Nate broke every speed limit while I talked Mom out of shattering the mirror. When we pulled into the parking lot, I ran up the stairs and Mom charged into me before I reached the door. She clutched my ribs so tight it made breathing hard as I tucked her under my elbow and guided her back into the apartment. Both of us collapsed onto the futon while Nate filled her a glass of water from the tap. Mom mumbled the same phrase over and over into my neck, “She won’t take you. I won’t let her.”
Eventually, she fell asleep against my shoulder, her arms limp around my stomach. I stroked her hair out of her face like when we used to read together. Before I left high school, my English classes assigned a small library of novels, so I would study those on the futon while she laid her head in my lap and did her daily Bible devotionals. My hand had needed something to fiddle with and she’d always liked head massages.
Nate walked out from the kitchen with two cups of coffee, piping hot and thick. We both liked it black with nothing but the taste of the beans for flavor. What made it special was that Nate stocked us with specialty coffees so he had something to drink when he came over. That batch was apparently an imported Colombian roast.
“Thanks for staying.” I took my cup and caught a good whiff of the steam’s burnt undertones.
“No problem.” Nate sat on one of the folding chairs Mom and I kept around for company. It creaked under his weight.
Quiet. Nate stalled, sipping his coffee. I twirled a piece of my mom’s shiny blonde hair around my finger. When I was little, that hair made me wonder if Abuela was actually my mom instead, since I took so much after my Alvarez side. Mom figured she’d inherited some blonde genes buried in her Cuban heritage, and I hadn’t.
Nate hummed, breaking the silence. “How long has she been like this?”
“Well, she’s going to be thirty-three.” I counted backwards in my head. “It’s over eighteen years now.”
“Since you were born?”
“Yeah, a little after. I asked Abuela about it once. She always had the anxiety, but the schizophrenia didn’t show until she had me. The doctor thought the trauma from the car accident that killed my father must’ve triggered it. It happened and there’s no cure, so we deal.” I shifted Mom’s neck to an easier angle. Dealing meant taking even more time from work for doctor’s appointments while the laundry list of other bills piled up. “Just sucks that her new med combo went south so quick. I spent the rest of our money on that damn trip.”
“If you need help, I have some funds saved up.”
“Of course you do, Mister Pinch-A-Penny,” I teased. “You and Nico already help enough.”
“And you’re still only scraping by.”
“On the bright side, one less mouth to feed.”
“And one less income. Accept a handout for once in your life.” Nate leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees. “Then you can save for the future. You could go to school, get a career, find a passion for something.”
“If money gets that bad, I’ll think about asking.” I sipped my coffee and hissed when it burned my tongue. “Any savings are going for a car, though, not a piece of paper I’ll never use.”
“It’s silly learning about history, politics, the arts?”
“If I ever need to know that stuff, the internet’s right here.” I jerked my chin at my chunky laptop. “What about you? You never got a degree and you’re doing fine.”
“I’ve still taken plenty of classes so I can run the bar better. I get a degree isn’t for everyone, but what about trade school? Or cosmetology like your grandmother? You could do something hands on.”
“If I ever get time. But right now, that’s zip. That’s what it comes down to.” I tugged my mom closer. “Before, while Abuela was still alive, maybe I could’ve thought about that stuff. But now I’m all Mom’s got.”
“You’ve got us too, you know. Besides, I’m still worried that you’re giving up on your own happiness too easy.” Nathan gestured around at the apartment then. “Is taking care of her all you want out of life?”
“That can wait ‘til Mom and I figure stuff out.” I managed a reassuring smile, a slip of a thing. “Even if I never get to it, she’s my family. That’s enough for me, really.”
Nate frowned, but he let the two of us finish our coffee without anymore well-meaning questions. Mom’s back went up and down with her breathing, slow and steady.
“Can you tell Nico to move my day off to tomorrow?”
“I’ll pass on the message.” Nate stood, abandoning his empty mug on the small card table nearby and leaving his ongoing dent in the metal chair a little deeper. He left with a wave and a worried crease in his forehead.
I unwrapped Mom and, at the first touch, she squinted. When I hopped up and locked the door after Nate, she stretched her back loud enough that I heard it pop from across the living room.
“You feeling better?”
