CLEO

Cleo

THE DAY OF

Our brownstone looks beautiful, lit up a warm gold in the fading April light. Homey and pristine Park Slope perfection, thanks to my mom, of course. God forbid anything she does ever be less than perfect. Except here I am, frozen on the corner, half a block from the house where I grew up, consumed by dread. And this is not exactly a new feeling.

I could turn around right now and get on the subway. Head back to NYU, to that party in my dorm that will probably start soon. To Will. But there was something about the way my mom reached out this time. She insisted she needed to talk to me in person, right now . That's not new. But then she said that she understood why I wouldn't want to come, that she was asking me, begging me, to please come anyway. And she sounded so … sincere—and that was new. Of course, it went downhill from there. In the past twenty-four hours, she's fallen back on her tried-and-true method: brute force. Take the messages I got on the train a little while ago— Are you on your way? Are you on the train? Are you almost here? Texting with my mom can be like facing a firing squad.

A car horn blasts on Prospect Park West, and I dart across the street. At the top of the steps, I ring the bell and wait. If my mom is in her office at the back, she might not hear it. And of course I've forgotten my keys.

My phone buzzes in my hand: And?

Will. My breath catches.

Not sure what time yet. I check my phone. It's already six-thirty. I'll text on my way back?

We're hanging out, that's all. Hooking up. Simple.

OFC, he replies after a beat. And there is that flutter in my chest again. Okay, so maybe it is a little more than hooking up.

I ring the bell again and again. Still nothing.

I send a text: HELLO? Been here for 15 minutes.

It's only been five minutes, but seeing as my mom got me back to Brooklyn under duress—emotional extortion—the least she could do is answer the door. Also, I'm freezing here on the stoop in my white ribbed tank top and low-rise jeans. Of course, that'll be a whole thing— Where's your jacket? Where are the rest of your clothes? Forget about it when she spots my new eyebrow piercing.

I pound on the door, which pops open the second my knuckles meet the wood.

"Mom?" I call, stepping inside the big open space. Living room and dining room to the left, kitchen to the right. "You left the door—"

Something's burning. A saucepan is on the stove, the front burner blazing, the outside of the pot blackened from the flame. I rush over to turn it off, grab a dish towel to toss the pot into the sink, and turn on the faucet. A cloud of steam rises as tap water sizzles into the now-empty pot.

There's an open box of couscous on the counter, next to a neat pile of chopped green beans. A half-empty glass of water on the island. "Mom!" I shout.

Popping and hissing noises are coming from the oven. When I open the door, I'm blasted by a wall of heat and gray smoke. The baking pan I yank out is filled with blackened rocks that I'm guessing used to be chicken.

"The food is burning!" The smoke alarm starts to screech. "Shit."

I'm about to climb up on a stool to shut it off, when I hear a loud noise— thump, thump, thump . It's coming from the direction of my mom's office. Shit.

"Mom!"

The thumping stops.

I press my body against the wall as I make my way down the hall. But when I poke my head into the office doorway, it's empty. My mom's laptop, I think her work one, is on the floor near the door, which is weird. But otherwise, it's immaculate as always.

The thumping starts up again. I realize it's coming through the wall, from the adjacent brownstone. George and Geraldine's house—or just George's now, since Geraldine died. George was once a famous doctor, a neurosurgeon, but he has Alzheimer's now. My mom tries to keep an eye on him, brings him groceries sometimes, that kind of thing. For sure, George does some weird stuff over in that house all alone. Right now, it sounds like he's pounding on the walls. He used to do that sometimes when I was in high school and he wanted me and my friends to keep it down.

The smoke alarm is still going off. That's probably it.

I return to the kitchen, jump up on the stool to hit the reset button. The alarm finally stops. A second later, so does George's pounding.

I look past the kitchen island to the long dining room table, the living room beyond. Spotless.

"What the hell is going on?" I whisper. My mom is many aggravating things, but she's not the kind of person to disappear.

I spy something under the sofa, then jump down from the stool for a closer look. It's one of my mom's standard-issue light gray canvas flats—very plain, very expensive. When I pull it out, I see that the side of the shoe is smeared with a reddish brown streak, a few fingers wide. Turning back toward the kitchen, I notice the broken glass on the floor, the shards fanned out, glittering in a pool of what looks to be water. There's also another shiny circle on the hardwood floor. Closer to the end of the island, it's about the size of a dinner plate, the liquid a thicker consistency than what's under the glass. When I head over and crouch down, I can see that it's a similar reddish brown to what's on the shoe. Oh my God. It's blood.

I drop the shoe. My hand trembles as I tug my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans.

"Hey!" my dad answers. "Walking off the plane!"

And for a split second I think, Oh, good, Mom and I won't have to eat alone after all. Like the world hasn't just exploded. I look over at the puddle again. Blood. That's definitely what that is.

"Dad, I think something's happened to Mom."