“Graham.” My mother’s voice is thin as paper, as wavery as the wind.
I stroke her hair and she quiets. I came in to check on her after the men left, and she seemed fine. This morning everything changed. She barely woke up when I spoke to her, even though she’s always been an early riser, doing her sun salutations every morning with a yoga mat on the porch. Her sessions have been shorter and shorter, but this morning she doesn’t even get out of bed.
Guilt suffuses me as if somehow she’s doing worse because I had such a great orgasm bent over the couch downstairs with Sutton last night. I don’t know if the universe really works on such a terrible balance sheet, but if I learned anything from Daddy, it’s that if you’re losing, someone else is winning.
Mom shifts in her uneasy nap, her skin
