The Instant When Everything is Perfect by Jessica Barksdale Inclan Read Free Book Online

heartbeat. Even with all her teaching and writing, Mia has stuck with those boys even when Sally herself would have tossed Lucien overboard. How Mia ever dealt with his psychotic reaction to that drug is beyond Sally. What had Lucien thought as the drug pumped through his brain? That everyone was really a musical note that swirled from him? Mia and Ford sat up with him all night and then got him into the program, the rehab that went on and on and on. And really, who knew what the kid was doing now up at that hippie college?
     
    Harper’s learning problems? Solved with extra time with tutors and therapists and backpacking trips that cost a bundle. And though she could never tell Katherine this, she is glad that Mia is the one who lives nearby, who will go to the appointments with her, who will take notes and ask questions. Despite Frona’s voice and her own still playing in her head, Sally knows that a small rear end and a handsome skirt are not what is really important.
     
    “So did you decide?” Mia asks, putting her hand on top of Sally’s. “That movie had a lot of options. I think I’d be confused.”
     
    Sally looks down at Mia’s solid fingers, feels their warmth under her own skin.
     
    “Oh, yes. I did. And you should have seen the video Nydia Nuñez gave me. Made reconstruction look like a fairytale. Came out of Beverly Hills. Not a harsh scar in the batch. Bells and whistles. I was surprised they didn’t throw in a face lift at the same time. Cure everyone’s problems all at once.”
     
    Mia laughs. “I bet they give you a massage before the surgery. Chai lattes. A pedicure.”
     
    “Well,” Sally says. “I think I’ll be lucky to escape with my life from this place.”
     
    She is about to say more, and then she realizes what she’s said isn’t funny. It’s the truth, the truth that she and Mia have known with David.
     
    “Anyway.” Sally folds her arms, feeling her breasts pressed against her chest. “I want a reconstruction, but delayed. Maybe a TRAM flap reconstruction. But later. All that talk about dead skin. Terrible.”
     
    Mia turns to look Sally in the eye. Sally sees how her oldest child is getting old herself, tiny lines at her eyes. Who will sit with Mia when she is where Sally sits, ill with something or another? For some reason, she doesn’t imagine Ford. Where is Ford? Why isn’t Ford with Mia, taking care of her? Sally’s heart begins to race until she thinks, Harper. Harper will be here. Tender-hearted Harper.
     
    “Are you sure? You know what you will look like for the months until you have the surgery. Not that I thought they looked so bad myself. You told me you were appalled by the scars.”
     
    “Deformity.”
     
    Mia nods. “Deformity.”
     
    Sally uncrosses her arms and pushes her hair back. “I’ll get one of those—or two of those thingies. You know. Prostheses. Slap them in my bra. That will carry me through.”
     
    “As long as you’re sure, Mom,” Mia says. “As long as it’s what you want.”
     
    Sally opens her mouth to say yes, but then closes it and sits back against the hard chair. What she wants is immaterial here because none of her wants will be granted. Since her diagnosis, her wants have been sailing in front of her eyes like tiny ships, all with full sails and plenty of headwind. What she wants is for it to be 1970 or late 1969, months before David felt the first twinge of pain in his stomach. She’ll block the free radical, chemical, virus, or poison that started his cancer. Or if that’s impossible even with all her magic, she wants to come from the future to that date and save him, whisk her husband forward to her time and take him to the swanky hospital in Beverly Hills. She will tell the doctors in their pretty white coats with their state-of-the art diagnostic machines to find the cancer. She’ll know, after all, where it will be. She can tell them where to look. And maybe, if she were able to save him, she wouldn’t