Isabella Retter

I

We could start when Ellie fell off her bike and skinned her knees at eight years old. Or when she needed stitches at fourteen and wouldn’t tell anyone why. But we won’t. We’ll start with when her mother lost the baby. They only ever say “the baby,” anything else would be too hard, Ellie only started to understand what hard meant years later when she hit the concrete. Then it started to make sense. Then she mourned a baby brother she never even knew.

Her mother of course started grieving much earlier. Her definition of hard was different from concrete; it was the underside of their mattress that they had started to flip every week. She kept saying that she felt like she would fall through the bed and that she needed more ground, more surface. Eventually, she started to sleep on the floor. Joseph tried to join her. She said no. This started to happen a lot; Joseph would ask Jenna something and she would say no. He started to believe that she wasn’t listening to his questions anymore, that she just heard his voice and subsequently prepared her following no. Jenna didn’t need to know what he was asking, she needed to combat the roughness on her tongue. She opted for the feeling of smooth liquor down her throat.

Ellie didn’t know a lot back then. She didn’t really know where her baby brother went. She didn’t really know why her mother was different now; why her eyes sagged, or why her

words started to sound less like words. She didn’t know why her father got that look in his eyes when he looked at her mom; glassed over, an almost-pity, maybe resentment. She didn’t know any of those things. But she would. Eventually she would. The feverish haze of her childhood ended when she hit the concrete. When her knees bled and she couldn’t seem to cry. And then hours later, when she couldn’t seem to stop.

II

We could start when Ellie got into a fight with her mother over her first boyfriend. Or we could start when she got her first lottery ticket. Contrary to most this wasnt when she was eighteen. She had always thought it was stupid how people went out on their eighteenth birthday and bought everything they hadn’t been allowed to buy before. She thought that it was crazy that in one day so much could be different. It was always only one day, even one moment to change everything. So she didn’t do the cliche thing and drive to the nearest gas station at midnight to buy one. She simply went to bed and woke up eighteen. But this year things were different. Ellie didn’t think things were stupid anymore.

So at midnight when she turned nineteen she drove to the gas station and bought a lottery ticket. She knew she was a year late, she didn’t care. Before the cashier rang her up for some reason she decided to tell him it was her birthday. He nodded accordingly and said “ahhh, so this is your first lotto ticket.” And she didn’t know why, but she nodded and said “yup eighteen today.” She wasn’t normally a liar, at least not on purpose, but she didn’t really feel like explaining. She took the ticket and sat outside the gas station on the curb. She pulled out a quarter from her pocket. She had pre-set it knowing the events of the night, now she wished it had been more spontaneous, but it was always too late for that. As she chipped away at the colors revealing the numbers beneath them she started to cry. She didn’t win anything of course, it wasn’t like she was expecting to. She crumbled the ticket within her hands and got up to

throw it in the trash to see the cashier standing right behind her. “Not a winner?” he said. She wiped her face then looked back at him with a smile, “never have been.” We could tell the story of what happened after this. Of the cigarette that they shared (Ellie’s first), or the sloppy kiss (their last). But we won’t. This isn’t about that. Ellie didn’t think getting older was stupid anymore. Instead it felt painful. Like the loser ticket, or the sore lungs, or the rotten kiss. And although she wanted stupid and painful to be synonymous- they weren’t. And on her nineteenth birthday after being so afraid of it for years, she was praying for stupid. This would repeat itself a lot, praying for stupid, but becoming accustomed with pain.

The image would remain in her head irremovable, when the cashier tossed the cigarette on the ground and crushed it beneath his foot. And instead of thinking of the awful smokey taste in her mouth– all she could think of was the concrete, bloody knees, and the forever longing of something she never had.

III

We could start when Ellie decided she was going to stop talking to her mother. But we won’t. That story didn’t last very long anyways. Ellie always tried to stop talking to Jenna but she never could. Instead we’ll start when Ellie got the call. Ellie never ended up getting very far from her parents. She had always felt pretty neutral about it. She lived about an hour and a half away from her dad and about two hours from her mom, in different directions of course. She had visited her periodically ever since she helped her into hospice. Her dad had only come to help Jenna get set up, and after that, the three of them would never be in the same room again.

When Ellie got the call she was just getting out of work, she texted her boyfriend and let him know where she was going. She didn’t go home and change, or wait till the next day. She just got in her car and drove away. The entire time Ellie drove in silence. She wasn’t thinking about what was happening, or what she was going to see when she got there, she couldn’t.

