“Mama,” she called again. The timer had been ringing nonstop and still Mama did not move.
The glass window into the oven revealed nothing except the doomed crowned circles that she imagined blackening and darkening into pieces of coal as she watched helplessly. It had happened before. Too many times. The only thing Mama never burned was soup, and that was because it was from a can.
She sniffed at the air. The muffins were burning. She knew it. She reached for her mother’s elbow and pulled hard on her arm.
Her mother blinked as though waking from a dream, her eyes adjusted to the new scene in front of her, growing wide in her realization of the noise invading the kitchen. She raced to the oven and shut off the timer.
“They are fine. Just fine. Just fine. Fine. They are fine,” Mama said over and over again as she slipped on the oven mitts and threw open the oven door. A blast of hot air blew out.
“Move away,” her mother said, pulling the muffins out of the oven.
She wouldn’t budge from her spot, waiting anxiously to inspect the muffins. Miraculously, they were not burnt. Brown and slightly darker on the edges. But not burnt.
Mama set the muffins on top of the stove. “You didn’t have to pull on my arm so hard.”
“The timer was ringing, Mama.”
“I heard it. I did.” Mama pointed at the muffins. “Look, they came out just fine.”
“You were going to burn them again. Like all the other times,” she accused.
Mama’s smile melted drop by drop. First her forehead, then her eyes, her cheeks, and finally her lips. Mama’s chin dropped into her chest and she blinked rapidly. She spoke in a soft voice. “But I didn’t burn them.”
Mama turned suddenly and shuffled in her slippers over to the back kitchen door with the oven mitts still on her hands. The way she just stood there, looking out the window of the closed door without moving to open it or even bothering to take off the oven mitts, filled the air with unease.
The strangeness of Mama made her feel guilty and mean. She walked over to Mama and grabbed her around the middle, laying her cheek on the small of Mama’s back.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she said. “The muffins are not burnt.”
Mama’s cartoon hands slowly lifted up and patted her arms.
“It’s starting to snow,” Mama whispered.
Outside, the first snow of the season gently drifted down, then swirled back up, caught in a breeze. Her mother swayed back and forth as though she was trapped by the same wind. A low guttural moan escaped Mama’s lips. “The train is coming.”
Spring
The sun, low on the horizon, illuminates the last lingering drifts of spring snow as the harsh wind swirls it high into the air until the tiny flecks of white are lost to the oblivion above. The streets are empty save for a few hurried people who walk with their heads down, their coats cinched tight. I pull my hat over my ears and start toward the parking lot behind Genentium. It’s not late, but most everyone has cleared out to celebrate after signing the paperwork. I shove my hands deep into my pockets. For years they had believed they were getting closer. First they had identified clusters, but there had to be a gene. I stare ahead of me, the street stretching off into the distance. Dad has been waiting for this news for over a decade, and the last thing I want to do is talk to him. I veer left, walking away from the lab.
A lone figure stands under the concrete eaves of a building, off to the side behind the bus stop bench. Hood pulled down low, head swaying to the beat of the music emanating from the phone held in one hand. With each movement, I can see the music like waves of heat floating above asphalt summer streets. Bass smooth and deep, peppered with guitar riffs that speak to the feet. Each beat. Each crest. Each slide. The notes are flames, flickering warmth against the windswept streets. As I approach, the music becomes clearer and I begin to hear a voice, low and strong.
“Did you die last night only to be reborn with dawn’s light?
Into this skin you wear.
Eyes that can’t see. Ears that can’t hear. A mind that holds no truth.
You died but forgot to leave.
The past crawls into the present, birthing the future.
Shell-shocked. Shell locked. And all the answers.
On the inside.
Your mind mirrors.
A kaleidoscope.
You inside you inside you.”
I step quickly, but in that second before I pass, before my next footfall carries me away, rendering this moment a blade of grass in the landscape of my memory, the hood falls back. All the seasons of her life in those eyes.
“Mama?” I step forward in shock.
The woman glances down and the resemblance disappears instantly.
“Sorry,” I mutter, and stumble back. “I thought you were someone else.”
I walk away quickly, trying to shake off what just happened. It was the announcement, I tell myself. The announcement and what it would have meant to her if she had been around. But even as I try to convince myself, the words that the woman spoke have already stolen inside and my body shivers in recognition. Fate is but an encrypted code of genes. Your chromosomes a map of the future that cannot be changed. Only fought. Battles lost. Battles won. Reprieve. Parlay. A deep ache of loneliness overwhelms me, and I am almost brought to my knees in one breath. I turn around and walk back to the woman on the street, but when I return to the bus bench, the street is empty.
My vision blurs as I search for the exact place where she was standing, press my fingertips to my eyes and then lower my hands. There is no trace of her. Even her footprints have been erased by the windswept snow. I shiver and head
