Patricia was waiting to hear if her kidney stone was large enough to be surgically removed. It was the first thing, the kidney stone being too big to safely pass through her urethra, that she had wanted for some time. In fact, it’s the first thing she could think of wanting since those days when she and Marco tried to win concert tickets on the radio. They never won, but their attempts to do so roused a stale wonderment in her and she remembered well the two of them dancing in the kitchen to on-hold music, the phone cord wrapped about them, demarcating the boundary of their shared bubble, waiting to be told they were not lucky caller number seven.

Dr. Bentes was scheduled to call with an update and Patricia needed the good before she could call her daughter, Anna, to share the bad: Chloe needed to be put down. Chloe, their shaggy little dog who had lived much longer than Patricia anticipated or wanted. It was Marco and Anna who had originally wanted the thing and Patricia who was paying the piper: for the last ten days Chloe hadn’t been able to control her bladder, relieving herself on the carpet, in her dog bed, and, last Wednesday, on Patricia. Patricia was only doleful about not being doleful about having to put Chloe down. The two had become passive, if not parasitic, roommates. Taking care of Chloe and her ailments dictated Patricia’s schedule for the last few years. Lately, she couldn’t be bothered to brush Chloe and her shaggy coat had twisted into a knotted horror. Anna had never taken responsibility for the dog and would refuse to exit the house to walk Chloe unless dressed in her Sunday best, should some other neighborhood teen see her and spread the news that Anna really wasn’t all that beautiful. When she was a girl, Anna insisted on wearing a dress to school each Friday so that the other students would remember her in a pretty dress, lace-sleeved and bouncy, over the weekend. Patricia only knew this because she often read Anna’s diary, something that she continued throughout Anna’s high school years and wished that she could do now, but she was hours away at college in Orlando.  

Patricia looked forward to Anna’s infrequent visits home because they stirred her to peek through the diary as Anna showered, swelling with stories and sentiments that would not be shared with her. Patricia had felt closest to Anna when she was pregnant. She was restless in her third trimester and used to take walks around the neighborhood at night, describing the moon and its cycle to her belly. She could not believe how far away and foreign Anna felt the first time she held her. Anna could say a whole slew of words in both English and Spanish before she pitied Patricia enough to spit out a mama. Even then Anna mostly called her che and would scream out for Marco the moment Patricia finished breastfeeding, letting her know that she had adequately fulfilled her role as the third-to-fourth most compelling object in her life. Marco and her doctors, in some combination of uninformed and unhelpful, told her that this would pass, but Anna was twenty-one and Patricia had never felt reprieve from the foreignness of her only child.  

Patricia was wary and had practiced what she would say in the mirror that morning. Staring at herself from Marco’s side of the bathroom vanity, she thought she looked like her daughter. They had the same long, waved brown hair that connected to and pulled from their eyebrows, extending behind their ears past the napes of their necks, as if an extension of skin. They each received regular compliments about their hair, the opulence of it always immune to the Florida humidity. It was Patricia’s most striking feature and what had attracted Marco to her. She was relieved that it hadn’t dulled over time like her eyes that seemed to mute and narrow with each new semester of teaching trigonometry. 

“Hi Anna, it’s your mother. I’m calling with some bad news. Chloe is sick and we’ll need to put her down,” she rehearsed. It was best to tell Anna the news in a straightforward fashion, to offer some comfort without elongating the exchange with needless explanation. She knew that Anna would insist on coming home and readied her voice to sound welcoming and full. Preparing herself to be motherly took work. 

Already it was evening and unlikely that Dr. Bentes would call with news of the kidney stone. The office closed early on Fridays so that Dr. Bentes’s receptionist could pick up her grandson from bassoon practice. Patricia had met the boy once in the waiting room. He was sucking on the instrument’s reed and using its case as a makeshift desk while he worked his way through an Algebra 2 textbook without a calculator. Patricia recognized the textbook as one used by honors students and imagined that he was bright, even if unsightly with the reed flicking about his mouth and dry spit accumulating on his chin. Patricia had made a mental note that day, which she revisited now, not to be annoyed with the doctor’s office on Fridays. 

