“Thank you for the water.” I wave at the animals. “And the company.”
Will smiles and takes the glass from my hands. “I like coming here when I feel lost. Grace, you don’t have to be alone with all this pain. I wish I had gotten to know your father better, but I do know he was so proud of you and loved you beyond this world.”
“Sure,” I say.
Will stands up beside me. “I want to help in whatever way I can. Let me help you.”
“Thank you. I’m good now.”
“Maybe you need a change of scenery. It’s these long winters. How about a trip to the beach? Head to the ocean?”
“Is that your answer for everything?”
“Sun. Vitamin D.” Will holds up his arms like he is being bathed in sunlight. “Yes, this doctor would say that is a cure-all.”
I smirk at Will’s conviction, but his expression makes me feel the heat of the sun. The rays penetrating the layers of my skin. And then memory of a voice enters my mind. The feel of her hand cupping the round of my shoulder. Don’t fall asleep. You’ll burn.
“I wish it was that simple,” I say, and walk away from Will, my footsteps deliberate and clear on the hard concrete floor. I open the door to a maze I no longer know how to maneuver.
Autumn
Her footsteps sounded so hollow in the empty house. Wandering from room to room, she called for her mother.
“Where are you?” she cried. Mama had left so suddenly from underneath the table. But after some time, when Mama did not return, she crawled out from under the table to find the kitchen empty.
She wandered upstairs, but the quiet bedrooms offered her no answers. Downstairs, the living room where her mother and father had just been, the disorderly pillows on the couch giving away the past, was now empty except for the swaying shadows on the carpet cast by the large maple tree outside in the neighbor’s yard.
She went into the hallway and stared at the basement door. Slowly she opened it and stood at the top, gazing down into the open black maw.
“Mama?”
The darkness mocked her, but she refused to step into the trap. “Mama?”
She closed the door.
Could her mother have left her alone in the house? Maybe she had gone to the grocery store. She began to think about her father. About calling him at work, even though she knew he would be busy. But Mama was gone. She made up her mind that this was what they called an emergency. Sometimes in an emergency, you had to disturb people.
She walked into the kitchen to study the list of emergency numbers that her mother had taped to the wall next to the phone. But before she could pick up the receiver, she saw a shoe. And then the other a few feet away. Her mother’s empty shoes were on the floor, where they had not been earlier. Mama was back.
She stepped toward the kitchen table and saw a shadow moving underneath.
“Mama?” She slowly raised up the corner of the tablecloth. Huddled on the floor, knees to chin, her mother gazed up at her.
“Mama?”
Her mother’s hand quickly jerked out, clasping her ankle. With a violent yank, she was back under the table. Mama held out a knife.
“We are not going to escape. We have to face the train. We have to do it together. You have to be brave. We are not going to let the train take us away.”
Mama held the large kitchen knife straight up in the air; the whites of her knuckles gleamed while clenching the handle.
She stared at the sharp, shining blade and began to tremble.
Spring
I shudder in terror as I make turn after turn in the hallway. With each step, each corner, the planes of this world shuffle like playing cards. By the time I find the familiar centrifuge machine marked number four, I am ready to cry from pure relief. I grip the edge of the machine and gather my thoughts. I know where to go from here.
With my vision kaleidoscoping, I edge along the wall and open the door to a familiar lab room. I reach the assignment postings. The singular line of the clipboards hang one right next to the other. I count them over and over again, the repetition and order focusing me. Deep breaths. I know how to do this. I know what this means.
I find my name and draw my index finger along the notes. Inventory duty today. With clipboard in hand, I head across the hall to the supply room. It’s blissfully empty and quiet. The chemicals, solutions, lab ware, all twinkle at me from the organized shelves. Working my way down the row, notating what needs to be reordered, my heart returns to beating regularly and my vision remains singular and clear. Low on twelve-millimeter pipettes. Need more pH paper. No more stirring bars. I lift up a bottle of hydrochloric acid. Barely any there. I record all this in neat, precise letters.
As I search behind a group of half-gallon jugs, checking to see how much more I need to reorder, Dr. Mendelson’s voice jumps into my mind. I replay her words. Did she really ask me to join her lab? The shadowy remnants of our conversation steal out of reach. The betrayal of my mind angers me, and a prickling along the skin of my scalp spreads to the edges of my earlobes. I reach up and pinch the flesh. Focus, I repeat silently. Focus. It doesn’t matter. I can’t let myself return to what I cannot know. I know how to take inventory. The work tames my mind.
I jot down the number four next to the hydrochloric acid on my list and check the reorder box. I walk down another row. Low on isopropyl alcohol. Barely any blue pH-10 buffer
