“Denise!” my mother cries, “There you are!”
Today I’m Denise. I set my purse down by her bed and force a smile. I figure that at least this is better than last week, when I was Erma, our old housekeeper who spoke with a rolling accent and always forgot to wipe the counters down.
“What do you think?” my mother asks, she tugs at one of her loose curls, “I want to get it colored. Should I go lighter or darker?”
I sit by her feet. At least her room is nice. Printed floral wallpaper, a cheerful change from the somber November sky outside the curtained window, perks up my mood just a bit. The bed she lays in is small but comfortable, and a wooden table stands next to her, topped a vase of fake daisies. A door next to me connects to a tiny bathroom. There’s even a closet for her favorite dresses. She wears a collared blue dress dotted with tiny white birds. The nurse told me she just woke up from a nap.
“I like it the way it is,” I say.
She sighs, “But that’s the thing, everyone always likes to keep things the way they are. Nobody wants to change, Denise.”
Having a conversation with her is like watching the seasons move backwards; summer leaves fall into the earth and snow sprouts up amongst the grass. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t so frustrating.
“I mean,” she continues, “maybe I want to change. I don’t want to end like one of those boring receptionists that work downtown, with their plain bobs and cat eye glasses. Maybe I’ll go blond. Hell, Denise, maybe I’ll go red.”
“I think whatever you do, you’ll look great.”
She beams at me, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I struggle to return her enthusiasm.
With slightly trembling hands, I reach into my purse and take out a piece of cloth, stitched with pink and blue sheep. I place it in her warm hands. “Here, I brought this for you.”
I know it’s worthless; it’s not like there’s anything I can do to make her remember. But a deep need contracts in my chest to try and fix her; I wave memories over her head as false hope for myself.
“It’s cute, Denise,” she says, “but I think it’s too small for me.”
In my head, I’m reaching over and grasping her thin shoulders and shaking them so hard that her dying brain cells rejuvenate. Say my name, I’m crying, I am your only daughter, say my fucking goddamn name.
“Denise?”
I focus back on my reality. “What?”
She returns my baby blanket. “You keep it.”
She starts to talk about her hair color again and I want to curl up beside her the way I used to as a child, to lean my head against her breast and listen to the rhythm of her heartbeat. To drift off into sleep then was like laying in a boat in the middle of a vast ocean, her hand holding mine was the anchor, and we would be safe forever.
I check my phone, “I have to get going now.”
“Okay,” she chirps, “I’ll let you know how my hair turns out.”
“I can’t wait.”
I stand, placing the blanket in my purse, and then look back at her.
“I love you.”
Last week when I blurted this out as Erma, she laughed awkwardly and told me she’d leave the check on the table for me. Today though, her eyes light up. “I love you too, Denise. You’re my best friend.”
“I’ll always be your best friend,” I choke.
She doesn’t need to know that Denise has been dead for six months now.
I tell her goodbye and leave her room, walk down the hall past wheelchair patients and sign myself out at the front desk. There is a bitterness in the air outside that signals winter approaching. I sit in my car alone, watching damp, sodden leaves land flat on my windshield.
I press the blanket to my face and breathe; there’s a trace of her lavender perfume mingling with the scent of dust and mildew. All I wanted was to protect her the way she had always protected me. Wasn’t that enough to ask for?
A silent scream rises in my throat.
Because I see the truth; she wanders across empty waters dismasted, waves of crashing names and faces rolling beneath her, and as hard as I try to reach my mother, she is lost at sea.
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