Thinking it would be a safe time to make the call, Patricia took out her phone and clicked Anna’s number, third on her favorites. Patricia had grown accustomed to many rings. She assumed that Anna would be contemplating whether to even take her call after her differential equations class, which Anna was struggling with. She had, a few weeks prior, called Patricia to ask for help on an extra credit problem. The two of them worked through it, coming to what Patricia thought was the right answer and showing their unusual process for arriving there. Anna never followed up with Patricia about whether this favor she had done for her had been fruitful; each time she passed Anna’s bedroom, saw her bike in the garage, caught her reflection in the mirror and considered Anna, she thought of that problem. Patricia did not call to ask because Anna did not call to tell. 

The phone rang once before Anna picked up.

“Hey, Mom! Sorry if it’s loud, I’m waiting at the bus stop to head back to my apartment.” Patricia was grateful for this morsel of information; it meant that they each had an easy out, an excuse to end the conversation early.  

“I can hear you okay for now. Look, Anna, honey, I have some bad news. Chloe is sick and I need to put her down this weekend,” Patricia said, nearly lauding herself for the use of “honey.” Her practice that morning proved worthwhile.  

There was no response over the line and Patricia followed with, “Anna, can you hear me?” Still a further pause ensued and Patricia assumed the silence meant Anna had disconnected the call, upset that Patricia made this decision without her input. She thought her language too harsh, too definitive, that maybe she should have said “we.” Even if it wasn’t a group decision, even if Chloe was hardly—and had never been—a group endeavor. The previous lauding quickly dissipated into upbraiding and Patricia felt she had wasted her morning with preparation. She was nearly startled when she heard Anna sucking in tears. 

“I’m so sorry,” Anna said, “I thought that she wasn’t looking great last time I was home. I know this must be hard for you. You spend so much time with Chloe.”

Patricia was uncertain of what to do with this support from her daughter. How misguided. Patricia hardly felt for the animal. Didn’t Anna remember when they first brought Chloe home? Anna and Marco—always co-conspirators—snuck Chloe, then a street dog, past Patricia and into the bathroom, where they made a mess cleaning her. Patricia stumbled upon them laughing only when she heard her blow dryer. They looked so happy, the three of them together and without Patricia. Whether or not to keep Chloe was her and Marco’s biggest schism. Why couldn’t he simply have asked first? Why couldn’t they simply have asked if she wanted to join?  

Patricia, getting back to character, said, “Yes, it’s been hard. Would you like to come down for the procedure? I can pay for your bus ticket for tomorrow morning.” Suspecting that Anna’s tears were in service of something ulterior, and presenting the carrot of the $35 round-trip ticket, Patricia felt that the stick, if needed, could wait.  

“Sure, that’d be nice,” Anna said.  

Agreeing, in theory, that it would be nice, Patricia also said, “That would be nice,” replicating the tender alto of her daughter’s voice.  

*

Patricia spent that evening working through a few crosswords and abandoning them when their complexities surpassed her range of knowledge. She had no interest in learning French phrases or words, or Italian for that matter. She washed her face and readied for bed with the leisure of someone who was unburdened with prospect. 

She wanted to be fresh-faced when she picked up Anna and decided to sleep on Marco’s side of the bed. The old mattress, which she had replaced two years prior, used to be sloped and contoured to Marco’s shape—his broad shoulders leaving a dent, which lessened through his torso but again emerged above, at, and below his thighs. Marco had been a landscaper and had the body of one: strong, able, and tight from years of squatting to pull weeds and tend flowers. This new mattress had only been slept on by Patricia and what would have been Marco’s side was untouched. It was like being at a hotel. Patricia slept best when somewhere unfamiliar and reserved nights on Marco’s side for when she needed to be well rested. 

