“Why don’t you come over and have lunch with me? Nothing fancy, but I’ve got tuna.”
Air blows through my hot, tangled emotions. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Good. I’ll make some sweet tea.”
We discovered sweet tea on a family trip to Galveston as kids, and I’ve never found a soft drink I liked better. “I love you.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry I’m so mad at him. I know you didn’t have issues, but I—”
“You had good reasons to be angry,” she says. “If I think about him leaving you with Shanti like that, it makes my skin hurt.”
I bow my head. “Me too.”
When my mother died, I was locked in the apartment with her. The deadbolt opened with a key, and I couldn’t find it, not anywhere. I thought it might be in her pockets, but I would rather have crawled through a basement of spiders than touch her deadness. By the time I found her, she was dusky purple, a color I still can’t bear, and her tongue stuck out of her mouth. At least she’d had the grace to die in her bed, so I just closed her bedroom door and waited.
It was okay for the first day. Well, not okay, but I had milk and cereal and the TV. I crawled up on the couch and tried to open windows, but they wouldn’t budge, so whenever I heard anyone in the hallway, I stood by the door and yelled. “Help! Help! I can’t get out!”
No one stopped, not for almost four full days, not that I really registered the time. I knew it was a long time, days in a row. A woman bringing groceries up the stairs finally heard me, and fetched the super, and the two of them opened the door to find me half-crazed with terror and hunger. They called my dad.
Meadow and my dad picked me up, and they were kind, touching me, hugging me. My dad held me close, crying hard, and I was so exhausted I just laid my head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he said over and over. “I’m so sorry. My baby girl.”
When we got to the house—which by then was Belle l’été—Rory was asleep. Meadow fed me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ran a warm bath in her bedroom. I’d been in the house only three times, and the splendor staggered me. I couldn’t speak for looking around at the painted tiles in the bath alcove, the plentiful soft towels stacked on the shelves, the clean floors, and the fresh soap.
In the bathtub, reaction set in. I started to shake from head to toe. Meadow sang to me, gently washing my crusty skin, my tangled hair. They tucked me into the bed between them, giving me their body warmth, and I finally fell asleep, and slept through the entire next day and night, until the morning, when I opened my eyes to see blue eyes staring down at me. “You’re awake!” Rory cried. “Now we can go swimming!”
“Rory,” Meadow said, coming into the room with an armful of towels. “Did you wake her?”
“No! I promise! I was just waiting and she woke up herself.”
“Well, give her some room, honey. Are you hungry, Maya?”
I was aware of emptiness throughout my entire body. “Yes.”
“Let’s get you fed, then. C’mon, Rory, you too.”
I have no memory of whether there was a funeral for my mom.
From that day to this, Rory has been my truest friend. It takes only a minute to drive to her house, and I love that she’s so close again. The Shanti winery is almost ninety miles up the coast, so I’d fallen out of the habit of regular, close contact with my family. I drove down every few months, did my duty visits, then hurried back to my wine. Booze is a demanding, jealous, exhausting lover.
Right now, I walk up to the open screen door, and Nemo comes trotting out of the kitchen to say hello. “Hey, sweetie pie,” I say, bending over to kiss his soft nose. “I missed you, too.”
Rory trails behind him, her red hair scraped into a messy bun, her slim legs in lululemon tights. Like Meadow, she’s sensationally busty, but unlike her mother, she tends to drape herself in loose T-shirts. This one says ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE READING. “Hi,” she says, hugging me. “You look wiped out. Come sit down.”
I follow her to the dining table. It’s scattered with Micron pens and little square cards filled with particular patterns. “Zentangle, huh?”
“It’s really soothing.” She places a big icy glass of tea in front of me. “Maybe you’d like it.”
“Maybe,” I say, by which I mean doubtful. I take a deep gulp of tea. “Oh my God, this is perfect,” I gasp. “So sweet!”