mother claimed had been half-full of dead flies when she first moved in. “It was disgusting,” she said, pointing up at the fixture, which, by the time I saw it, was shiny and clean. “After I got them out and washed the thing, it was actually brighter in here.” She made a face and shivered. “It makes me wonder about who used to live here. I mean, who lets that many dead flies just accumulate?”
I said nothing. She had allegedly spent days cleaning, fixing the place up. I hated to think what it had looked like before. Maybe the flies were pets, I thought. Maybe they weren’t dead at the time, but elderly flies the previous tenant couldn’t bear to part with. Why else would anyone live here? Bowzer was asleep on the mattress, which my mother had made up neatly, the extra material of her duvet fanned out across the carpet. I bent down and rubbed the space between his ears. His eyelids fluttered, but that was all. He hadn’t gotten up when I’d first come into the apartment.
“What do you think?” she asked.
I could tell by her voice that she wasn’t asking about the apartment. I kept one hand on his head and shrugged. She’d already come this far with him, moving into this dark, dingy place that smelled of cat pee. I didn’t know what kind of a lease she had signed, but it seemed to me that since she was already here, she might as well keep him around.
“He’s just been lying there for the last two days.” She sighed and smoothed back her hair. She was dressed for work at the mall, wearing nice black slacks and a black sweater. Her earrings were shaped like candy canes. “I called the vet yesterday. He said I could bring him in again, and we could talk about it. Maybe different medication.” Her knees creaked as she lowered herself to the floor. “I don’t know. He still eats. But I had to carry him outside this morning. Just last week, he wasn’t this bad.”
I ran my hand down his soft back. His breathing was shallow, quick. I didn’t know what my mother would do when he died, how she would take it. She’d given up so much for him, because of some strange attachment to him or whatever he represented. And now he would leave her. It wasn’t fair. The night Tim called, we had stayed on the phone for almost an hour, talking seriously, then joking. Since then, I had carried a good feeling with me like a jewel hidden in a pocket. I still had possibility. But what did my mother have? A dying dog in a depressing apartment. I didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t want him to be in pain.” Her eyes were still focused on Bowzer. “The vet said he’d be open the day after Christmas. I’ll take him in then.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said. “If you want me to. When you take him in, I mean.” I waved my hand. “Whenever.”
She drove me back to my father’s before it got dark. She was a little distracted, steering the van slowly through the ice-speckled streets. She asked me if I’d gotten my grades yet. No, I said. She asked when I would be taking the MCAT.
“Never,” I said.
She thought I was joking at first. When she realized that I wasn’t, and that I really had failed organic chemistry, and that I had decided to change my major to English lit, she was quiet. She kept her gaze on the road. Her lips were rolled into her mouth, invisible. We merged onto the interstate, snow falling from the roof and rolling down the windshield as we picked up speed.
“You don’t have anything to say?”
She almost laughed, though she looked unhappy. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing.” She glanced at me. “Have you thought about nursing? Pamela—Haylie’s mom—you know, she’s going back to get a degree in nursing. She doesn’t have to take the MCAT. And she’ll make good money. She said there are lots of jobs.”
“I don’t want to do medicine,” I said. “I don’t love it. I want to do something I love.”
She looked both sad and faintly amused. She looked like she wanted to say something. We turned a sharp corner, and she held out one arm across my shoulders, as if preparing to stop me from flying forward, though I was wearing my seat belt, and we weren’t