Patricia and Marco moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1993 when Patricia got a job teaching at the community college. The sprawl of the Fort Lauderdale suburbs was overwhelming and she regularly got lost in the complex and twice, at least, parked in the wrong driveway, tried entering the wrong townhome. She had ambition then to work at a four-year college, maybe win herself a tenure-track position and teach something other than trig. All her starters—the two-bedroom townhome, the job, the sedan—became constants. She would have chosen more concertedly, perhaps a home with south-facing windows or a sedan with leather seats, had she known that she would be hungering for direct sunlight and scratching her skin raw from the polyester blend that flaked in the Florida sun. Even if she moved, Patricia knew that she would exist interminably in that cul-de-sac, pregnant and walking the loop of their tiny neighborhood encased in the slightly larger neighborhood, which in turn was just one of dozens of the same in the larger complex. 

The bus stop where Patricia picked up Anna was across the street from the highway, not too far from their house as to be inconvenient, which she always noted for Anna on the occasions when she picked her up from it. Patricia had slept well the night before and felt refreshed, youthful. She was adjusting her seat to better support her back when the bus pulled up and dozens of students emerged. 

Anna had cut her hair into a bob. It looked full but lacking in its fullness and did not frame as much as encompass her whole face, making her cheekbones appear deflated and lusterless. Anna smiled as she caught a glimpse of the car, which confirmed Patricia’s thought that the haircut stole from Anna that thing she was trying to preserve in herself. 

Anna swung open the passenger door, not flinching at the screech it made. “Thanks for getting me!” 

Up close the haircut looked lopsided, Patricia thought. Certainly it was stylish, but not classic, and Patricia always thought of Anna as a classic beauty—that there was a grace to her being that would outlast and outcompete trends.

“Good to see you, too,” Patricia responded. “So sorry about the circumstances, though,” she added, as to not have the purpose of the weekend lost. Anna held Patricia’s hand in response and gave it a squeeze that was, Patricia thought, intended to express sweetness. 

As they drove, Anna switched around the radio, settling, it seemed purposefully, on the station that Patricia and Marco had tried to win tickets from. Patricia was about to mention this story, which surely Anna had heard dozens of times, when her phone rang. It was Dr. Bentes. Without checking her mirrors or taking her foot from the gas, Patricia jerked her arms, guiding the sedan across two lanes of traffic and the bike lane. She veered into a gas station, threw the car in park, exited, and took the call. 

“Dr. Bentes?” Patricia asked, evenly. 

“Hi, Patricia, yes. I’m sorry the office didn’t call yesterday, but I know you were waiting to hear back about the imaging. I have good news. The stone is small enough for you to pass without needing surgery.”  

Patricia’s hand tightened around the phone. “Well, are you sure?” she asked.

“I am,” Dr. Bentes responded, “based on where the stone is sitting, I think it should pass soon.”  

“Oh yes, well, great news,” Patricia said, reminding herself that there was decency to be maintained outside this gas station. “Thank you, Dr. Bentes,” she stated and hung up without anything further. 

Patricia slumped over, weighted. She wanted this out of her and did not want to endure the pain of ridding it herself. She had become afflicted by kidney stones shortly after Marco’s death despite her habits remaining staunchly the same. She ate, exercised, worked, lived similarly before and after the accident. At Marco’s wake, Patricia keeled over the toilet in their townhouse, clutching her lower back the way she imagined Marco clutched himself after being swiped by that car on his bike. The house was filled with neighbors, other staff from the community college, and Marco’s friends. Patricia had duties that could not be derailed by an unsolicited malady, so she solicited one herself by slamming a full shampoo bottle into her left ring finger as it dangled singularly from the sink ledge. She broke it swiftly, the little bone protruding and entire finger ballooning and purpling. Her wedding ring wouldn’t have fit if she tried to wear it. With the pain reallocated, Patricia was able to fulfill her duties and the wake was, for all intents and purposes, a success. She never told Anna about the kidney stones. 

Patricia had eventually gone to see a doctor about the broken finger and wore a stent that made it hard for her to write on the whiteboard during class. The bone of the finger never knit back fully and, if pressed correctly, could be used to send pain through Patricia’s body—making palpable her refocusing. She looked at her reflection in the car window, brushed her long hair behind her ears, and regained composure.