“More or less-ah!” A yawn broke up her last word. “What about you?”
“I’m always fine.” I plopped back into the imprint my butt had made. “You got me out of a bachelor party. The groom was single-handedly slaughtering classic rock.”
“Nice to know I’m useful.” Mom sagged against the upright mattress. “Nate saw, didn’t he?”
“Barely anything.”
“We’ll have to go to the doctor tomorrow.” Mom tucked her knees under her chin. “I hate making so much trouble. I don’t know what happened this time. I was getting dressed and then…”
“It’s not your fault.” I squeezed her. “The doctor screwed up. Maybe we should ask for a new one.”
“If the clinic even has another one available.” Mom nibbled on her bottom lip. “The thing is, this time felt different.”
“How’s that?”
“Normally the angels just talk to me or they send me little signs. Sometimes I can ignore it if I focus hard enough. But none of them have physically shown up since you were born. Nothing’s been that…vivid. And it was the exact same woman this time. She had the accent and everything. I swear there was someone with her too, a young guy…” She trailed off and sighed.
“You sure the guy being there wasn’t wishful thinking?”
“Ew, he was your age. If I ever date again, it’ll be someone way older than that.” Mom elbowed my side. “My point, it felt different. I felt different. So I reacted like anyone does when their worst fear talks to them through a freaking mirror. ”
“I thought your worst fear was cockroaches. What’d she say?”
“She asked about why it was hard finding us and how long it had been since I’d seen her. Then she brought you up.” Mom shuddered and rubbed her arms like she was cold. I scooted closer until our hips touched. She sucked in a big gulp of air, held it for a few seconds, and let it out in a rush. “At the accident, she said something about a deal. If she helped you, I had to give you up when she came back. I thought, what if that woman really talked to me?”
“It didn’t happen, though.” I smoothed her hair back, one long stroke after another. “This isn’t Alice in Wonderland. People don’t show up in mirrors and they don’t talk through them unless there’s speakers, internet, and cameras.”
“That’s exactly what I thought. But the last time I saw her, the doctors said you weren’t big enough to survive.” Mom curled her trembling fingers around my arm. “They pulled you out nine pounds and screaming. You never got sick, you did everything early. It happened exactly like she said.”
“She had nothing to do with it.” I covered her hand with mine. “The doctors screwed up their prediction, or we got a genuine miracle.”
“What if seeing her again was a sign? What if something takes you too?” Mom’s eyes got too shiny as moisture gathered in their corners. “You’re all I’ve got left.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I pulled her forehead into my chest and pressed my own eyes shut. If her tear ducts were acting up, I couldn’t let mine follow along. If Abuela never cried, neither would I. “Nothing will change that, especially some hallucination with an ego problem.”
“Okay.” Mom took another cleansing breath as she wiped her face with the back of her fist. “I think I’m ready for that movie. Let’s watch something upbeat this time.”
Mom picked a romantic comedy with two men vying for the lead’s interest, and we watched as the formula progressed. The actual couple managed to hit it off, but then the inevitable misunderstanding with the other guy drove them apart. Mom yawned until the halfway point and her eyelids drooped shut. I tossed a throw blanket over her shoulders as the movie played out the couple’s happy reunion.
The vomit-inducing powers of Hollywood love became background noise while I opened my laptop instead. I cleaned out the list of college home pages and application tutorials I’d bookmarked, all of them picked before Abuela passed. Mostly they were small state colleges that accepted a GED and boasted some solid degree programs with online options. I toyed around with a few majors like hospitality management, medical billing and coding, and social work—the last one when I felt ambitious. I’d planned to take a few intro courses to be sure.
Mom rolled over and kicked the blanket off her feet. I hurried to delete the rest of the list and tucked the throw’s corner under her legs. Couldn’t have her getting cold toes.
* * *
Mom and I had caught the bus to the psychiatrist’s office, and I sat in the clinic lobby after she went in, nipping at my nails while waiting for her session to end. The blank paperwork she needed me to fill out stayed untouched in my lap. Helping her with medical stuff still made my head spin. All my life, Mom had depended on Abuela for everything big like that. My grandmother always insisted she would do it all right and we shouldn’t worry. She’d started grudgingly training me how to take over paying our bills before she passed, but that was it.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The overhead T.V. played a rerun of a diabetes cooking show while I bounced my knee in a too slick upholstered chair. Two receptionists on duty sat behind a thick glass barrier with speakers and slots for interacting with patients. There was a numbered combination lock on the door handle leading to the offices. A framed picture of ducks in a pond hung from the wall, the only thing soothing thing about the place. Why ducks?
