Roost by Ali Bryan Read Free Book Online

die off. Little bits of Janice disappearing like the contents of an advent calendar. Memories and facts snuffed out, cell by cell. Her brain, like the island, made virtually invisible by the darkness of night. Porch lights extinguished, lighthouse dead in the fog. My mother in the aisle, flanked by the plane’s emergency lights, with the seals below and my father above and the ponies roaming aimlessly between. The phone rings again.
    “You hung up,” Dan says.
    I try to stand but lose my footing and fall to my knees. Wes’s Transformer lies face down in the puddle of wine on the table.
    “I know,” I reply.
    “She’s gone,” he says, and it sounds less permanent this way. Like she might be gone to get milk or an oil change.
    “I know.”
    “And she’s not coming back.” He breaks down and sobs. Noises tumble out of his mouth like vomit. Breath all chopped up, chest in a blender.
    “Where are you?” I ask. My house is so quiet.
    “Yarmouth,” he whispers.
    “Where’s Mom?”
    “Hospital,” he says, passing off the phone. The exchange is messy.
    I wait for my dad.
    “Dad?” I ask. “Are you there, Dad?”
    “Claudia … she just … she was just going to stretch her legs.”
    I wipe my eyes with the heels of my hands.
    “They put her in the basement. She’s in the basement over there. They shouldn’t put them in the basement. Basements are cold. She doesn’t have her slippers.”
    I take the phone away from my ear and sob like my brother. Dan whispers from my lap they will call tomorrow. I hang up and toss the phone on the counter. It spins and comes to a stop beside the knife block.
    “Are you looking for something, Mommy?” Wes wanders down the hall towards the kitchen.
    “Your Transformer,” I say.
    “It’s on the table,” he says. “Beside you.”
    “Right,” I reply, pulling myself up. I pick up Optimus Prime.
    “Yuck,” Wes says. “Why is he all wet? He smells like the place we take the recycling to.”
    “He went swimming,” I explain.
    I towel-dry the transformer and carry Wes back to bed.
    “You okay, Mommy?”
    I nod and pull the covers up to his chin. He has Glen’s chin, pointed with a slight depression. I stroke it with my fingertip.
    “Will you sing?”
    “Sing what?” I ask.
    “Anything.”
    I can’t think of anything to sing. I try to remember what my mom sang to me but I can only think of Rita MacNeil and the Men of the Deeps and the jingle from Sleep Country that makes me want to knife my mattress. My mother could not sing. She had no range and made up lyrics. Replaced entire phrases with humming. Wes waits for it to begin. I take a deep breath and make up a song about the transformer.
    “You used to be an ambulance …”
    Wes is unsure about this song. He turns onto his side and closes his eyes. I back out of the room, making up lyrics, inventing a chorus that has Optimus Prime wishing for his legs. I feel heady and nauseous and slump back down at the kitchen table, which is still sticky from the wine. Mom needs her slippers. I can go to her house and get them and drive them to her. Yarmouth is only three hours away. Four hours? Three and a half? How do I get to Yarmouth? Is it the 102 or the 103? I will put the kids in the car and drive south and bring Mom her slippers. I slide on my Toms, look in the fridge for my keys. A cantaloupe rolls out, which I kick.
Fuck you
. I go to my laptop and google hospitals in Yarmouth.
Yarmouth Regional. Providing care to 64,000 people in Shelburne, Yarmouth, and Digby Counties
. Care? Is that what they call it? Putting mommies in the basement without their slippers? Maybe I could take her a sleeping bag. There should be one in the linen closet. A double one from when Glen and I went camping. I tear the closet apart until I’m surrounded by a heapof towels, most of them pilled, all of them old. And piles of sheets. Fitted ones all bunched up like beehives. Pillowcases I never iron. On my tiptoes I pull on the top shelf,