The ringtone makes me jerk. I tumble into my body from my meditation’s calm. Force timeworn knees on the thin yoga mat, and reach for my phone. The ringing ignites dread; who calls at five in the morning? Not my mom, but her face flashes before me. I press the green dot.

My older brother demands before I can say hello. 

“Mom’s at Saint Joe’s—JM, you go, I can’t deal.” Adam cuts the call. 

The sun, not yet risen; the battery candle’s weak circle of light reveals my messy home office in the third bedroom, scattered papers, pens, books. I rub the sleep from my face, scratch the back of my head. Squeakers and Malcolm in their high carpeted cat beds swivel pointy ears as if to meow; time for cream?

Dear Ron sleeps. I stagger to our bedroom, kick off my yoga pants, feel for the jeans I wore yesterday, grab my aqua-colored sweater without making a sound. 

I zombie-walk to my car; the keys won’t fit in the ignition. My reflection in the rearview stares freakishly, unwashed face, makeup under the eyes, highlighted hair levitates Einstein-like. I’m sure the garage door wakes Yummaman; wish I could crawl back in bed, sleep until daybreak, and make myself presentable. 

Two nurses converse behind the emergency room desk. Chilly air shrivels my skin into bumps. I search for the sweater I thought I’d tied around my waist—nothing on the floor. There’s no time to check the car because the aide shows me through double doors, around corners to a separate room. One table—is this the morgue? I gasp, zero-in on Mom’s face, freeze. 

“Oh, God. Mom, what did you do?” I say behind my palm. Your fifth try for the death you craved, or did someone poison you? My hand over her forehead, I wonder if the new batch of heroin was too strong? Your first suicide attempt crushed me; I was eight. The second I thought it a mistake, don’t remember the next, I’d stayed with my bio-dad, but the fourth yanked me to your side before entering graduate school thirty years ago. At thirty-two, I quit higher education to become the hairstylist you suggested.

I grab an aluminum chair, drag it close. Mom’s limp body reminds me of all the druggies at the end of those hippy parties. I learned to watch chests to see if people still breathed. Michael’s had not moved.

A blue-gloved hand startles me as a nurse wipes tiny crystals from my mother’s slack lips; the nurse leaves. Her honeysuckle perfume trails behind and dissipates. The scent takes me to the past—to the secret door leading to the side yard outside Mom’s bathroom.

My fingertips caress hundreds of white-yellow blossoms, the honeysuckle’s trunk, full as Grandma’s upper arm. Branches taller than the fence shield me from misery—I dream of fairies, release my bottom lip from between my teeth, my shoulders drop.

“Can I help you?” A man’s voice pulls me from the past. On his white lab coat, a dot of red stains the cuff.

“Oh, sorry, I’m JM—Jean-Marie, Maria’s daughter.” I indicate my mother. 

The man scratches his chin. His medical badge reads Dr. Thomas. “Sorry to inform you, Mrs. Stark is in a coma,” he says. “She may never regain consciousness but doesn’t suffer.” Without emotion, I ignore his babbles until the phrase, “Too much neurological damage.”

The room tailspins, I find myself on achy knees: surprise, the vinyl floor’s spotless, except for a gum wrapper under the ground cabinet. Thought I wanted Mom gone. Instead, tears prick, informing me buried emotions rise to the surface. The young man helps me to stand, hands efficient. His brown eyes shine, but his pupils constrict to pinpoints, the opposite from what I’m familiar with.

My first therapist gave me my first sketchbook; my childhood artwork showed all commune members with dilated pupils with no color—large saucer-eyes. I asked my therapist why. 

She’d said, “Could be drugs, extreme stress, anxiety, fear. Pupils dilate in response to adrenaline rushes. The body’s ‘survival mode’ allows more light to see, removes the body from potential danger.” I’d asked the therapist to repeat the information twice. 

Yes, constant adrenaline rushes. As a child, accused as over-sensitive, I’d attend grammar school every morning hungry, stinging with anxiety; my hypervigilance adhered like skin. 

The nurse returns, shows me through the halls to the ER’s waiting room, where I wait. The tightness in my chest, the throb in my sinuses, aches of my right shoulder, arm, hand keeps me from dozing. Images from my past surface, I fall back in time.