“Mom, what was that all about?”

“Oh, so sorry. I was waiting to hear from the vet about tomorrow and just wanted to 

make sure I was able to take the call,” Patricia said.

“You need to be more careful with bike lanes,” Anna said while changing the radio station.

*

Patricia had bought ingredients to cook vegetarian pasta for dinner; she remembered Anna’s passing mention last time they spoke about eating less meat. Chloe wouldn’t be as excited about the leftovers. 

Patricia and Anna prepared the meal while listening to Nina Simone over the stereo—the sound of a dryer banging mixed with “I Put a Spell on You” set the soundtrack for most Saturday mornings at their house. Waiting for the butter to velvet over green beans, Patricia hummed “You’ve Got to Learn.” 

“Anna, will you hand me the paring knife?”

“This one?”

“No. No—the one with the wooden handle, in the other drawer. Oh, and can you check the eggplant in the oven?”

“They look pretty brown, but could you come check?”

“I trust you.”

“Can you just check?”

“Not brown enough. A couple more minutes or they’ll be mushy. Will you chop up the shallots?”

“I need the paring knife.”

“Use the utility knife.”

“Where is that?”

“It’s in the same drawer, Anna. The drawer with all the knives.”

“I was just asking.” 

“I’ll finish up here. We’re basically done anyway. Just set the table, okay?”

“Okay, Mom.”

Patricia thought that the meal looked good, that she had selected a recipe Anna would enjoy. She wished that she had thought to pick up a fresh loaf of bread from the bakery; it would have paired well with the spicy tomato sauce, worked to sop it up from their plates and make washing dishes easier. 

“Felix is going to stop by later if that’s okay,” Anna more mentioned than asked. 

“I hadn’t realized he was still in town,” Patricia answered.

“He was just in your trig class. Last semester.”  

Patricia did not remember Felix being in her class. She did not get close to or really take note of her students. Those who were in trigonometry at the community college were typically aiming to transfer to a four-year school and Patricia did not find it worthwhile to invest in the transient. 

“He must not have come to class regularly,” Patricia said, trying to sound friendly in her accusation. 

“Well, he was in your trig class and he is coming to pick me up. We’re going to Steph’s for a little high school reunion,” Anna said. “Is it alright if Chloe sleeps in my bed tonight?” 

Patricia had forgotten about Chloe, who was tucked under the kitchen table motionless. Patricia thought that she looked already dead. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Patricia responded. “Chloe hasn’t been able to control her bladder and I don’t want her to stain your bed.”  

“You mean the bed no one sleeps in?” 

“I mean the bed that is in my house that I don’t want to stink like urine.”  

“What, like someone is going to come here and smell it and think you don’t keep a tidy house? You haven’t had people over in years.”

Anna stood up from the table, taking from Patricia the chance to dignify herself by saying that, in fact, Claire from the science department had been over for dinner less than three months prior. 

“I’ll just meet Felix at his house,” Anna said, putting her plate in the sink and leaving through the back door. 

Patricia sat at the kitchen table for a few moments longer to finish her pasta. She had been enjoying the eggplant, but her last bite reminded her of its bitterness and why she never cooked it for herself. She discarded the leftovers into Chloe’s bowl. Chloe ignored Patricia, as she had been doing for months—even food couldn’t stir her into love or excitement. Chloe’s apathy was almost admirable, Patricia thought as she clicked off the stereo and started the dishes.

*

Patricia woke on Marco’s side of the bed to the sound of her alarm. She had slept with her bedroom door open to hear when Anna got home, slid down the hall, and made her way into the linens she had changed the day before. She did not plan to speak with Anna but wanted to know that she had returned, that she was nearby. Patricia had rummaged through Anna’s belongings after she left the house, looking for her diary. She found a little purple Moleskine that hadn’t yet been written in—the leather unsullied. Patricia felt lonely upon seeing the diary unmarked and flipped through its pages, searching for any indication that Anna had used it; a stray marking or dog-eared page would have settled her. But this was a new journal, crisp. It could have belonged to anyone.  

