Page 198 - In Five Years

I have been asked if I’ve needed help so many times that I have been allowed
to forget the question, the significance of it. I see, now, the way the love in my
life has woven into a tapestry that I’ve been blessed enough to get to ignore. But
not now, not anymore.

“Yes,” I tell her.
She says she will email David, she will make sure we get refunds where we

can. She will handle the returns and the calls. She is my mother. She will help.
That is what she does.
I go back upstairs. Jill is gone. Aaron is in the other room, maybe, working. I
do not see him. At the door to the bedroom, I see that Bella is awake.

“Dannie,” she whispers. Her voice is light.
“Yes?”

“Come up,” she says.
I do. I come around the other side of the bed, getting in next to her. It hurts for
me to look at her. She’s all bones. Gone are her curves, her flesh, the softness

and mystery that has been her familiar body for so long.
“Your mom left?” I ask.
“Thank you,” she says.

I don’t answer. Just thread my fingers through hers.
“Do you remember,” she says. “The stars?”
At first I think she means the beach at night, maybe. Or that she doesn’t mean

anything. That she’s seeing something I can’t now.
“The stars?”
“Your room,” she says.

“The stick-ons,” I say. “My ceiling.”
“Do you remember how we used to count them?”
“We never got there,” I say. “We couldn’t tell them apart.”

“I miss that.”
I take her whole hand in mine now. I want to take her whole body, too. To
hold her. To press her close to me, where she can’t go anywhere.

“Dannie,” she says. “We need to talk about this.”
I don’t say anything. I can feel the tears running down my cheeks. Everything
feels wet. Wet and cold—damp—we’ll never get dry.

“What?” I say, stupidly. Desperately.