I can’t hear Carla’s response. I open the bedroom door quietly and tiptoe out onto the landing. Carla’s standing at the foot of the stairs. My mom is smaller than her in every way, but you wouldn’t know it from the way Carla’s shrinking away from her.

I can’t let Carla get blamed for this. I fly down the stairs.

“Did something happen? Is she sick?” Carla catches my arm, pats my face, her eyes scanning my body for signs of trouble.

“She went outside. Because of him. Because of you.” She turns to face me. “She put her life at risk and she’s been lying to me for weeks.”

She turns back to Carla. “You’re fired.”

“No, please, Mom. It wasn’t her fault.”

She cuts me off with a hand. “Not only her fault, you mean. It was your fault, too.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, but it has no effect on her.

“So am I. Carla, pack your things and go.”

I’m desperate now. I can’t imagine my life without Carla in it. “Please, Mom, please. It won’t happen again.”

“Of course it won’t.” She says it with absolute certainty.

Carla starts up the stairs without a word.

Mom and I spend the next half hour watching Carla pack. She has reading glasses and pens and clipboards in almost every room.

I don’t bother to wipe away my tears because they just keep coming. Mom holds herself more rigid than I’ve ever seen her. When we finally get to my room I give Carla my copy of Flowers for Algernon. She looks at me and smiles.

“Isn’t this book going to make me cry?” she asks.

“Probably.”

She pulls the book close to her bosom and holds it there and doesn’t take her eyes off me.

“You be brave now, Madeline.” I run into her arms. She drops her medical bag and the book and holds me tight.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

She squeezes me even tighter. “It’s not your fault. Life is a gift. Don’t forget to live it.” Her voice is fierce.

“That’s enough now,” my mom snaps from the doorway. Her patience has run out. “I know this is very sad for you both. Believe it or not, it’s sad for me as well. But it’s time for you to go. Now.”

Carla lets me go. “Be brave. Remember, life is a gift.” She picks up her medical case.

We all walk downstairs together. Mom hands her a final check, and she’s gone.

MADELINE’S DICTIONARY

as•ymp•tote (ˈasəm(p)ˌtōt) n. pl. -s. 1. A wish that continually approaches but never achieves fulfillment. [2015, Whittier]

Mirror Image

I pull the curtains aside as soon as I’m back in my room. Olly’s standing at his window, his forehead pressed into his fist, his fist pressed into the glass. How long has he been waiting? It takes him a second to realize I’m there, but it’s enough time for me to see his fear. Evidently my function in life is to strike fear into the hearts of those that love me.

Not that Olly loves me.

His eyes roam over my body, my face. He makes a typing gesture with his hands, but I shake my head. He frowns, makes the gesture again, but I shake my head again. He disappears from the window and returns with a marker.

I nod. Are you? I mouth.

I shake my head.

I nod.

I nod.

I shrug.

I pantomime excellent health, existential angst, regret, and an enormous sense of loss, all via a single nod.

We stare mutely at each other.

I shake my head. A gesture that says: No, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s not you. It’s this life.

Schedule Change

More Than This

My mom wordlessly kneels to gather scraps of drawings from our game of Honor Pictionary and stacks them into a neat pile. She keeps the best (defined here as either really good or really bad) ones from each game. We sometimes look through our collection nostalgically, the way the other families look through old photos. Her fingers linger atop a particularly bad drawing of some sort of horned creature hovering above a circle with holes in it.

She holds the drawing up for me to see. “How did you guess ‘nursery rhyme’ from this?” She chuckles with effort, trying to break the ice.

“I don’t know,” I say, and laugh, wanting to meet her halfway. “You are a terrible drawer.”

The creature was supposed to be a cow and the circle was supposed to be the moon. Truly, my guess was inspired, given how awful her drawing was.

She pauses stacking for a moment and sits back on her heels. “I really had a good time with you this week,” she says.

I nod but don’t say anything back. Her smile fades. Now that Olly and I can’t see or talk to each other, my mom and I spend more time together. It’s the only good thing to come out of this mess.

I reach out and grab her hand, squeeze it. “Me too.”

She smiles again, but less fully now. “I hired one of the nurses.”

I nod. She offered to let me interview Carla’s potential replacements, but I declined. It doesn’t matter who she hires. No one’s ever going to be able to replace Carla.

“I have to go back to work tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“I wish I didn’t have to leave you.”

“I’ll be OK.”

She straightens the already perfectly straight stack of drawings. “You understand why I have to do the things I’m doing?” Besides firing Carla, she’s also revoked my Internet privileges and canceled my in-person architecture lesson with Mr. Waterman.

We’ve mostly avoided talking about this all week. My lies. Carla. Olly. She took the week off from work and tended to me in Carla’s absence. She took my vitals every hour instead of every two and slumped with relief each time the results were normal.