Page 1 of Gone Tonight
ACTONE
CHAPTER ONECATHERINE
My mother walks through our tiny living room, her eyes sweeping over our old blue couch and coffee table, before she briefly disappears into the galley kitchen.
“I just had them in my hand.” Her voice is tinged with something darker than frustration as she begins another lap.
I should jump up from the couch and help her look for her keys so she isn’t late for her shift at the diner.
But I don’t want her to notice I’ve begun to tremble.
“Check your purse again?” I suggest.
She frowns and reaches into her shoulder bag.
My mother is organized. Methodical. Detail oriented. Her purse isn’t a jumble of crumpled receipts and loose change. Sunglasses in a case, small bills facing the same way in her wallet, cherry ChapStick and hand lotion zipped into her makeup bag—it’s containers within a container.
She shakes her head and walks to the raincoat hanging on a hook by our front door, searching through its pockets.
Maybe her father is absentminded. Perhaps her cousins grew distracted when they approached middle age. It could be something our relatives tease each other about when they gather for holidays.
I don’t know. I’ve never met them.
When I had to create a family tree in the fourth grade, I was able to fill out only two names on a single branch. My mother’s and mine.
My stomach tightens as I watch her bend down and check around the mat by the front door where we put our shoes. She looks even thinner than usual in her uniform of black slacks and matching polo shirt with a red waitressing apron tied around her waist.
She hasn’t been able to eat for the past few days. At night I hear her restless movements through the thin wall that separates our bedrooms.
Tomorrow she has an appointment with a neurologist.
Everyone loses their keys, I tell myself. The neurologist will have a simple explanation for my mother’s strange new symptoms. He’ll prescribe medication and advise her to get more sleep and send us on our way.
But my pulse is accelerating.
I force myself to inhale slow, even breaths. The worst thing I can do is fall apart. My nursing classes taught me about the power the body wields over the mind, and vice versa. Right now I need a steady physiology to assert control.
It works. After a minute, I feel able to stand. I walk over to my mom, thinking hard, then dip my hand into the big pocket of her apron.
Relief crashes over her face as I pull out her keys.
“I’m losing my mi-”
“Could you grab another box if the diner has any?”
I don’t really need more moving boxes. I just couldn’t bear to hear her complete that sentence.
I already have a half-dozen cardboard boxes I pulled out of a recycling bin behind a liquor store. I don’t own many possessions and I pack quickly. I’ve had plenty of practice.
When families move out of houses in the suburbs, neighbors throw going-away parties and the moms get weepy after a few glasses of wine.
People like us, we move on to a new apartment and no one notices.
I’d planned to sort through my books and clothes this morning. But until we see the specialist, everything feels suspended in midair.
My mom rises to her tiptoes to kiss my cheek, then opens the door and is gone, her footsteps growing fainter.
I wait for silence. Then I reach for my phone and call up the list I’m secretly compiling.
