The Secrets We Live With

"Did you check your blindspots?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay, now pull out slowly--I said slowly!"

I roll my eyes for the five hundredth time this morning, my lips numb from scowling. I'm twenty seven, a college dropout--I can drink and I can smoke and I do not need my mom to teach me how to drive.

"I don't know how you passed your driving test in highschool, honestly Liz. You drive like a freaking maniac." My mother growls, her voice as acidic as her perfume, (cherry with a hint of lemongrass). The line is not one I'm unused to, yet the meaning associated with it fades over time.

"Well I did." I say, accidentally allowing a lash of the tongue to slip. "I've been driving for ten years ever since."

"You do not talk to your mother like that Elizabeth Jane Morton. Now turn here."

My fingers tighten on the wheel as I take a leisurely left, refusing to give my mother any chances of critiquing my driving skills.

It's five in the morning, fragments of sleep still spinning in my eyes, little golden stars blinking in my contracted pupils. I don't know where we're going. I'd woken up in a blurry haze, to my mother's dark silhouette standing over me, merely a shadow instead of a human. I can't remember exactly what she said, only can recall the sharp feeling in my arm as her overgrown fingernails dug into my flesh. That, and a sense of urgency in the air.

"You're going to stay on this road for about a mile before taking I-70." My mother says, staring at her terribly outdated map she's had since she was twenty, which now lays over her thighs like a thin blanket.

I lean toward her. "Where are we even going?"

She slams the paper down, ripping it slightly in the center. "Eyes on the road!"

"If you're so paranoid about my driving, why don't you do it?"

She sighs, for reasons I'm not sure of, before pointing to an upcoming exit.

"Okay, merge here."

Piercing silence inflates my lungs, and hot frustration burns my stomach. How did I end up with her as my parent? I could've had anyone in the world--sweet old Mrs. Cartridge from two doors down, Dr. Jean, my third grade teacher, Angelina Jolie. It's a common question of "why God, why?"

The highway is nearly empty, (there's a single u-haul van cruising down the right lane,) and vast. The navy sky stretches for miles, the land around flat and dusty--typical for Belleville, Kansas.

"Do you remember when we moved here?"

The question startles me, partly because she already knows the answer-no, I was only five when we moved to Kansas-partly because the randomness disturbs me.

"You probably don't," she continues, staring straight ahead in a blank state of mind. "But I remember driving down this highway, wondering how some place could look so lonely."

I couldn't help but wonder if my mom was having a manic episode or something along the lines of losing her mind. Loretta Morton was never known to stray from topic. Loretta Morton was a woman of consequence, of discipline. Loretta Morton had a special place for everything in the house, not wandering thoughts and trailing off words.

"You know, I didn't want to move here." Her voice was wispy and light, like a feather swaying in the breeze. "I thought we were fine where we were. I'd lived in New Orleans since I was a little girl--of course I didn't want to leave!"

I half nod, half peer at her map, which has been left unguarded and is telling me to take a right.

"God, but you're father was so hell bent on Kansas. Fresh air, away from the city, he used to say! In the end it was a stupid decision. Too late, no point...hey, why are we taking a right?"

"Uhh, It's on the directions."

"No, no, no. Better to keep straight, it's faster that way."

"Okay..." I swerve out of the turn lane, earning a exaggerated grumble from my mother. I direct her away from my bad driving before she can make a comment. "I thought you said you like living here."

"Hell no." Another thing that sets off alarms in my head-her use of a cuss word. "The neighbors are so nosy, and everything is way too far."

"You like Mrs. Cartridge, though. Remember how she used to come over all the time with cake and lasagna? When I was seven?"

I flash a smile, hoping to pull her out of wherever this is going.

"No. She was always coming in and out of the house without warning. The working of your dad, I bet-"

"What does that mean?"

She sighs, her whole body heaving. "Just...make a right turn here, please."

I obey, too afraid to not.

The working of your dad?

The sentence stays with me as I pull down a gravel road, little rocks popping and clinking against the doors. The scenery changes in less than a minute; the roads narrow out, a four lane turned to one in an instant, the flat land morphing swiftly into a sea of hills and bends. Trees tall with finger like branches lean over the road, encasing us in their cool shade.

"Park in the lot at the bottom of this slope." My mother points to a dead end in the dip of the road, a flat, grassy square amongst ups and downs.

I pull in and turn the engine off. "Now will you tell me where we're going?"

"Just up this hill here..." She nods toward the green lawn in front of us and I get out of the car, following her in a ditsy haze like a lost puppy.

Another thing I notice-There's gravestones everywhere. As we reach the peak of the slope, grey cobblestones marked with various engraved names--Jack Lowosky, Pamela George, Lafawnda Miller--stand straight up, growing in numbers as we walk farther.

I frown, an eeriness shivering my bones. "Why are we in a graveyard?"

Her answer to the question disturbs me more--silence. "Mom?"

She walks quicker, flashes of marble, granite, and slate passing before my eyes, and an odd sense of nostalgia fizzing in my head.

Have I been here before? Something familiar lies in the way the leaves sway in the breeze, the way the sun glints in my eyes, like a treasure chest waiting to be unlocked. I stumble behind my mother, seeping in my surroundings. There are pale dasies and overgrown weeds everywhere, and they brush against my calves, all too reminiscent of something that I can't put a name to.

