“Don’t worry. She was gone by the time she got to the third step,” he says, describing the fall that resulted in your mother’s ill-timed death.
You’ve just parked in a Walmart parking lot when you get the call from your brother Mark. You sit for a moment in the quiet, the keys still in the ignition. You exhale, then turn the key. She won’t need that shower chair after all.
“I don’t know why I decided to stop by when I did. I just felt this jostle, this pull towards the house, and I was on my way to the gym anyhow,” Mark says from across the kitchen counter. You slide a warm coffee mug to your older brother. “I don’t know what made that woman think to go down to the basement. She can barely walk on a flat surface.”
You know. You say nothing.
If you won’t get me my violet shawl, then I’ll do it myself.
Mom, I have to run to the store to get your shower chair so you can shower before your appointment this afternoon. The shawl is in the dryer now. I’ll fluff it when I get back so it’ll be nice for you.
If Mark were here, he’d help his mother.
Branches of the bare lilac tree claw at the window. You’ll have to trim them soon. Your mother’s scent still lingers in the hall, something powdery and stale. You pull out the top rack of the dishwasher and run a plum dishtowel in circles inside a glass cup.
“So, are we going to sell the house?” Mark says.
You look up. “Sell the house?”
“Yeah, man. You don’t need all this space. Take your half and get a nice studio apartment in town.”
You’re a good son. You hear your mother’s voice whisper sharply, like cracked egg shells. Good sons take care of their mothers.
Good sons understand how things are. Good sons don’t leave their mothers waiting.
Sarah Bjork is an author of Gothic and psychological fiction from the Pacific Northwest. Her work appears in the anthology Not As It Seems (And You Press). She lives with her husband and two children.