When she got into the parking lot of the facility the memories started coming back. She was remembering when she first transferred her mom there, trying to bring some color into that drab room, the look on her dads face. Joseph didn’t really look at Jenna anymore. At least not in the way he used to. It didn’t really seem like he looked her in the eyes at all, like he was forcing himself to stare at the little space between them.

Ellie walked into the facility, checked in at the desk and a kind nurse walked her to her mothers room. She kept saying nice things about her mother, “she’s always so sweet with the staff,” and “she really makes the brightest of a tough situation.” But Ellie wasn’t really listening. All she could hear was her heart and her breath. She was only now realizing just how important those things were.

The nurse knocked then opened the door, displaying Jenna in her state. We could talk about the yellow tint in her skin and eyes, or the bruising, but we won’t. Ellie had already seen all of that before.

She caught her mothers eye and she walked over to her wordlessly. She sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed her hand in hers. Then after the silence had settled, she started, “hi mom” her mother gave her a half smile, “hi ellie.”

Ellie didn’t know why, but tears suddenly started blurring her vision. Everything that was happening wasn’t a surprise to her, she had known what was coming, she had prepared for it, but it was somehow different seeing her. Ellie looked up trying to hold back whatever was inside, and in response Jenna reached for her daughter, as fragile as she was, and she fell into her. They laid in the small bed that was only meant for one as she cried. Ellie remembered this feeling. She remembered once as a small child having a bad dream and crawling into bed with her parents. The way her mother had held her, she knew she was safe, she knew her mother would protect her from anything out there.

Ellie laid in her mothers arms and they
quietly spoke. Jenna asked about Ellie’s work, and about her boyfriend, and if she had read anything good lately. And through subtle tears Ellie responded to her mothers questions.

After around two hours of them falling in and out of light conversation, Jenna said that Ellie should probably get going. “It’s getting dark,” she said. “I don’t want you driving back too late.” Ellie shook her head, “but what if-” Jenna didnt let her finish, she nodded knowingly, “It’s better this way.” Ellie nodded her head and gradually shifted out of her bed. Once she stood up she got down on her mothers level on her knees and looked at her. “I’m sorry,”she said. “I’m sorry all of this is happening.” Jenna looked at her daughter, tears summoned to her eyes though none fell. “Oh Ellie, this is what happens. If it didn’t happen this way, it would another later on.” Ellie broke the eye contact and looked down, unable to look at her mother. “Mom” she said, “there is something I’ve always wanted to ask you.” Her mother nodded with approval, a look of knowing in her eyes. “I know it was a long time ago, but did you have a name?” She was about to continue on for clarification, but the look in her mothers eyes told her she didn’t have to.

Jenna closed her eyes for a second, breathing deeply, then slowly in fragile words and shallow breath, “Ellie,” she paused… “I don’t know if you know this, but I held him in my arms. They let me hold him as he died.” She started to shake her head, “In some ways, I think it made it harder, seeing him I mean.”

Ellie breathed in slowly, “I can’t even imagine.” Jenna looked at her daughter knowing that she loved her just as much as she had on the day she was born, the very best day of her life. “I was going to name him Jeremiah.” Ellie took it in, and she felt something ease within

herself. She looked directly into her mother’s eyes, and knew that there was no need to say anything else. In this moment together they both knew there was love, and that was enough.

After a few seconds, Ellie slowly stood up and took her mothers hands in hers. She looked at Jenna and breathed her in knowing that it would be the last time. She squeezed her hands then turned and walked out of the room, knowing that if she looked back she would never leave.

Ellie doesn’t remember how she got from Jenna’s room to outside. She doesn’t remember talking to the nurses. She doesn’t remember signing the paperwork. All she remembers was stepping out of the sterile facility and into the warm air. She rubbed her hands over her face trying to bring herself into some kind of reality, then sat on the curb.

Ellie didn’t know what she was feeling. She didn’t feel stupid, she didn’t even feel pain. She thought it might be that she was feeling nothing, but she had always equated that with emptiness, and in this moment she felt anything but empty– she felt full. Maybe this is what she had been chasing her whole life. She looked down at the concrete, but this time she didn’t cry.

Ellie knew she was never going to see her mother again, and that her father would never be the way he was when she was a girl, she knew none of this was fair, but that it was hers, and for now, that had to be enough.

Finally, she stood up. She felt everything washing over her, all of the moments that made her up. She thought of her parents, of the baby, of cigarettes and the men that followed them, she thought of herself too, of how far she had come. And as she walked across the cracked concrete, she didn’t once feel like falling.