There are three things Susanne Bradshaw knows for sure: 1) Her mother is dead. 2) She has no living relatives. 3) Her last summer before freshman year of college will be spent alone.
But with her mother's death, Susanne learns her family's deepest...
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My mother was dead.
The insistent thought followed me around since last Friday, when I left the Yarborough Cancer Care Center still in shock. There was no need to come back and identify her body. I was already there, as I was every weekend night for the past month.
I glanced to the passenger seat of my 1999 Ford Taurus. Technically, the car belonged to my mother. On the gray fabric seat, a cardboard box held my mother's keepsakes from her hospital room— three separate pictures of me, two clean changes of clothes she never had the chance to wear, and one green crystal vase from some distant relative that never had the decency to call, much less visit. That was it. Her whole life summarized.
Looking at the box made a sick feeling fester in my empty stomach, so I turned my attention back to the half-empty cemetery parking lot. My mother, Elenore Bradshaw, was once a well-liked fixture in our tiny town of Lone Pine, Arkansas. The land sat in the middle of the Ozarks, meaning no matter where one turned, there was either thick green canopies or rolling hills to block their view. Lone Pine was a haven for hippies, which is why Elenore ran straight to this place after my birth seventeen years ago.
For the last decade and a half, we lived in a historical, two-story home we shared with a handful of different tenants each year. Nearly each private room—aside for my bedroom, my mother's bedroom, and the sunroom she used as an art studio—was rented out for $120 per month. It was enough to cover the bills and survive on, at least that's what my mother always said.
Now, I wasn't so sure what would happen to our home and the people who lived there. My life went as far as the end of her funeral, which was ten minutes ago.
I placed my forehead on top of the leather steering wheel and prayed the fog on my window was thick enough to hide me from view. The tears I had been so adamant to hide during her ceremony now flowed down my cheeks. Snot and a dry mouth followed, which would ensure an aching migraine in a few short hours.
I wanted my mom back.
A sudden knock on my driver's window shocked me enough to propel me into a straight sitting position. Although it just turned May, thick humidity hung in the air, covering all inhabitants of the state in a second, sticky layer of skin. That included my car window. Opaque condensation layered over the glass like bubbling, white paint, making it impossible to identify whoever stood on the other side.
"One minute," I called out in a watery voice. I pointed the rearview mirror to my face and discovered my hazel eyes were framed in puffy red skin. I wasn't stupid enough to wear any kind of makeup today, but no matter what I did in the next ten seconds, my tears would still be obvious. "Get it together, idiot," I whispered to myself.
I reached down to the plastic crank to my window and reeled it slowly down. The entire time, I stared at my lap, too ashamed of my tears to directly face whoever stood on the other side.
