn’t sit still. She needed routine. Clean, simple routine. So we decided to move her to Baton Rouge when I got into LSU, and I would take over after I finished college … but then we came up with excuses for that, too. How would I get my PhD caring for a dependent and disabled mother? How would I ever meet someone, date someone, get married—although I had been doing a pretty good job of sabotaging my chances of that without her help, anyway. So we kept her here, in Riverside, still telling ourselves it was temporary. After graduation. After we had enough savings. After I opened my own practice. The years stretched on, and we quieted our guilt by visiting every weekend. Then we started taking turns, Cooper and I, going every other week, rushing through each visit, checking our phones because we crammed it between other obligations. Now we mostly visit when the nurses call and ask us to. They’re good people, but I’m sure they talk about us when we’re not around. Judge us for abandoning our mother, leaving her fate in the hands of strangers.