Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,41

every curl was behaving as it should. Took a deep breath and willed her face into neutral. Dr. Lisa’s door was open, and she was adding raisins to what smelled like a mug of oatmeal when Lena entered.

While stirring her oatmeal, the doctor asked, “How many teeth did Bethany lose?”

“I think nine.”

“Are you sure?”

“How could I forget?” Lena scratched her hand. “It was the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.”

The doctor handed her a survey: On a scale of 0–10, how disgusted did you feel when Subject B lost her teeth? How frightened—on a scale of 0–10—were you when this happened? On a scale of 1–10, how much did it make you want to leave the studies? If this same thing happened to you, would you leave Lakewood, yes or no? Have you lost trust in these studies, yes or no? Lena was glad they did this one on paper—it was easier to lie. Of course, she hadn’t thought at all about leaving. No way did she distrust them!

“How is Bethany?” Lena asked after returning the survey.

Dr. Lisa ate a spoonful of her oatmeal. “You should get back downstairs.”

On her way home from work, Lena called Deziree. Her mother was in a wonderful mood. She talked about how well she felt: going to yoga twice a week, no migraines, she hadn’t called off work in two weeks. “I’ve even gained some weight,” Deziree said.

“That’s great.” When her mother was very sick, it was hard to keep her eating, keep her hydrated. She was so thin sometimes people who didn’t know her stopped and said, “I’ll pray for your health.”

“Lena, I went to a mall.” The music, the smells of perfume and fast food and cleaning products, the dry air, kids having tantrums were all proven migraine triggers. Going to a mall for her mother had once been as unlikely as her going to the moon. Her mother’s voice was light, happy. She needed her cane occasionally still but hadn’t had any days where she needed to be in her chair.

“And maybe this is heading toward bragging, but I can concentrate better now.”

There was an ugliness in Lena that made her angry when she heard this. All her life she had wanted a healthy mom, one like all her friends’. Someone who didn’t need her to take care of things or to be extra-quiet or to be comfortable making dinners, getting a job as soon as she could to help pay the bills, to clean. And now, when she no longer needed a mother, when she was no longer there to experience her, Deziree was the person she had wanted for so long. And the only way it could continue was for Lena to be hours away, to keep risking herself. She was so emotional that she pulled over into a gas station.

“Lena, I—” Her mom swallowed. “Thank you. The health insurance is.”

All the ugly feelings evaporated, replaced with embarrassment for feeling that way and a small, uncomfortable joy at being able to give her mother something she needed.

“Mom, I love you. I would do anything for you. You know that, right?”

“Get me some of that Disarono water,” a woman yelled. “My water tastes bad.”

A young man was pumping his gas with an unlit cigarette tucked between his lips. His dog was watching. Its eager expression, the way it wagged its tail, seemed as if he was encouraging the man to light it. The dog wanted to watch the gas station burn, film the carnage. Lena understood maybe she was just projecting and the dog was just being a dog.

“Mom? Are you there?”

After a few more moments of silence, Lena hung up. She leaned back in the driver’s seat, tilted her head up. The fabric on her car’s ceiling was puffy and shredded from age and humidity.

The next morning, Charlie gave Lena a ride to work. His eyes were glassy. As Lena got into the car she automatically offered to drive.

“No, I’m good,” he said.

“Where were you yesterday?” Lena asked.

He turned on the radio.

“Did you do anything cool?”

He turned the radio up a little louder. The song was a country song about dreaming each other’s dreams, holding each other’s heart, big sky, cute dogs, our little farm. She asked him one more time. He turned up the radio a notch louder. She opened her window. The day was warm and the air felt nice. If they drove around like this for another hour or two, Lena thought she could learn to like