I've only been to three funerals I can recall in my life; my great-grandmother's when I was ten, my grandfather's when I was thirteen, and my cousin Boris' when I was twenty four, though I can't remember ever driving out here for any of them.

"Here." She stops abruptly, my nose slamming into her back. There's a slight shake in her voice. "We're here."

My heart murmers, as I, slowly, turn to read the gravestone we've stopped at. It's old, at least a decade, with olive green moss twisted and spun around the engraving. I have to kneel to see it.

My breathing stops. My hands are clammy as I reach out to touch it, the stone smooth and cold beneath my soft fingers. "Mom?"

She doesn't meet my gaze. "Just read the name aloud."

My voice tremors. "Loretta Hailey Morton. 1961-1996." I swallow hard, throat tightening. "It says you're dead."

The world stops. A million thoughts race through my head with a million different pictures. People in black dresses, men in dark suits. My father hugging me tightly. When was this? How could this be happening? I couldn’t understand any of it.

"You were seven years old." Her eyes are glassy, as if a coat of resin has been left to dry over them-no tears fall but they are right under the surface.

"Cancer. Stage four."

I pause, gasping for words. "How come I don't remember this?"

She shrugs limply. "Coping mechanism probably. Or at least that's what Dr. Powell said."

"Dr. Powell?" The name rang a bell, but a weird sounding one, trapped in the corners of my brain.

"Your psychiatrist when you were eight." My mother smiled faintly, yet as she met my gaze, her lips trembled and it faltered. "Your father didn't tell you that you were going to see a psychiatrist though--stupid of him, I think-- in his words, he was your 'check-up' doctor."

I raise my eyebrows, vision spinning. Nothing made sense, and as much as I racked my mind for answers, empty thoughts only echoed back. "How...how are you here, though?"

That was my biggest concern: my mother might be dead, but she'd been there all my life. Every time I cam home from school, she'd either be in the kitchen, her old "Kiss The Cook" apron tied around her waist, or wandering through the halls with baskets of laundry or a book, open as she read. She sat in the backseat when I took my driver's test, and consoled me in my room when I failed the first time. She'd been everywhere with me, so how could she just...not exist?

"For a long time I didn't know." She's staring at her gravestone, kneeling in the dirt beside me. "Didn't understand. Hell, I never cussed, I never did drugs. I was supposed to be in heavan, God dammit. But you, Liz."

"What?"

"You, were what was holding me back."

My body quivers as the air grows stale. "How?"

Something in her snaps, I can tell by the new sharpness edging in her tone, and she stands up quickly, looking me dead in the eye.

"I died ten years ago! And you didn't know that until now!"

I hold my breath, word at a loss.

"Did you not take any hints, Elizabeth? The people in black at the funeral? The pictures of me gone from the house? Stupid Mrs. Cartridge bringing lasagna and meals over? Because I wasn't there to do it?" She lets out a choking cry, silver tears spilling down her cheeks. "I'm dead! Dead, dead, dead!"

Her voice pierces the air, ringing in my ears. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to respond. What do you say to your dead mother?

My throat aches in the silence, blood thumping through my head, in my ears.

"I'm sorry." I start to cry. Dirt sticks to my elbows and legs as I sit, my face reddening. It's embarrassing but I don't know how to stop it, because it comes in waves, washing over my head and plunging me under.

"I'm really sorry mom. I didn't know, I should've figured it out by now! I'm twenty-seven for Christ's sake!"

"Oh honey," She wraps her arms around me, her skin gossbumped and icy. "You were grieving, it's not your fault!"

A pang of shame hits my heart. "But, it's just-"

"I shouldn't have yelled." She shakes her head, hugging me tighter. "I'm just frustrated, that's all. I should be in heaven right now, but I'm not-"

"Mom?" My eyes widen. I pull out of her embrace abruptly, scooting back to stare at her.

Her eyebrows narrow. "What is it?"

She's glowing. Illuminating. Her skin radiates a warm yellow, as if her bones are on fire underneath her pale skin.

"What?"

I organize the words in my head but they fall apart the minute they reach my tongue. "Your skin," My mouth opens then closes. "It's really bright."

Her forehead crinkles as she brings her hand to her face--a look of confusion, followed by a register of shock.

"Oh my God!" She screams, fingers gripping her arm.

I can't look away. The glowing brightens, her body now a sickly fluorescent that nearly blinds me.

"What's happening?" A low hum buzzes in the air, like a generator starting to life, and I have to yell over it to get across to my mother.

"I don't know, Lizzy!" I can't see her anymore, curtains of illuminesence veiling her face, which is silver with light.

The humming grows, the sound not unlike a large hive of agitated bees blurring and zipping in the sky. I cover my ears, earlobes breaking from the volume, and squeeze my eyes shut.

"Stop, stop!" I just want it to be over.

Then, all of a sudden, it is.

Silence. For a second, I don't move, just stand there crouched over, still shaking.

What just happened?

Slowly, my palms--slick with sweat--melt back to my sides, my eyelids peeling apart leisurely.

I look up.

She's gone.