care of you." I was tired, so tired I wanted to die. "I couldn't." The same questions, the same answers, over and over. The pain rose in me and I said softly, "I'm not sorry I left. I had to leave. I loved you and I wanted to stay, but I couldn't."
Her words drifted down like snowflakes on a winter day. "I hate you."
"All right," I said softly. "I understand that." Perhaps Zuhuy-kak was right. She and I did have much in common.
We had both made sacrifices that were unacceptable. We had both failed.
I closed my eyes and began to find my way back to the distant place where I could not feel the pain.
"Mother?" The cry called me back.
"I'm here."
"What are the shadows that follow me?"
"Shadows of the past," I muttered to the darkness. I tried to raise myself up on one elbow, but the movement shot a new pain through my leg and I sank back down, letting my cheek rest on the cool rough stone. "You'll get used to them."
There was more I wanted to tell her, but I could not remember what it was. She seemed far away, farther than she had ever been. I closed my eyes and went away.
Chapter Twenty-four: Diane
When one hunts for man as I have done, even dead men and their ruins, one goes up, high into the mountains where they may have fled and built in some final extremity, as at Machu Picchu, or down into deep arroyos where their bones may protrude from the walls, or their mineralized jaws gape in the gravel fans. Or one enters caves and with luck comes out again, but not necessarily with treasure.
—Loren Eiseley,
All the Strange Hours
My mother lay broken at the base of the limestone wall and I did not know the way out of the cave. She did not respond when I shouted at her. "Liz? Mother? Goddamn you, you can't leave me here. You have to help. Liz?"
The cavern echoed back my words and the darkness was filled with curses. "Wake up. Get up. Just get up!" The words rolled like thunder from wall to wall to wall, crashing and repeating. I shone the flashlight down at her crumpled body.
"All right then—you can be dead. I don't care. You can be dead!" Then with a rush, words abandoned me and I was wailing in anger, a cry that began as a low moan, growing louder and rising to a shrill keening that hurt my ears, joining echoes on echoes on echoes. I tried to stop the sound, but it would not be contained; it spilled from me like water overflowing a dam. I beat my open hands against the ragged edge of the limestone cliff, feeling the pain and letting it feed the howling. My face was wet and hot, and I could not stop crying. It was my mother's fault, all of it—the anger, the howling, the blood on my hands, and the terrible pain. Most of all the pain.
Through the tears, I saw a shadow moving at the edge of the flashlight beam. The old woman stood watching me. I fumbled for a loose rock to throw, found nothing, and with a quick movement snatched my sandals off my feet and hurled them at her—right foot, then left. She faded back into the darkness and I laughed, a sound akin to the howl of pain.
My mother lay broken at the foot of the cliff. She would not wake up. She wanted to leave me here, alone in the dark. I would not let her. She had to wake up and talk to me. I looked about for something to throw at her to wake her, but there was nothing. My sandals were lost in the darkness behind me, and I did not want to throw the flashlight. I studied the limestone cliff and decided to climb down and stop her from leaving me alone again.
The wall was pockmarked and uneven, studded with fossil shells. I wedged the flashlight in the back pocket of my jeans and lowered myself carefully over the edge, feeling with my feet for holds. My breath came in short gasping sobs, like the panting of a dog after a hard run. The sharp edges of the limestone etched new cuts on my feet and stung the gashes on my hands. The flashlight in my pocket moved with the movements of my hips, and its beam chased shadows on the cavern ceiling.