A nurse in blue scrubs with braids peeked out from the offices. “Maya?”
I lugged Mom’s important papers binder out of the chair beside me.
“Come on in.” A polite smile broke out over the nurse’s face. “Dr. Marshall wants to talk to you now.”
When I crossed from the lobby’s thin carpet to the inner clinic’s colorful linoleum, my footsteps echoed loud enough to startle me. The nurse led me down the stark white hall and stopped at a room on the left. It had a familiar bare bones set up with an armchair for the doctor and a sofa for the patients. The carpet had a convoluted swirl of earthy beige and maroon to make up for the bare cream walls. Mom sat across from Dr. Marshall, a white knuckled example of perfect posture.
“Thanks for seeing us so last minute.” I switched my attention to the psychiatrist as I took my spot beside Mom. “I know it’s been awhile between sessions. What’s going on?”
“Jen told me about what happened last night.” Dr. Marshall adjusted her horn-rimmed glasses. Somehow she managed to pull off a french twist without a hair out of place in Tampa’s humidity and still had straight creases in her gray slacks. She kept unshakeable eye-contact with Mom as she spoke. “You told me you had a relapse. You saw someone in the mirror who was threatening you and your daughter, right?”
“Yeah,” Mom muttered, her cheeks going pink. “The angel from the accident with Manny.”
“Jen did a good job using her support system, especially in light of your family’s recent loss. I talked over the treatment options with her. She wanted you to tell us what you thought as her caregiver.” She tapped the scribbled words on her clipboard as she talked. “Medication-wise, the quality of last night’s hallucination suggests her current dosage isn’t as effective as I’d hoped. My recommendation is to switch to something stronger. Then, if things get better, we can work on lowering the dosage for maintenance.”
“Got it. New meds,” I said “Anything else?”
“The thing that worries me is that this happened so soon after her last adjustment.” Dr. Marshall tapped her french-tipped nails together over her notes. “Jen told me you’ve been away from home more.”
“The bar’s been getting a lot of tourists.” I dug my pared down nails into the sofa cushion. If I crossed my arms over my chest like I wanted, she’d read something into it.
“In light of the recent stress, I want to make sure Jen’s symptoms don’t get worse. I saw that she used to have regular therapy sessions, but someone canceled most of them.”
“My grandmother thought church was enough.”
“Ah, that makes sense.” Dr. Marshall set her clipboard aside on the arm of her chair. She leaned forward, as if dropping to our level. “While I appreciate your grandmother’s dedication to her faith, I think we should pick up those sessions again. Twice a week. One day would be just Jen and I. The other day I’d like Maya to sit in for some family counseling.”
“Will insurance cover that?” I asked.
“You’ll have to call them to make sure.”
“My schedule’s all over the place.”
“I can also refer Jen to a local support group, but I still strongly recommend the family session. With the recent tragedy and how young you are, having a neutral person to talk to during this difficult transition should do wonders.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Mom, do you want this?”
Mom nodded, slouching deeper into the sofa. “Only if you can make it work.”
“I don’t have a car right now, so I need to set up a ride system or something.” I swallowed as I turned back to Dr. Marshall. Would Nate or Nico have the time? Could Mom’s insurance provide a pick-up service? “Can I get back to you about scheduling those?”
“Of course. I’ll get the new prescription sent to your pharmacy in the meantime,” Dr. Marshall said, adjusting her glasses. “When can I expect to hear back from you about times?”
“Sometime this week.” I crossed my legs and flexed my stiff fingers. “Is that all you wanted me for? Can we go home?”
“This session is over, yes.” Dr. Marshall waved to the door. “I look forward to hearing back from you. It was nice seeing you again, Jen.”
“You too.” Mom left with a sheepish wave.
We strolled through the clinic together toward the lobby. I nudged Mom. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Mom held her chin up and her scrunched shoulders relaxed. “So we’re trying therapy again. At least you’ll be there.”
