Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,8

supermarket being turned into a canoe-and-worthless-nice-looking-leather-object store, and a log cabin placed on top of a high-rise. It was supposedly used as an Airbnb. Urban camping was apparently a thing. As Lena drove four blocks down, the barbecue restaurants and bookstores—new and old—were transformed into scorched and crumpling buildings. A group of white kids with video cameras and microphones were breaking into a Victorian home that had once been painted an incredible grape-soda-purple color. It was now patchy with brown spots, almost lavender from the sun.

Down the block was a park where kids she went to high school with spent their days, their skin already fading, their eyes dulling. At least three of them had already overdosed since graduation. Although, Lena knew, this was more of a statewide problem than just the city’s. The kids from Tanya’s rich-kid school were also starting to die. Open lots of land that were becoming meadow, some that were gardens. Lena drove past sudden stretches of a liquor store, a Church’s, apartments, the street with a legendary pothole that could swallow a whole tire, though that could be any street now that it was April.

It was the first no-coat-at-all day of the year and people were walking slow. Despite the interview, the warmth and how alive everything was made her heart rise with its spring joy. On her block there were buds on the trees. Kids on bikes. All the neighborhood aunties sipping decaf with their Bibles on their laps while gossiping. There was an empty chair at the table now, and it was somehow only nice to see that they still left space for Miss Toni, as if she was running late as usual.

Home was the only house on the block with no windows open, curtains drawn. Lena paused in her driveway to take a picture of the large oak tree in the front yard. She sent the picture to Kelly. They rarely texted in words but were having a conversation that darted between day-to-day pictures, selfies, and weird images from the internet. The last thing he had sent her was a GIF of a squirrel waterskiing.

Inside, Lena stepped immediately in what she hoped was spilled soup. She flipped on the lights. Yes, soup. Egg noodles and carrots and diced onions. Vomit was in the hallway between Lena’s bedroom and the bathroom. The smell was especially awful, a mixture of canned soup and illness. She ignored it and went on to her mother’s room.

Deziree was curled on the bed, a sleep mask over her eyes, one hand resting on her forehead. Her mother was shaking a little. Lena sighed, weighed whether or not to wake her.

Once a doctor had claimed that Deziree’s problems were psychological. Something terrible had happened to her, he speculated, and her body was working out the trauma. Therapy, some Lexapro, some exercise, she’ll be a new woman in six months. Another had said she just wanted attention. They had gone to a specialist, a woman who had to be booked eight months in advance, who was willing to acknowledge that she didn’t understand all the parts of Deziree’s illness, but that didn’t mean nothing was wrong. To make life easier, we have to agree there is no such thing as normal, the doctor had said while typing on her laptop. If you think too much about how things should be, you forget how they are.

“That’s great,” Miss Toni had said, “but again, how much is this medicine you’re prescribing her?”

“Mom,” Lena whispered.

Deziree stirred. She said an opossum as large as a dog had been in the kitchen. It kept moaning and wailing. Somehow, she understood that the sounds meant “Give me a slice of cheese.” Her voice was slurred, but it sounded more like sleep, Lena thought, than an emergency. The opossum left after he ate his cheese and said that all the Johnsons were good people.

Her mother, curled on the bed, took a breath, moved quickly, and threw up over the side.

“Migraine?” Lena made her voice as small as possible. It was April, one of Deziree’s worst months for them. The air pressure, the pollen puffing out, days that could yo-yo between 20 degrees to 60 and back. It had cost at least $80,000 to find out Deziree’s migraines, which were treatable, were a trigger for her “episodes,” which were “a mystery.”

“Yes,” Deziree said.

She allowed Lena to help her up. Lena walked her mom first to the bathroom, hooking an arm around her waist when she realized one