Free The Sweet Dead Life by Joy Preble Page B

Do we burst out and tell her I'd been poisoned? I didn't want to spook her. She blinked at us as we walked in the room. She was still wearing Casey's old Green Lantern T-shirt. A sticky-looking stain about two inches in diameter--juice? drool?--now graced the middle. For some reason, her computer was up and running and logged onto the Internet. Our neighbors all had wireless; we had discovered it wasn't that hard to mooch onto their connections when we got behind on paying for ours.
    Mom's eyes focused on Amber. "Hi?" she said, her voice rising like it was a question.
    "This is Amber," Casey said. "She helped us last night when we had the accident, remember?"
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    "Accident?" Mom tilted her head. "I went somewhere, didn't I?"
    Casey reminded her of what had happened. He gave her the short version.
    Car wreck, hospital, consent form-- remember ? Mom's eyes spilled over with tears. I winced at the dust on the furniture, at my mother lying half propped up in her bed, at the sheets that need washing and the various bottles of over-the-counter medicines and vitamins on her nightstand. Of the things that I didn't want Amber to turn out to be, one of them was a witness to our family's pitiful situation. Too late for that, though.
    "Don't worry," Amber said quietly. She stood closer than I wanted, so I edged away, the damn purple clogs heavy on my feet against the carpet that needed vacuuming. "She's going to get better, Jenna. I ... I just have a feeling."
    I socked her in the arm. Hard.
    "Jesus!" Casey yelped. "Jenna. What the hell?" His face flushed red. He looked from me to Amber to my mother and then back to Amber.
    "Your sister's upset," Amber said. "Let her be."
    Now she was defending me? I almost laughed. Mom sat up straighter. Her eyes brightened. I lowered myself to sit on the side of the bed. She took my hands in hers. Her skin was rough, like sandpaper.
    "Your father's alive," Mom said. "He really is."
    I felt my eyes widen. "You know this?" My mouth went dry.
    She nodded. "I do. I told you yesterday, Jenna. I've been searching online."
    Mom drifted, her gaze wandering from my face to the bed to the ceiling. "I ...
    it's just so hard to remember." Tears drizzled down her cheeks. "I think he left me some messages. I think it has to do with Mexico? He's 75
    afraid of something. That's why he hasn't come back. I just don't ..." She faded again. Her mouth moved, but she didn't form any actual words.
    "Mexico?" I shook my head. "Are you saying that Daddy's in Mexico?"
    More tears. "I don't know," she wept. "I keep trying to remember, and sometimes I start to, and then it goes. I just can't ..." She bent at the waist, buried her face in her lap.
    "Do you want to go to the doctor, Mom?" For a moment I almost forgot about Amber. Gently, I propped her back up. I knew she would say no. She had been saying no for over a year now. At least she didn't seem poisoned.
    Basically comatose, yes. In need of a hand to the bed sometimes. Forgetful about flushing. But when I flushed her toilet, her pee looked like regular pee.
    Her feet weren't rashy, and if she was always thirsty, she was hiding it pretty well. I had to beg her to drink. Just getting her to swallow that daily vitamin was a struggle, but she needed something to keep her going. Dr. Renfroe had suggested many times she suffered from depression. She refused to believe it.
    Casey turned to Amber. "What if this isn't just depression?" he asked her.
    "What if it's something else?"
    The hair on my arms stood up. He had said what I was trying not to think. But that's why we'd rushed home in the first place. Because I was being poisoned (keep working, antivenin) and we were worried that maybe the same thing was happening to Mom. But inside my head, a voice whispered,
    "Hey Jenna Samuels, remember Maggie's philosophy of life. There are no coincidences."
    Mom slumped back on her pillows and closed her eyes. I scooted closer to her, and when Amber stepped toward the bed, closer