Chapter 26: Linda
This is how my mother died:
I was sixteen. We lived in a small apartment on the northern side of the city. The world was younger. We were poor and happy.
The apartment was one and a half bedrooms. My room was actually a walk-in closet once, remodeled by the previous tenants. It hosted a narrow bed, a writing desk, and a flimsy bookshelf. I had a poster on one wall with an image of a window opening to the view of a mountain landscape. The mountains were somewhere in France. There were waterfalls falling down brown rocks, grass so green it was almost translucent, and the vast, deep blue sky with white pillowy clouds. I liked the idea that my fake window could reach across the ocean.
Back then I was still going to school. I was obsessed with mathematics. I guess it was my escape: the world was muddy, irrational and hard, but math wasn't. It existed outside human concepts of good and evil, outside the dissonance of living. It was pure logic and yet allowed for creativity. That was two years after my Protector -- back then it was a morose man in his fifties -- advised me against winning any math competitions, so I had to be careful not to be too noticeable in class. Most of my education was done in the solitude of the school library.
We had our daily routine perfected, a well-oiled microcosm of bliss and efficiency. My mom would get out of bed earlier than me and make us breakfast. I would awake to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the delicate sound of her steps. We would eat and chat idly, she reading the newspaper first, then passing it on to me. Then she would put on her waitress uniform, and I would get ready for school. We would say goodbye to each other at the bus stop and go our separate ways.
I would go to school; sit quietly in the back of the class, soaking up knowledge. Sometimes classes were fun, but mostly they were dull. Too superficial, paying too much attention to how without asking why. Interesting nevertheless. I would struggle with the urge to raise my arm and ask questions. After class, I would go to the library and hunt for answers. Then, sometimes, I would hang out with my friends; sometimes, I would go to the school pool and swim until my muscles hurt. The more they hurt, the calmer my mind would become.
Then I would go to a store, get groceries, come home and make dinner. By the time mom got back from work, tired after the long shift, the food was ready. We would discuss our days. I would tell her about all the things I had learned, secrets I had divined, exciting truths I had uncovered. Like: did you know that Julius Caesar was the second Roman general to conquer Rome? Did you know that there are forty-three quintillion possible combinations of a Rubik's Cube? Did you know that tears produced by emotion have a slightly different chemical composition than tears produced by eye irritation? She would smile and ask questions. Then she would tell me about the people she served in the diner. The regulars were like characters in a long-going TV show. Bob got a new dog, it's a German Sheperd. Such a cute little puppy! Zelda's son finally came back from the cruise: she got dead drunk, we had to call a taxi. New customers were an exciting mystery to unravel. That trucker guy was wearing a nice suit, which was clearly making him uncomfortable. He was so nervous. Waiting for a date, probably? Kept touching his ring finger. The first date after a divorce, I bet! Poor thing, she never showed up.
After dinner, she would play the piano, and I would sit in her room and read. Then we would watch TV together.
One day I woke up and didn't smell coffee. The kitchen was empty. I knocked on my mom's door.
'Hey, mom! Are you there? Have you overslept?'
She opened the door, a sleepy, guilty look on her face.