Page 100 of Perfect Praise

When I pull into the driveway, Maren peers out her window, deep in thought. Possibly thinking the same things that I am.

“Itlooksidyllic, I know,” I say.

She rubs her thumb in a circle on top of each of my knuckles, trying to relieve the tension knotted through my forearm.

“When I’m here,” I continue, “the only memories I think about are staging interventions with Elise, checking to see if she’s alive, dropping her back off from the hospital after an OD, her hosting dinner in a moment of clarity only for her to become more and more incoherent as she shoots up in her bedroom.” Maren massages my neck when I lay my forehead on the steering wheel. It takes everything in me to breathe steadily through my pulsing temples. “I don’t care that I’m thirty years old. I’m still her child, and you shouldn’t ever witness your mother like that.”

Her voicemail plays back in my head, her words like sobs, wishing she had more time with me, wishing she could have shown me she could be a better mother, that she loves me, that she’s sorry. She couldn’t understand why she’d survived the nonexistent plane crash.

Maren kisses my hand before I open the car door and start up the stone path to the front door.

I ring the doorbell as soon as I’m close enough, before I lose any of my last un-frayed nerves.

No sounds come from the other side of the door.

I try again and wait. And wait. I don’t have enough strength to open the door and face what might be inside, so instead, I press my forehead against the woodendoor.

After a minute, Maren’s hand lightly grips my shoulder. I didn’t even hear her get out of the car.

“What if she’s…” My words are barely audible, and I can’t manage to finish the sentence. My worst fear. And what if I speak it into existence? If I never say it, it can never happen.

She unfolds my fist and takes the key from my sweaty palm. “Let me go in first.”

“Maren, I can’t let you do that,” I say, sounding stronger than I feel.

But she shushes me and unlocks the door. “I can be strong enough for the both of us right now.”

It swings open to the empty foyer, and past that, the quiet living room that looks straight out of a Florida real estate catalog.

Maren knocks and calls out, “Mrs. Hughes?”

When no one replies, she squeezes my shoulder. “Stay here. I’ll check if she’s home.”

What she’s really thinking is ‘alive.’ It’s what we’re both thinking.

I shake the thought out of my head and step into the foyer after Maren. She smiles reassuringly at me with closed lips as I stuff my hand in my pocket to thumb the tee I have there.

“Mrs. Hughes?” she calls again, louder and farther inside this time.

Maren disappears down the hallway. I hear a soft knock followed by a door opening and closing. I’m mapping out my mom’s bedrooms in my mind as Maren repeats it three more times.

She shakes her head at me when she reappears before whipping her head toward the sound of the sliding glass door out of my eyesight.

“Who are you?”

Relief rushes down my spine at the sound of my mom’s voice.

Maren’s shoulders jump before I can almost see the relief cascade down her body too as her muscles uncord.

“I’m your son’s girlfriend,” she answers. “Maren.”

There’s a pause before Mom replies, “Right. The one he loves,” like she’s been reading articles about us.

“I love him too,” Maren says, “and he wants to talk to you.”

My mom’s eyes snap to me when I take three steps out into the living room and instantly fill with tears. She has to catch the handle of the door and lean her weight against it from the shock. She looks tired, the same dark circles around her eyes I saw around mine in the mirror earlier. Her blonde hair wild, like she just woke up but never went to sleep at the time.

“Hey, Mom,” I say.

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