“Sure.” I showed her a toothy smile and did my best not to fake it.
Mom’s face lit up and she wrapped her arm around my waist. I kept pace, but each step seemed heavier with her leaning on my side.
* * *
Guitars and a smoky-voice blared from my phone, not the alarm’s digitized piano. Sunshine glared in my face as I pawed around the end table and flipped open the cell. “What is it?”
“Maya?” Nico’s voice crackled on the other line. “You sound like a truck ran over you.”
“What the hell you calling for?” I pulled the phone away from my cheek and glanced at the time: 3:24 P.M. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Didn’t Nate tell you to cancel my shift today?”
“Cindy just came and showed me a letter from Juilliard. Quit right on the spot and skipped out of here. Plus David picked yesterday to let Nate get to him, and he hasn’t shown up since.”
“You call Shaqina or Frankie?”
“Shaq’s not available, helping her dad through chemo. Frankie didn’t pick up her phone. Probably in class or volunteering.” Nico sighed. “I’ll need you working doubles ‘til I can hire someone else for the day shift.”
I dropped my voice to a whisper. “What about Mom?”
“Is something wrong with her?”
“I’m not sure I should leave her alone until we get her new meds figured out.”
“Bring her, then. She can nap up in the house and we’ll check on her during breaks.”
“Sounds good. Can Nate pick us up?”
“He’s ahead on orders, so he’s already on his way.” Nico let out a big puff of air. “Thanks a ton, Maya, you’re saving my ass.”
“Aren’t I always?”
Nico laughed. “See you soon.”
I pressed the end call button and hopped off the futon. Mom had taken the apartment’s only bedroom, but she left it open out of habit. I charged in for the dresser where both of us kept our clothes. The middle drawers had all my black slacks and v-neck shirts. I grabbed the first ones from the top.
“Where’re you going?” Mom rubbed her eye as she sat up, covered in the topsheet. She’d left Abuela’s quilt hanging over the wall mirror to be safe.
“We are going to Nico’s.” I shoved my leg into my pants.
“I thought you told Nico to cancel your shift.”
“Last minute call in.” I hopped around as I worked my other leg through. “Nico told me I could bring you along.”
“I’ll be fine here.” Mom yawned and stretched her arms. “There’s some chores I need to catch up on.”
“We still don’t know how the new medication affects you.” I slid my head in the shirt collar and tugged the rest of it over my chest—quicker only because I’d slept in my bra. “One of the day servers up and quit. It’ll be a few weeks of crazy scheduling if Nate carts us back and forth. Maybe they’ll let us sleep at their place.”
“Alright, I like their house. How’s that going to work with therapy?”
“We probably need to tell Dr. Marshall to put off starting anything yet.” I shoved my wallet and keys into one pocket. My phone went into the other. “At least until Nico hires someone and one of us trains them.”
Mom’s eyebrows puckered together and she frowned.
“What is it?”
“I know therapy was a pain before, but I never gave it a shot because of Mercedes.” Mom rubbed her arms even though we kept the place at a sweltering 80-something degrees. “I want to try again, for real this time. Dr. Marshall thinks it’ll make a difference.”
“She’s a shrink. She gets paid to do those sessions. Of course she’ll say you need them.” I sat back on the bed and leaned down to slip on my socks, already drooping out of my chunky sneakers. “I’m not saying they won’t help, but we need the money from these extra hours right now. I’ll call the doctor tomorrow and tell her to hold off. If she really wants to help, she’ll understand.”
“No.” Mom squared her shoulders. “I can’t put this off anymore. I can do this.”
“And what if you can’t?” I shoved my feet into my shoes and tugged the laces tight. “Be reasonable, please.”
“I am. If I go to therapy again, I’ll apply it this time. I’ll get better at my coping mechanisms. I can get a job, keep it, and help with the bills.”
“That’s not going to happen overnight.” I finished off the final knot in my laces, pulling it tight enough to make my foot sore later.
“I won’t get anywhere unless I try. You’ve been working hard enough.” Mom crawled over and touched my back, gentle like Abuela used to. “I’m your mother. I need to take care of you.”
