Nest by Esther Ehrlich Read Free Book Online Page B

She’s not getting up.
    I sit down next to her. She opens her eyes and smiles.
    “C’mon, Chirp, let’s go,” she says, like I’m the one holding up the show.
    I stand up.
    Slowly, Mom slides her body around so she’s sitting. She rubs her left leg with her hands.
    “Maybe something simple tonight?” she says. “Scrambled eggs and toast?”
    “Sounds good,” I say. Last night was fried-egg sandwiches.
    “Give me a hand here, honey,” Mom says. She reaches out her hands and I pull. When she’s standing up, she puts her arm around my shoulders. “Mmmm, you smell like fresh air. You smell like stars.” Her voice sounds far away, even though she’s whispering right in my ear. She’s leaning on me, hard, as we walk into the kitchen. Her draggy leg weighs us down.
    “Why don’t I be the supervisor, you be the cook?” Mom asks, like we’re playing a fun game. I walk her to the chair, and she sits down heavy,
oy
.
    “Rachel’s going to eat at Genevieve’s tonight,” Mom says. “Dad should be home soon, but we can go ahead and get started.”
    I get out the margarine. I get out a pan.
    “Two eggs each,” Mom says.
    I get four eggs. Dad likes his dinner hot. I’ll cook for him later. When I’m ready to chop the onions, Mom says, “Tell me about your day, honey.”
    I can’t think of one thing to tell her. Not one single thing. My heart starts to race. Mom needs a story.
    “How about a poem?” I ask, and start right in on
Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night
, which is one of our favorites, especially the part where the stars throw down their spears and water heaven with their tears. Mom closes her eyes while I chop onions and ask so many questions:
    What the hammer? what the chain?
    In what furnace was thy brain?
    What the anvil? what dread grasp
    Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
    And when I get to the end, I wish my eyes had been closed, too, because the onions have been stinging me for too long.
    “Oh, sweetie love,” Mom says when she opens her eyes and sees the onion tears streaming down my face, “it’s awful, just awful.” Mom slides her chair back and opens up her arms for me, and since I’mscared to get in her lap because of her leg symptoms, I kneel in front of her and wrap my arms around her stomach.
    “I can’t believe this is happening to me, to us,” she says. “I can’t believe that I might have MS and my body is falling apart.” She’s crying into my hair and now my onion tears are real tears.
    “I can’t believe this,” she says.
    “It’s okay, Mom,” I cry into her stomach.
    “No, Chirp, it’s
not
okay,” she says, and suddenly her voice sounds mad. She pushes me back by my shoulders so she can look right in my face. I’m glad her eye stopped being supersonic yesterday. Her face is wet, but her tears are over.
    “When you were born, I swore that you’d have an easier path than me. My mother caused me so much pain, and sometimes I still feel like it’s swallowing me up. I swore that, for you, it would be different. And now …” Mom takes a breath. “And now …” She slowly pushes each word out, like it’s stuck in her mouth. “You—have—a—sick—mother.” She folds me back into her arms. My cheek’s against her stomach. She’s moaning now, a sweet, quiet sound like a mourning dove. I hold Mom tighter. I
cooooo
my own soft bird sound. What else does Mom want me to do?

M ISS G ALLAGHER THINKS IT would be
nifty
if we made our own Halloween masks. She thinks a lot of things are
nifty
, like the electric pencil sharpener that Mr. Simpkins, the gym teacher, brought her on the second day of class, and the fact that I’m Jewish and stayed home from school on the High Holidays, and her latest discovery, which is that I make my own lunch. She found that out yesterday when she was carrying a box from her car in the parking lot back to the classroom. I was watching from my lunch rock and saw her short red skirt get shorter and