Kayla Cain

Is Momma attached to you? She asked last week, always speaking to me in third person. A habit she never dropped from when I was little, but it still sounds right to me.

You’ve been attached to me since I was born! I scoffed.

Now, sounds echo through my hollow body. Syllables ricochet off my bones.

Curled on a plastic couch, I squeeze the thin blanket in my lap, squint under the fluorescent light of the interior room.

“It all started with my ringtone jolting me awake,” I say. “‘Unknown Caller.’ 3:16 a.m. Words in my ear: Momma, hospital. I pulled on my sweater. The nurse said Momma couldn’t breathe on her own. She had barely made it to her cell phone to dial 911 before passing out.”

Cold. The blanket feels like paper, but I cuddle it anyway. Momma loves you.

“Well, actually,” I amend, “it all started when I drove Momma to Walmart to buy a case for her new phone and she couldn’t walk farther than the produce section. Just past the poinsettia display, chilled heads of lettuce watched Momma put her hand on her chest and say, ‘I don’t think... I’m going to... be able... to make it.’ Hungry wheezes chopped her sentence like blades through an onion. I suggested a scooter from the cart area, but she wanted to rest in the car.”

A clock ticks. My eyes shift, searching for it. What time is it now?

Momma loves you. She fills any pause in our conversation with those words.

“No, wait,” I say. “It all started with her breathy words when I called every day on my way home from work. Slower, unintentional whispers. Pauses between sentences. Some days she didn’t feel up to talking as long, so I finished five audiobooks that winter.”

This room needs a window, or at least some plants. Everything is black and white.

Momma loves you. I’d roll my eyes when she couldn’t see me. I love you too, I’d say for the third time during that conversation.

“Now that I think of it, it all started with the cough,” I decide. “Momma hacked herself into exhaustion as the weather changed, but she slurped soup, drank medicine, and hibernated to heal–”

“We–,” someone tries to interrupt.

“But I haven’t mentioned her smoking,” I interrupt back.

Politely, they give me time. Maybe they realize this is something I need. This is really why they’re here.

“In third grade, I caught her smoking on the porch,” I explain. “I think I smelled it first. Then I saw the orange ember peeking around her back. The faint smoke wagged like an untrained therapy dog’s tail. After that, Momma knew I knew, so she didn’t try to hide it. That smokey tail followed her everywhere.”

I finally find the clock hanging on the wall behind me. Black plastic rim. Black numbers. Black hands. White face.

“I should also mention that my dad moved out when I was in second grade,” I say. “Then a pipe in the rent-house sprung a slow leak. Momma didn’t notice, and the carpet sprouted wet mold patches. I don’t know how long we kept living there until the landlord discovered the growing brown stains Momma hid under rugs and towels. I had thought they were Pepsi stains. One day I walked home from school and found the car loaded up. Momma drove us to a motel to live in for a while. I didn’t think of it ‘til now, but we never returned to that rent-house...”

Momma loves you.

I stop. I need air.

I’m full of memories I can’t escape. They fill me to keep the syllables from echoing.

The social worker takes off her glasses. The hospital chaplain lifts laced fingers to his chin.

“We need to get started,” someone says. Then they ask if I would like them to sit with me while I call the funeral home.

But all I hear are meaningless syllables absorbing into memories.

How It All Started

Kayla Cain

Tourists?