Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,92

a way. Genetics.” They sat in a tense but amicable silence for a while, the dog’s tail-thumping the only sound. From the other room, the girls’ chatter filtered in, unintelligible but light and almost cheerful-sounding.

“She might try again, but you can’t live your life around protecting her, you know. You can’t save her by sacrificing yourself. If that worked …” She left the sentence hanging. “It doesn’t work,” she concluded.

“But what am I supposed to do?”

“You have to live your life,” Daisy said, sounding resolute if tipsy. “At least let them see you trying to live. Maybe that helps. I don’t know.”

Marie appeared in the doorway. She seemed to want to step through but was hesitant to approach her mother, to interrupt. She had the shamefaced look of a child in trouble. Laura opened her arms and let Marie come to her, and she got to hold her as she had longed to do. For the moment, it was the only thing that mattered.

20

Marie woke up that first morning back at home in her own bed and looked up at Kayla’s bunk above hers and only felt mild dread of the day that was coming, not crippling full-body horror. Maybe the fog was lifting. She got up and went to the kitchen and started the coffee and made herself toast. It was a Saturday, so she didn’t have to worry about missing more school. She took her cup and plate into the living room and sat on the couch, munching and absently looking at her phone and waiting for the rest of the household to wake up. It was the first time she’d been up early in a while. She was still not doing okay, but she could feel herself on the escalator, toward the bottom, gradually moving toward the light.

Tom had texted her. She took the opportunity to block him.

Kayla and Matt emerged a few minutes later, blearily helping themselves to the coffee she’d made. She could tell they were giving her space, letting her be the first to initiate conversation. Was she really that scary? She felt Kayla look at her and then look away. They settled into different morning routines without really talking to each other. Matt lay down on the floor to do his physical therapy stretches for his bad knee.

“Where’s Mom?”

“Sleeping in, I guess. She was really exhausted.” Matt grunted as he crossed one leg over the other, supine on the floor. “How are you feeling this morning, okay or …”

“I’m fine, I’m going to be fine. I want to see Mom.”

“She’ll be up soon.”

“Who’s going to make us breakfast, you?”

Matt sat up. “Is that a challenge? I’m going to make a great breakfast. Your mom isn’t the only one who can fry an egg around here.”

“You know that she is, though,” said Kayla.

“I’m going to wake her up,” Marie said. She walked down the hallway to her parents’ bedroom. When she and Kayla were little, they had waited as long as possible before rushing into her mom’s bed on weekend mornings, but had always delighted in waking her.

“Shh, Mommy’s sleeping,” Matt would say, but they’d known that Laura was just pretending to be asleep. She looked the same now as she had then, one arm flung over her head, eyes squinting shut in a way that genuine sleepers’ eyes never are.

“Mom, are you up? Can I talk to you?”

Laura stirred and pretended (Marie could tell) to wake up. She sat and tugged her T-shirt down over an exposed slice of her stomach. It occurred to Marie that her mom was beautiful; without makeup, with her dark hair a mess and circles under her eyes, she looked young and glamorously disheveled, like she’d been out late partying. She didn’t have any set expression on her face, and for a minute she looked somehow not mommish. Marie had the discomfiting feeling that she was seeing her mother as she really was, as people who were not her daughter saw her. She winced when Laura turned to look at her and something about her expression—a patient brow furrowing, a barely perceptible tightening at the corners of her mouth—transformed her back into a mom. And this was a relief to Marie, as well as something like a disappointment.

Laura reached out her arms and wordlessly invited Marie to come lie down next to her. They snuggled back into the pillows and looked out the window at the leafless trees. The sky was winter-white. They were inside and warm, for