an old television antenna on top of the roof, and the stained glass in the transom above the double doors is cracked. Veils of Spanish moss fall to the uneven cobblestone walkway from the bent and twisted limbs of live oaks and towering cypress trees. While Mom hears Dixie, all I hear is the incessant buzz of cicadas and God knows what else. In Seattle bugs aren’t a big problem, but this is the South, where insects grow bigger, live longer, and breed more. Where creepy-crawlies invade at night and where my mother wants to live out the remainder of her life.
“I’m so happy. I love you. You’re a good daughter.” And that’s why I’ve been killing myself for the past month to make it happen. I want to make Mom as happy as I can for the rest of her life, and I want to make new memories to last me the rest of my life, too. I can work here as well as in Seattle, and I can spend my free time with Mom, instead of paying her visits at memory care facilities that often get postponed because of my work.
“Did you see The Skeleton Key?” Lindsey asks.
“No.” Beyond potty language at the dinner table, I’ve learned several things about Lindsey. She rarely wears anything but nurse’s scrubs and she listens to loud country music in her room. She hates peas and loves horror movies almost as much as Mom loves ’70s game shows.
“This looks like that house.” Then she whispers, so Mom doesn’t hear, “Super creepy.”
Mother reaches for my hand and squeezes. Her touch helps calm my overworked nerves and takes my tension down from level ten to about level eight. “It’s a good day.” She lifts her face to the sky and breathes deeply as if she’s sucking in heaven.
Beside me, Lindsey shrugs out of her cardigan and hangs the sweater over one arm. Her scrubs have clouds and rainbows on them today. Yesterday it was safari animals. “Are you sure it’s only sixty-three degrees? I’m sweating like a pig.”
I’ve never really understood why anyone would compare themselves to a pig. I swat away a bug in front of my face and say, “Humidity always makes it seem hotter in the South.” Which is true. The few stray hairs that have escaped my braid are stuck to the back of my neck. “You’ll get used to it,” I lie, in case Lindsey is thinking about bailing on me. She’s taken care of all the paperwork that ensures Mom’s medical records were transferred to a local GP as well as to a neurologist. She set up appointments and spoke with the nearest pharmacy. She’s done all the big and little things involved with Mom’s care. We could not have made this move without her.
“Yeah, probably by the time we go back home.”
I shrug because I don’t know when we’ll return to Seattle. Could be one year or five years. It depends on the progression of Mom’s illness.
“I’ll have to use extra deodorant to make sure I don’t stink.”
And I’ll buy her any deodorant she wants. I’ll buy her a gross of deodorant sticks and throw in a pony, too. We need her. Mom likes her. And she loves to cook.
When I’d realized that Mom hadn’t forgotten my promise to bring her to Sutton Hall and wasn’t giving up on the idea of living out the remainder of her years in Louisiana, I’d feared we’d lose Lindsey, but she’d jumped at the chance to get out of Washington. In fact, she’d jumped so fast that I wondered if she was wanted for robbing banks or spree killings.
I am so relieved to have her, I don’t care.
“There used to be a rain barrel over there.” Mother drops my hand and points a finger to the corner of a wraparound porch. “That’s where Grandmere got the water to wash her hair.” Funny she can remember her grandmother catching rainwater sixty or seventy years ago but not spooning Mr. Shone last month.
“I know,” I say as we head up three wooden steps to the porch. The boards beneath our feet creak; some have been replaced here and there, but it’s just as I remember. Our luggage sits next to the double doors, painted the same green as the shutters, and just as faded.
“I don’t know what Earl will do without me.” Mother doesn’t remember the incident that got her booted from Golden Springs, but she remembers her boyfriend.
The front doors are