Anna’s bed was still pristine. It bothered Patricia that Anna did not return home the night before simply because she rejected Anna’s desire to have Chloe sleep in her bed. Anna was like Marco in this way. He could hold a grudge until it was absorbed into his bloodstream and circulated throughout each limb, becoming so structural to his existence that, if released, he would be a different person. 

On her way to the kitchen, she found Anna asleep in the hallway with the dog in her arms, covered in urine. She thought that maybe short hair could be a nice look on Anna. It was lighter, more practical, for the humid weather in Orlando. 

*

Anna sat in the back of the sedan with Chloe on the way to the vet. Patricia had never thought Chloe to be an intuitive or smart animal. As a young dog she was bumping into cabinets and, once more seasoned, was eating socks. Three times they had to take Chloe to this same vet to have her stomach pumped, twice producing Anna’s pink socks that Patricia had repeatedly asked she not leave on the bathroom floor. Patricia could sense Chloe’s stillness in the back seat and recognized it not so much as courage but resignation. Perhaps she would miss the companionship of something also succumbing to abandon. 

The drop-off was quick. Patricia and Anna patted Chloe goodbye, called her a good girl. The vet steered her into the back room on a medical table, the wheels squeaking and Chloe’s small body unnoticing. 

Patricia watched Anna on the car ride home. She sat still, staring forward, and seemed to Patricia to be plainly sad. Patricia felt herself being pulled in so many different directions that she was uneven, lumpy. She thought it would be a privilege to feel so uniformly one thing.  

“My bus leaves in a half hour,” Anna said as the sedan pulled into the driveway. “Do you think you can take me? If not, I can ask Felix.”  

“Yes, I’ll take you,” Patricia said. 

She stood in front of the garage, looking up at the stucco of their townhome and remembering how unsightly she thought the house was when she and Marco moved in. She cried the first night she slept there. Everything she had wanted—Marco, the teaching job, a family—was glazed in that stucco. The façade of the house was cracking, not enough to expose the wood underneath, but enough that rain, if falling at the right angle, could penetrate through.  

“I’d like to take you, please,” Patricia said. “Also, I meant to ask you. Did we get that problem right for your math class? You hadn’t followed up.” 

“Of course it was right. I figured you knew that,” Anna said while shutting the car door, 

neither of them flinching at its creak. 

Patricia followed Anna into the house and they retreated to their rooms. Patricia intended to change before taking Anna to the bus stop; the day had become warmer. As she bent over to change her jeans, she felt a feverish surge of pain in her lower back, like a needle filled with hot water being slowly spattered into her kidneys. The minor relief she felt thinking that the stone might be passing helped hurry her to the bathroom. She sat on the toilet and took one of Anna’s stray pink socks from the floor, using it to gag herself. She did not want Anna to hear her scream. 

Anna knocked on the bathroom door. “Actually, do you think we could leave early? Maybe we could get a coffee together?”  

Trying to articulate around the sock, Patricia muffled, “No. Not right now.” 

She could hear Anna backing away from the door, discouraged by her indelicacy.  

“Is everything alright?” 

“Yes, I’m fine,” Patricia said after pulling the sock from her mouth. “But I need some space. Could you give me some space? Maybe Felix can just take you?”

“Mom,” Anna said.

“You need to leave. Okay?”

“I don’t want to leave. Can I just come in? I want to help.”

“Anna, listen to me now. Please leave.” 

Patricia felt that giving birth had provided her an apt benchmark for comparing her pain to the blankness that followed Anna’s entrance into the world and her own absence of tenderness towards her daughter. She knew now that no comparison could be made to the way she felt, her body contorted and hands gripping the toilet, hearing Anna say, “I’ll go, Mom.”  

Patricia stayed that way for a few more minutes as the urine streamed out of her and into the water, her back loosening. She pulled aside her leg, noticed the bone protruding in her ring finger, and stared at the empty toilet.