“No, you don’t. Have you noticed how our relationship works?” I bolted up from the bed. My chest burned, too tight like hot air ready to burst. “I had to make you food before I lost my first tooth. I dropped out of school to take over your job at Nico’s. I had to retake my GED because you wandered off the only day I asked for the car. I get that you have issues that make functioning harder, but all my life it’s been my job to take care of me, not yours.”
Mom opened her mouth to argue back, but it snapped shut in impish horror.
From the corner of my eye, Abuela’s quilt twitched. I checked over my shoulder. The blanket still dangled over the wall mirror. No movement.
“Did you see that?” Mom asked.
“It’s just the fan.” Even though said ceiling fan sliced through the air slower than rush hour traffic.
A gust of wind blew out from inside the mirror, making the blanket billow like a curtain over an open window. The frame’s rectangular edges glowed gold. Instead of our reflection, the glass showed twisting trees along a paved path with purple flowers.
“What the hell?” I backed away toward the bed’s headboard.
“You see it too?” Mom leapt up and huddled beside me. “Unless you’re not actually here and I’m imagining this whole thing.”
“It’s real.”
The balmy wind tossed the blanket aside and it dropped in a heap. Those gold edges expanded into a long oval, big enough for a person to fit through.
A woman with deep red hair floated more than walked through that glowing space into the bedroom. She could have been a runway model with her domineering height and willowy figure. Her white gown screamed Renaissance Fair escapee, but the way she looked down her nose at us said politician. The area she existed in demanded attention. She waltzed up to Mom and I like a stalking predator, every sway of her hips precise while her cat-like eyes raked over us.
“Jennifer Diaz, your time has run out.” The alien bombshell’s formal English echoed with a different, more musical language. “I come to collect.”
Mom staggered into the wall behind us, breathing faster. She clawed into my arm.
“Hey bitch.” I side stepped between Mom and the intruder. “Whatever you are, you deal with me.”
“Who is this?” The woman’s silvery eyes probed from my purple bed head to my slip resistant sneakers. “She resembles the dead boy.”
“She’s nobody.” Mom tugged me against her chest. Her heart pounded too fast against my back.
“Mom, don’t talk to her.” I reached into my back pocket, opened my phone, and felt around for 9-1-1.
“Mom?” The woman’s full lips pursed into a heart-shape as she paused. One second she was across the room. The next, she leaned over me, inches away. “Mom is an informal term for mother, correct?”
Instinct made me shove Mom away, into her bed. The stranger grabbed my wrist. I jerked it back, but her delicate fingers held on like a vice. She lifted me up until only the tips of my shoes grazed the ground. I rammed my fist into her hand again and again.
“Please don’t take her.” Mom fell to her knees on the floor and clutched the woman’s skirt. “She’s all I have.”
“She is far older than I expected, more rough.” She shook me and I dropped my cell phone. It clattered to the floor. The bones in my wrist ground together. I grabbed my shoulder as burning pain flew down my arm. But I refused to scream, grinding my teeth to hold it in. “Her headstrong nature will make things interesting. Now complete the deal, give me what you owe.”
“No.” Mom frantically shook her head. “Anything else.”
“I offered both of you a place in my realm once, but you spurned that offer. I followed your wishes and only saved your child. Should I take back the generosity I bestowed on you?” The woman’s thin eyebrows went up, her forehead staying smooth somehow. She twisted my limp hand. The disjointed bones in my wrist crunched. I shrieked.
“Stop it!” Mom’s eyes welled up. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“That’s better. Declare that your daughter belongs to me.”
“My daughter belongs to you.”
“I accept this payment and free you from your debt, Jennifer Diaz.” The woman set me down and her face lit up, literally, as she beamed. “The deal is finished!”
The pain in my arm numbed as she let go. I cradled my wrist to my chest and knelt down to my shaking mother. There was my phone, still lying open on the floor. The 911 operator had to hear everything. If I kept the redhead occupied, played along with her drama, maybe they could track our location and send help.
“You got me.” I wrapped a protective arm around Mom. “What do you want now?”
“To take us home.” My would-be kidnapper patted the top of my head. An electric jolt ran down my body. “Sleep.”
The room blurred and wobbled. Everything felt so heavy. I slumped over.
Mom cried my name.