Page 13 of Hello Stranger

The light alone was incredible.

Not to mention the views of downtown. And the bayou.

Sue thought my moving into my studio was a genius gaming-the-system move. Not a normal living situation, but cooler. She’d been pushing for a shack-warming party from the start. But as much as I wanted to embrace the spin that I was too fantastic to live like normal people, the truth was that I was just too broke.

Back home after that night in the hospital, nothing about my shack, or my life, or myself had ever felt less fantastic. It’s a disorienting thing to know there’s something wrong with you. It made everything about my life seem different. Worse. False. Like I’d been misunderstanding everything all along.

I HAD SOMEportraits queued up to finish—a little girl with her cocker spaniel, a young man’s graduation photo, a sweet grandmother in an eightieth birthday party hat—and I couldn’t bill for them until I shipped them. They were a hundred bucks a pop, so that’s what I should have been doing all day after I got back from the hospital: covering this month’s rent.

But, instead, I found myself googling cavernomas.

Lots of grainy gray brain-scan images, lots of illustrations of people holding their heads like they were having the worst migraines in history,and lots of cartoon illustrations of veins with plump raspberry-shaped malformations.

Which were cuter than I would’ve expected.

I tried to picture the inside of my head. Had there really been a tiny little blood raspberry in there this whole time?

I also googled Dr. Sylvan Estrera. Who apparently did some amateur swing dancing as a hobby. When he wasn’t,ya know,doing brain surgery.

When my eyes were dry from scrolling, I clamshelled my laptop and went to go sit next to my dog, soulmate, and only real family, Peanut, who was fast asleep on the sofa with his legs splayed out and his belly facing the ceiling as if nothing crazy had ever happened in the world.

I appreciated his attitude. It was nice that at least one person in my life wasn’t freaked out.

He’d been a birthday present from my mom the year I turned fourteen. A rescue, but still a puppy, and he’d peed on every surface in the house until we got him trained. My dad would probably have decided not to like Peanut for that reason—if Peanut hadn’t disliked my dad first. He shunned my dad from the get-go—barking and glaring at him whenever he came into the room. Later, we found out that Peanut hated all men, and we wondered if something bad had happened to him that had left some PTSD.

But my mom adored him, no matter what. He was eighteen pounds of solid cuteness—some kind of Maltese/Havanese/poodle/shih tzu/Yorkie mix. When people stopped us to ask his breed, which they did often because he was literally the cutest dog in the world, we’d just say, “Texas fluffball.” Like that was an AKC-recognized thing.

My mom had loved to put him in Fair Isle sweaters and doggie bomber jackets. When my dad grumbled about how it was “humiliating” for a dog to wear human clothes, she’d snuggle Peanut close and say, “You’re just jealous.”

My mom died later that same year, and I don’t think my dad ever even looked at Peanut again after that. Peanut stayed in my room and came with me everywhere. I got an after-school job at a pet store and spentmuch of my paycheck on toys and treats for him. We were totally inseparable from then on.

Except for the two-year period when I was sent away.

But Peanut and I didn’t talk about that.

Sitting next to Peanut today—as my brain spun and tried to take in this new reality—for the first time in a while, I felt the bitter longing that always seeped through me whenever I really missed my mom. It stood off to the side of all other feelings, damp and cold—as if my soul had been rained on and couldn’t seem to dry out.

Most of the time, I tried to just feel grateful for the time I’d had with her.

I knew I’d been so lucky.

Every Sunday, she bought a bouquet of flowers at the grocery store. Then every morning, she’d snip one of the flowers out of the bouquet and wear it behind her ear. I don’t have a memory of my mom without a flower behind her ear.

Even on the day we buried her.

Back at my hovel, sitting on my little love-seat sofa, I felt a longing for my mom so intense, it felt like it was filling up my lungs. If she’d been here, I would’ve rested my head on her shoulder and she’d have stroked my hair. I would’ve pressed my ear against her chest, shushed by the rhythm of her breathing. And then she’d have tightened her arms around me so I’d know for sure I wasn’t alone.

Because that was the most essential thing about my mom. She couldn’t always fix things for me, but she was always there.

Until the day she wasn’t.

I WAS JUSTwondering if this was the most alone I’d ever felt in my life when I got a text from my father.

Inevergot texts from my father.

I didn’t even know he had my contact info.

But the phone pinged, and there it was on the screen:This is Dad. I’m at your building. Which apartment are you? I’m coming up.

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