Ma and Me

Abstract

We've been home alone for the last 12 hours, an unbroken seam of pills, and feedings, glass tumblers full of cloudy water, soaked Depends, cryptic blood splotches, endless changes of linens or clothing, phantom pains, garbled speeches, and phone calls. And this was just the first night. Lambert comes by to drop off the prescriptions, I barely greet him. He asks me how Ma is. I shake my head. In her room, I place the new medication, the morphine, next to the others. It looms, the largest of the bottles, a prop in a Hitchcock film. Don't take 'em all at once, he tells her. He jokes with her in a way I never can. She beams, llamatoothed, loving his sense of humor. Getting it, even though many of the words have lost their meanings. She feels recognized, provoked. She's always been morbid, and knows it. He pats her muu-muu'd shoulder. When is that pigeon-head going to take me home? she asks him.