Chapter 5

The visit was on a Tuesday, three days after the fourth.

Mara drove. Kiya sat in the passenger seat with her bag on her lap and watched the road and did not speak. Mara did not push. She had been not pushing for four weeks now and she had become good at it.

In the parking garage Mara said, “Are you all right.”

“Yes.”

“You look like you did not sleep.”

“I did not sleep much.”

“Do you want to skip today.”

“No.”

Mara nodded. She put the car in park and turned the engine off. She did not move to get out.

“Kiya.”

“Yes.”

“Whatever she is going to say to you today, you do not have to say yes to it.”

Kiya looked at her mother. Mara was looking through the windshield at the concrete wall of the parking garage and her hands were in her lap and her face was very calm. She had said the sentence carefully. She had not said whatever she is asking of you, which would have required Mara to admit she knew something specific. She had said whatever she is going to say. She had left herself plausibly ignorant on the surface while telling her daughter, plainly and underneath, that she understood there was something to say no to.

“I know, Mom.”

“All right.”

“I am probably going to say yes.”

Mara closed her eyes for a moment. She did not open them right away.

“All right,” she said.

“Are you angry.”

“No. I am not angry. I am being a mother. There is a thing mothers do where we tell our daughters they do not have to do the thing even when we know they are going to do it. I am doing that thing. It is not a useful thing, but it is what we do.”

Kiya reached across the console and took her mother’s hand. Mara opened her eyes. They looked at each other for a moment.

“I love you,” Kiya said.

“I love you too. Go on. She is waiting.”

Stephanie was sitting up in the cream scarf. The chair by the bed was set where she liked it. The afternoon light through the window was gray today, not gold; it had rained that morning and the rain had not quite finished.

Kiya came in. She closed the door behind her. She did not sit until Stephanie indicated the chair, which Stephanie did with a small movement of her hand. Kiya sat.

Stephanie looked at her for a long moment.

“You know why I asked you to come back,” Stephanie said.

“Yes.”

“Tell me what you know.”

She is making me say it. She wants the words in the air between us before she says hers.

“You are going to tell me, today, what we are doing,” Kiya said. “You are going to say out loud what we have not been saying. I have known since last week. I worked it out in the bathroom across the hall after our visit. I have been thinking about it since.”

“What have you decided.”

“I have not decided. I came here to hear you say it. I wanted to hear it from you before I decided anything.”

Stephanie’s mouth moved into a small, tired smile.

“Good,” she said. “That was the right answer. All right. Listen to me carefully, Kiya. I am going to be brief because I do not have time and because this does not deserve to be drawn out.”